I enjoyed this commentary on being half-Japanese by Ai Uchida.
She touches upon the fact that half-Japanese people have a lot in common with kikoushijou (Japanese children who lived overseas as children) as well as Japanese who have lived overseas for many years (not necessarily as children.)
I also like the fact that she differentiates bi-lingual with bi-cultural. That is an important differentiation that is often mixed together.
All of us grew up understanding by instinct — or, when we were children, by simply accepting — the rules of two or more cultures that often clashed. We're the ones who empathize with the tension that Japanese feel when a foreigner does something unexpected or socially unacceptable. We are also the ones who can justify why the foreigner behaved that way.
And here I return to the reason why a bilingual person cannot be confused with a multicultural person: It is very difficult to study a foreign culture with the aim of assimilating into it. Culture is an intricately and illogically arranged web of delicate ideas and traditions. There are simply things you don't "get" unless you were there when the web was woven around you.
How the other 'hafu' lives [japantoday.com]
So does this mean a multi-cultural person really doesn't get any culture whatsoever except for the culture that is their particular blend? Does have half Japanese culture, half American culture person really understand Japanese culture OR American culture or do they only half understand each one?
And, what is a multi-cultural person. A person raised by parents of different cultures? A person grew up in both cultures (like 10 years in one country and 10 in another?) Do those 10 years need to be before the age of 20 or will after 20 work?
Is a Japanese American raised by nikei Japanese parents in America a multi-cultural person? Certainly his parents are most likely different in certain respects from other parents but then all parents are different with different families and different traditions regardless of their race.
Uchida's article was somewhat defensive. I would not be so fast to dismiss her experience as being completely different from that of Nisei.
It is my belief that bicultural people tend to be more aware of the irrational or even frankly negative aspects of one culture when both conflict, and thus be freed from those blinkers, but on the other hand they are doubly blind when both cultures agree in some negative way.
She talks about a kind of "a-ha" moment that comes for "half" people, where they come to terms with thier halfness. I disagree that this is a uniquely "half" thing. She mentions that Japanese who've spent time abroad have similar outlooks, but I'd like to expand that to say that almost everyone from any culture who spends time outside of thier own get that kind of "a-ha" moment. This is the heart of multi-culturalism I think. You grow up in a culture and only understand life through those cultural blinders, but when you spend time in another culture, and try to understand whats happening there, not just blow it off as "oh thats different/stupid" then you gain a certain insight into culture. You start to understand differences for what they are, not on a qualitative basis.
The quote you used:
>>We're the ones who empathize with the tension that Japanese feel when a foreigner does something unexpected or socially unacceptable. We are also the ones who can justify why the foreigner behaved that way.
Accept that bilingualism and multiculturalism are not exactly the same. But let's also be clear that to be truly bilingual you need to know a lot about the other culture too.
Also liked how Uchida points out earlier in the article similarities between people with one Japanese parent, kikokushijou, and non-Japanese who have spent a long time in Japan. This is positive stuff, because there are many similarities (often to do with not really fitting in).
But what happened at the end??
"Maybe you have half-Japanese kids, maybe your girlfriend or boyfriend is half, or maybe you have been working here for 20-plus years and you know everything about Japan. But you're mistaken if you think you and I are in the same boat. Unless the web was woven around you, the best you can do is speculate about how people like me relate to the rest of Japan and the world."
If that's multicultural awareness, I don't want it.
In fact, it sounds more like orientalism/nihonjinron to me. Not to mention erecting unnecessary barriers based on race and culture. If anyone's going to understand enough not to erect unnecessary barriers, surely it should be the multiculturals (whatever that means).
I found Uchida's article to be divisive rather than reconciling. She carves for herself a special place from which to look down upon those who are not 'haafu' by emphasizing cultural difference.
In this world of ethnic conflicts and religious intorelance, we need to look for commonalities between differences that are assumed to be true.
I can understand her anguish. There is much social pressure, especially in Japan, to "choose" one's cultural identity. Uchida, with her background, is indeed in a priviledged position to cut through this nonsensical talk about cultural difference.
"But you're mistaken if you think you and I are in the same boat," she writes, and I think that is the real problem. She is re-hashing the same ideas about language and culture that she rants against.
By this statement, she is drawing a line between herself and those who are not like her. But this is antithetical to the real message of her article. She expresses a politics of exclusion, separating people more than bringing them together.
Gen: I thought that you were Chinese or Manchu something...what's with this half-Japanese bit?
cdg
p.s. For the humorless thought police, I've known Gen for nearly 15 years, and for most of that time I've called him either Ainu (he's large-ish) or Chinese (due to Japanese cultural/ethnic pride), knowing that he's about as full-blooded Tokyo as you can get.
... I always thought Gen was canadian.
Humourless thought police and humourous lovers of freedom...
As half breeds (before we were "biracial") we have our own culture - which is apart from each half. Historically we are always too much of one thing or not enough of the other. White people think your a jap (when they don't mistake us for indians or mexicans) and japanese, being as racist and nationalistic as any people on the planet, think we're less than pure nihon's. I've lived in both countries, (USA&Japan)and I don't feel culturally bonded with either people becasue they don't know my experience - only other hapa's know that unique middle ground. I lived in Japan in 1963 and had japanese kids chase me yelling "Yankee Go Home!" With me yelling back Fuck You Japs!" because I thought I was white - then moving to the states and have the same thing happen in reverse! Japs Go Home! Then coming home and to watch Bugs Bunny in circa 1940 cartoons say "We'll moiderize those Japs!" and then morph into a buck toothed jap. All I could think was "Et tu Bugs."
Hanging out with white friends, you're the "exotic" one on a good day, and "a jap,chink, etc" on a bad day. Actually, since we are racially ambiguous, we're a little harder to hate - bigots don't know what we are, they just know we ain't all white. And when I was growing up in America "white was right" and everybody else was a second class citizen. That means you Grasshopper.
I have a natural affinity for anybody like me - half white and half japanese. I don't feel that toward people who are all white or japanese.
And being so biased I think we (hapas) are some of the physically most beautiful people there are. I wish I knew more. There should be a hapa convention like the one that midgets have in Vegas every year so we could all meet our own kind so we can breed and spawn full blooded half breeds.
I am very intrigued by Ai's article and feel it mostly represents my personal experience as a 'hafu' child in Japan. My Anglo father retired from the military when I was two years old but decided to stay in Japan in hopes that my brother and I will become bilingual. We lived in the Japanese community and attended Japanese schools. Japanese is my first language and I didn't learn English until we moved to the US in 1971, when I was 9 years old. Reading jack's comments makes me feel like I found a long-lost second brother. One perspective I have that jack may not have experienced is this. Even though I am half-Japanese, I look very Anglo so my experience in the US has been different. I learned about 8 years ago that it's called 'The White Advantage.' As long as I presented behaviors and dress in stereotypically Anglo ways, I had no problems. When I had my 'a-ha' moment in my early 20's, I began to openly embrace my Japanese half and experienced the odd changes in people around me. At this point in my life, I see myself as an advocate for the multi-racial experience and love to listen and learn from all the different perspectives on this volatile subject ... especially the 'hafu' stuff from young people.