American & biker wannabe wins Miss Universe Japan 2015

[Wage Slave]

I decided for myself that citizenship is kin to being on a plantation.

Yep, good point. An especial danger when citizenship is only offered on a monogamous basis.

[legion]

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a PC ploy by Miss Yunibasu Japan Inc. to get another win for Nippon but I don't think we should be too hard on Ariana. Apparently it can be pretty tough growing up half in Japan and it's probably even tougher when you're not the kind of half that fits their wet dreams of what a half should look like (e.g. the Michibata sisters). I'm sure that could give you a complex.

I think it is pretty tough growing up in Japan hafu or not.

[Coligny]

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a PC ploy by Miss Yunibasu Japan Inc. to get another win for Nippon but I don't think we should be too hard on Ariana. Apparently it can be pretty tough growing up half in Japan and it's probably even tougher when you're not the kind of half that fits their wet dreams of what a half should look like (e.g. the Michibata sisters). I'm sure that could give you a complex.

I think it is pretty tough growing up in Japan hafu or not.

Wait... There's 3 of them !?

image.jpg

I'll be in my bunk...

[J.A.F.O]

Wait... There's 3 of them !?

image.jpg

I'll be in my bunk...

Triplets Basil, Triplets!

[J.A.F.O]

I decided for myself that citizenship is kin to being on a plantation.

Yep, good point. An especial danger when citizenship is only offered on a monogamous basis.

Pretty shitty scenario too, the other alternative is statelessness which I'm gonna guess is like trying to be a free negro in the American pre civil war south.

[Mike Oxlong]

Wait... There's 3 of them !?

image.jpg

I'll be in my bunk...

Triplets Basil, Triplets!

Ah, fond memories of being the only one laughing in the theatre watching the first Austin Powers release. Beers at the movie concessions is quite civilized.

[J.A.F.O]

Ah, fond memories of being the only one laughing in the theatre watching the first Austin Powers release. Beers at the movie concessions is quite civilized.

Well Fuku Mi I wasn't the only one ...

[kurogane]

I don't expect others to adopt what I believe either, just shooting the shit with my fellows at the bar so to speak.

Nice. And in that spirit, "Bartender, another round please........"

I think it is pretty tough growing up in Japan hafu or not.

Is it? I get what you mean, of course, but a part of me always wonders if we haven't just internalised their usually rather endearing tendency to see Taihen in what is more often Just Normal. I had an upbringing so idyllic it makes The Wonder Years and Happy Days look like that Slaughterhouse Five stuff SamJerk and Coligny were posting above in the old pictures of American urban decay, but I still find it hard to completely accept that growing up in a wealthy, healthy and utterly peaceful place like Japan is anything but idyllic. Not for every single person, of course, but this idea that it's tough makes me wonder.




PS SJ,
Great point about Switzerland. Germany too from what I know, not to mention the UK. The main thing I took away from all those rather circle jerky 90s debates on ethnicity was that any discussion or definition of ethnicity and culture is fundamentally a political strategy (in the postmodern analytic sense); you put into it what you seek to get out of it, though not at a conscious or cynical level. And the most objective any working definition will ever get is that it is all a social construct; if people believe it and circulate it as such then it's true. Which pretty much makes Japan monoethnic, though I happily agree that doesn't mean that always needs to be swallowed hook, line and sinker. BTW, lots of Japanese I know work very hard to counter the BSier versions of Japan The Ethnic Monolith, their point usually being Yes, it might be so but it makes us better to accept difference and distinction and make something good from it. It's not really about Justice so much as Jintoku (benevolence) which we often find rather paternalistic, but it works with Them. The fact that Debito and Co. never caught on to that was always my most damning critique of his own damning critiques.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Not really suggesting anything, just stating how I feel on the subject. Also to clarify I'm not saying NEVER force anything only that I just don't much like it. Enforcement of property rights I think is pretty important, be it corporeal or incorporeal. If we get down to brass tacks I'm pretty much against citizenship all together. Reading too much history and legal theory books (my stock in trade actually) Roman and Greco specifically and to a lesser extent Babylonian and persia. I decided for myself that citizenship is kin to being on a plantation. So that being said I don't want anyone to accept being 2nd class anything. Furthermore, until the japanese put me in a concentration camp, I am free to go to a place more hospitable should I decide that I'm being treated as such. My fear with equality is the old adage that "This guy has a ball and chain, are you sure you want to be equal?" So is the danger of regulating non-tangible things. And, in reality weren't they here before me ... Do I come in here trying to force my ethics upon the established social fabric? If I do then I am at risk of being a conquistador, so then why not just march in here with armies and destroy all opposition? Do it right and kill all the educated as Pol Pot attempted, right? I don't agree with how many of the japanese discriminate, I am however ok with their right to do so. I chose to protest by other means.

I don't expect others to adopt what I believe either, just shooting the shit with my fellows at the bar so to speak.

Love or leave it! You're ex military, right?

I'm with you on the citizenship thing which is by I've never understood why the so-called libertarians in the US also have such a hard on for border security and keeping illegals out. I can't think of anything more libertarian than the free movement of people. I also realize that the idea of people having the right to live anywhere in the world they want is one of those things that sounds good on paper. You might be able to pick up and run if things here go south but not everyone has the ability to do that. Besides I wasn't necessarily talking about guys like us or even Japan specifically with my comments. It was more of a general statement.

I'm single, don't have kids, and don't own a home here so I could get on a plane this afternoon and leave for good without too much trouble if I wanted to. And if something better comes along I'll do just that. But so far I've found the positive discrimination outweighs the negative so I like being here and I have no desire to force Japan to change. That being said, if a country does allow people from the outside to move in they shouldn't be surprised if after awhile some of those people don't want to bend over and take it anymore. Pushing a society you live in for equal treatment isn't the same as coming in as a conquistador trying to force your worldview a bunch of savages. The fact that you chose to live somewhere doesn't mean you have less of a claim to how that society evolves. Both sides have to adapt to accommodate each other.

[J.A.F.O]

Love or leave it! You're ex military, right?

Guilty as charged

I'm with you on the citizenship thing which is by I've never understood why the so-called libertarians in the US also have such a hard on for border security and keeping illegals out. I can't think of anything more libertarian than the free movement of people.

Yea I don't much get along with even people who are like minded. On an interesting side note the mormons used a pretty neat method of keeping out the riffraff, that was until the many federal social programs made financial blockading impossible. They simply would blackball anyone who wasn't mormon and you just couldn't do business in their communities.

I also realize that the idea of people having the right to live anywhere in the world they want is one of those things that sounds good on paper. You might be able to pick up and run if things here go south but not everyone has the ability to do that. Besides I wasn't necessarily talking about guys like us or even Japan specifically with my comments. It was more of a general statement.

True enough, I just don't think I would be ok with having everyone with the right to live anywhere. That tends to interfere with people's right to freedom of association.

I'm single, don't have kids, and don't own a home here so I could get on a plane this afternoon and leave for good without too much trouble if I wanted to. And if something better comes along I'll do just that. But so far I've found the positive discrimination outweighs the negative so I like being here and I have no desire to force Japan to change.

hate to say but the more japanese I act the less I'm looked at as one of those obnoxious foreigners.

That being said, if a country does allow people from the outside to move in they shouldn't be surprised if after awhile some of those people don't want to bend over and take it anymore.

I'm not so sure japan would have ever allowed foreigners into their country if they hadn't of been forced to do so. But, I hear ya and totally get it, yet this is the kinda thing that leads to ethnic cleansing. Bosnia Herzegovina wasn't so far back in the history books to not happen again in the near future.

Pushing a society you live in for equal treatment isn't the same as coming in as a conquistador trying to force your worldview a bunch of savages. The fact that you chose to live somewhere doesn't mean you have less of a claim to how that society evolves. Both sides have to adapt to accommodate each other.

I feel this is where we part in belief. On the grand scheme of things humanity is pretty cruel, and I don't see different groups accommodating each other. It tends to work on the short term but generally ends in conflict or at best the society itself fractures into factions. I'm hearing a lot about this going on in S.Africa right now.

[matsuki]

Do I come in here trying to force my ethics upon the established social fabric?

If that were the case, I'd be much much more silent on the subject but "in general" Japan makes a ton of claims as a country and the ethics of first world countries are part of that. (the usual root of my gripes with the locals...always with the "we Japanese" grand superiority claims about shit they have no legit perspective on) Of course Japan is not the only country to fail at them but that's no excuse for not zinging them on it when appropriate. (and when the local mindset is totally oblivious) Anyhow, this bullshit "contest" is supposedly international so ethics and such wouldn't be simply Japanese anyways.

[J.A.F.O]

I hate it too and wasn't saying that it isn't bullshyt. I have caused my share of ruckus with the populous around here. Most okinawans hate the bases and I've lost friends for suggesting that it's either America here or China because the JSDF doesn't have the resources to defend this little rock or that the mainlanders even care about "you lesser race okinawans" enough to do so... Or when I'v suggested to them that Okinawa would have been better off as a U.S. territory. It would have been the closest thing to being an independent nation again that they could have ever gotten. It's that same prideful spirit that makes me want to break out my old colonialism roots and just beat nations into submission. And I don't even agree with colonialism really.

[matsuki]

Truth hurts...life's hard

[Samurai_Jerk]

Pushing a society you live in for equal treatment isn't the same as coming in as a conquistador trying to force your worldview a bunch of savages. The fact that you chose to live somewhere doesn't mean you have less of a claim to how that society evolves. Both sides have to adapt to accommodate each other.

I feel this is where we part in belief. On the grand scheme of things humanity is pretty cruel, and I don't see different groups accommodating each other. It tends to work on the short term but generally ends in conflict or at best the society itself fractures into factions. I'm hearing a lot about this going on in S.Africa right now.

I should have been clearer. Both sides need to adapt if they expect things to work. That doesn't mean they generally do.

[wangta]

I've seen it taken even further in academia. I did a paper on Japanese-Brazilian return immigration in a Japanese Political Science class. I can't remember which book it was I came across in my research but there was a passage about the myth of Japanese homogeneity. And the authors weren't even talking about Ainus, Ryukyuans, Zainichi Koreans, etc. They were claiming that Japan was a country made up of different ethnic groups that were all convinced they were part of a single Yamato race through Meiji Era propaganda. In other words, the people of places like Satsuma, Edo, and Kyoto were all different ethnicities.

I remember those ones. There were 2 or 3 such studies in rather quick succession. I do believe Stanford's Befu had a hand in there somewhere. Technically they're right, but not for the reasons they thought: as you know, the whole concept of Ethnicity is so nebulous it can mean race, group, culture, genetic heritage, or pretty much WTF the author wants it to depending on their working definition. In a Social or Cultural Anthropological sense the regional differences and variations (esp. linguistic) were so significant back then they probably would have qualified under a lot of definitions of ethnicity (but not Race), and the monoethnic discourse always was specifically a unifying discourse devised as and intended as an element of defence against Western Imperial encroachment. BUT, once the window for a definition of Japan as a broad national umbrella covering multiple regional ethnicities was closed it became pointless for everyone except grad students to question it. I still do refer to Japan as a Toitsu-ka (統一化)　sareta minzoku but at the very best I still get wearily raised eyebrows, even though those that get it know I'm right.

I don't see anything basically wrong with the study that Samurai Jerk quoted apart from the aspect of trying too hard to present Japan as multi-ethnic and putting a contemporary political spin on historical facts within a completely different context.

Yes, there was no 'Yamato race'. The legendary Jimu Tenno has been deemed by some modern scholars to have been of South-East Asian origin, probably what is known today as Malay. When I lived in Japan I was always interested by certain prominent facial types in the general southern regions (not Okinawa) that are clearly related closely to usual Malay features in a number of South-East Asia countries.

There are also prominent Korean features among many Japanese in the general southern regions and these do not belong to people whose ancestors came to Japan under Korea's colonisation. These Japanese have lived in Japan for centuries.
Prominent clans in south-west and southern Japan were known to have come from Korea. So those Japanese were from Central Asian tribes originally. You also find people in Japan who tan deeply and look broadly Polynesian/Pacific islander people and again they are Japanese who have lived in the country for centuries.

I think it's fair to link the very diverse in some cases local dialects with different ethnicities. In Kagoshima the locals explain away the unusual local dialect by saying one of the lords centuries ago instructed people in that region to speak like that so spies from other provinces could not understand them. It's more likely that Kagoshima/Satsuma, especially with its geographical location, a long time ago had an influx of people who were probably from what became later known as Korea. They may have come from one of the old kingdoms there such as that ruled by the Chinese.

Regardless, centralisation of power within countries' histories tends to come much later than power concentrated within different ethnic groups at the regional level just as nation states in the modern sense came into their own as a concept and reality only in the 19th century.

[Coligny]

IOr when I'v suggested to them that Okinawa would have been better off as a U.S. territory. It would have been the closest thing to being an independent nation again that they could have ever gotten. .

Or do like Hokkaido, call the French and become an independent republic... For 6 month...

[matsuki]

IOr when I'v suggested to them that Okinawa would have been better off as a U.S. territory. It would have been the closest thing to being an independent nation again that they could have ever gotten. .

Or do like Hokkaido, call the French and become an independent republic... For 6 month...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ezo

That's pretty rad...

[kurogane]

　　
I don't see anything basically wrong with the study that Samurai Jerk quoted apart from the aspect of trying too hard to present Japan as multi-ethnic and putting a contemporary political spin on historical facts within a completely different context.

Ｍｙ　ｏｎｌｙ　ｏｂｊｅｃｔｉｏｎ　ｉｓ　exactly that. They manage to be anachronistic, atavistic and presumptuous all at once, though I happily admit that is most fitting for such a hilariously middling class discipline as Ethnic Studies. As sincere scholarly efforts intended to elucidate I applaud their efforts even if I might groan at their findings. We used to call Ethnic Studies majors Charity Workers in Waiting. It's a made up discipline for Cat Ladies.

　　
Yes, there was no 'Yamato race'.

Well, except that now we are back into Potehto / Potahto territory. As Wilde and other Victorians used it The Yamato were a race, and have had a longer history of unified or unitary ethnic identification than most European groups. And if they think it so it means it is at one level of analysis (Thomas' Razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_theorem). Of course, with the benefit of modern research into genotype and such, then no. I would, however, caution against concluding that because we would no longer use the word Race to describe them as a distinct group that they are also not a readily identified singular national ethnicity, as Choko and others seem to want to imply when they plays the You're All Koreans!!! card. The Yamato are a single ethnicity with considerable genotypical and phenotypical variation both within and between, which should be an obvious disclaimer but often is overlooked. The real problem lies in snotty white folk deciding that they should be the ones to tell brownie what he is or isn't, and that is unacceptable. Very few white people are trained well enough and reflexive enough to be able to pronounce on these topics without bringing all their own baggage to the table. But far too many love to think they qualify on both those criteria because they took an anthropology course 13 years ago. Which is where A'holes like me come in.

And to be clear, the Potehto/Potahto seesaw between race and ethnicity drives me nuts and is mostly analytic masturbation, though I do like to use race because it's like catnip to the pretentious pedants. Give a working definition and get on with the interesting bits is what I would say.

Anyways, great post. The race continues..........................

[wagyl]

pretentious pedants

Moi?

Loved that post. It explains it all nicely. My tendency is to sum it all up in three words: "race is wank," but I think that you have a more nuanced view.

[kurogane]

Well, I've never found you pretentious................

I only use the term Race when fishing for finger waggers. It's a crap term with a shit history and adds little to any discussion or analysis, even with all the more recent advances in genetic analysis. Having said that, when Japanese use Race to mean Minzoku I don't bother unless they seem like they might want to learn that Ethnicity or Ethnic Group is a more common modern term. Arguing over crap fossilised English terms is pointless unless they're asking, and most Japanese I know know that Minzoku doesn't necessarily mean they all swam out of Amaterasu's gene pool. They mean Ethnicity or Nation, both of which are valid, coz they are.

[Yokohammer]

This is all very fine, but what if I want to disdain an entire ethnic group? Does this mean that I'm no longer a racist, but an ethnicist? Doesn't have the same punch, somehow.

[kurogane]

That almost makes it sound like a pleasant hobby, doesn't it? But no need to worry, Yoko. There's always been a perfectly good word for it.

Ya Bigot

[Wage Slave]

That almost makes it sound like a pleasant hobby, doesn't it? But no need to worry, Yoko. There's always been a perfectly good word for it.

Ya Bigot

Except that - All racists are bigots but not all bigots are racists. Not to worry though. In a way, the more discredited the notion of race becomes the better and more descriptive a word racist becomes.

[Wage Slave]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11474917/Ten-things-you-actually-cant-say-about-racism.html

1) Most of the people who demand an open and honest debate about racism are racist.
2) Most of the people we demand an open and honest debate about racism are hypocrites. As soon as you point to their racism they run around screaming “You called me a racist! How dare you! You can’t say that!”
3) Most of the people who demand an open and honest debate about racism only ever see one side of the debate. That’s because they’re invariably white, and have no personal experience of what racism actually is.
4) Most of the politicians who demand an open and honest debate are lying. They just want racists to vote for them, or worry they won’t get elected if racists don’t vote for them.
5) When people want to excuse racism, they channel it through the prism of class. Say “I have a real problem with immigration” and you will be challenged. Say “Many working class communities are experiencing real problems with immigration” and you are given a pass.
6) Racism is still acceptable on all sides of the political spectrum. On the Left it’s acceptable to hate Jews. On the Right it’s blacks and Muslims. Racism towards Eastern Europeans is acceptable on both the Left and the Right.
7) It is impossible to “control immigration” to the UK.
8 The lack of black, Asian and minority ethnic representation in British public life is a far greater scandal than the under-representation of women.
9) Saying “racism is better now than it was 30 years ago” is the equivalent of saying “cancer is better now than it was 30 years ago”. Yes, we’re better at understanding and tackling it. But cancer is still cancer.
10) Ukip represent the biggest threat to British race relations since Oswald Mosley’s black-shirts.

[matsuki]

And to be clear, the Potehto/Potahto seesaw between race and ethnicity drives me nuts and is mostly analytic masturbation

Isn't it all? She's Japanese but not fit to represent Japan because she' half....not too long ago Japanese in America were "white" but not white AND caucasian so they were denied citizenship. People suck.

[J.A.F.O]

I should have been clearer. Both sides need to adapt if they expect things to work. That doesn't mean they generally do.

Yes sir, but if things actually worked then we would have no need of politicians to *fix* things.

[wangta]

　　
I don't see anything basically wrong with the study that Samurai Jerk quoted apart from the aspect of trying too hard to present Japan as multi-ethnic and putting a contemporary political spin on historical facts within a completely different context.

Ｍｙ　ｏｎｌｙ　ｏｂｊｅｃｔｉｏｎ　ｉｓ　exactly that. They manage to be anachronistic, atavistic and presumptuous all at once, though I happily admit that is most fitting for such a hilariously middling class discipline as Ethnic Studies. As sincere scholarly efforts intended to elucidate I applaud their efforts even if I might groan at their findings. We used to call Ethnic Studies majors Charity Workers in Waiting. It's a made up discipline for Cat Ladies.

　　
Yes, there was no 'Yamato race'.

Well, except that now we are back into Potehto / Potahto territory. As Wilde and other Victorians used it The Yamato were a race, and have had a longer history of unified or unitary ethnic identification than most European groups. And if they think it so it means it is at one level of analysis (Thomas' Razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_theorem). Of course, with the benefit of modern research into genotype and such, then no. I would, however, caution against concluding that because we would no longer use the word Race to describe them as a distinct group that they are also not a readily identified singular national ethnicity, as Choko and others seem to want to imply when they plays the You're All Koreans!!! card. The Yamato are a single ethnicity with considerable genotypical and phenotypical variation both within and between, which should be an obvious disclaimer but often is overlooked. The real problem lies in snotty white folk deciding that they should be the ones to tell brownie what he is or isn't, and that is unacceptable. Very few white people are trained well enough and reflexive enough to be able to pronounce on these topics without bringing all their own baggage to the table. But far too many love to think they qualify on both those criteria because they took an anthropology course 13 years ago. Which is where A'holes like me come in.

And to be clear, the Potehto/Potahto seesaw between race and ethnicity drives me nuts and is mostly analytic masturbation, though I do like to use race because it's like catnip to the pretentious pedants. Give a working definition and get on with the interesting bits is what I would say.

Anyways, great post. The race continues..........................

Kuro, I really enjoy reading your stuff. I get what you're saying in the bolded part but isn't the real issue of the Yamato claims more or less that of how the people who drove the Ainu deep into Hokkaido were invoked to centralise power in Japan. It's similar to how Shinto 'became' Emperor worship but that was a much later development than the Japanese would admit. You obviously have knowledge of the subject but whether waves of successive invaders/arriving peoples in Japan who drove the Ainu out of most of it can credibly be said to be the 'Yamato race' is open to much debate.

I understand that there is evidence from primary sources centuries ago that the Japanese did differentiate themselves from other peoples, they developed their writing system and language, coined various terms for themselves and their country, and their relationships with neighbours such as Korea and China over the centuries reflected this. They also developed their own distinctive cultural practices, including those of the Samurai, and much more. But along with this were the counter-claims to power of regional families and regional societies that spoke their own distinctive dialects.For example, I don't think those clans of Korean origin and the people they brought with them would necessarily have identified themselves as Yamato other than for image.

I think there hasn't been enough research into regional identity in Japan and how it operated for many centuries. I also think that historical studies don't and can't delve enough into what really went on among those ruled over. Obviously there are issues such as widespread illiteracy among the non privileged which means documentation was in the hands of the elite groups . One fact I've always found significant is that the usual people did not have surnames proper until after the Meiji period began in the 19th century. Possibly centuries back there were surnames of the common people that were identifiably non Japanese in the sense perpetuated by the ruling classes.

As for white people telling 'brownie' what he or she is or isn't, some education on their own European history is needed. For example, many white Europeans have no idea of who the Burgundians were and how they and other peoples broadly grouped under the term 'Germanic tribes' had powerful kingdoms throughout Europe until some time in the 16th century and in fact are the ancestors of many people called 'Latin' in Italy, France and Spain.

[kurogane]

For example, I don't think those clans of Korean origin and the people they brought with them would necessarily have identified themselves as Yamato other than for image..

As usual, Ｉ　also don't disagree (whadda hugfest, eh!?? ) but I would stilla argue we remain trapped in Jaga-imo Land. To wit: WHY they identified is fundamentally unascertainable, and so analyticall irrelevant (though interesting, of course), but more importantly, if that actually be why they did choose to self-identify as Yamato it merely highlights the shifting and nebulous political character of the moire that is any social construct like Ethnicity, and that apprently trivial criteria lead to very real and tangible results. And now we have an identifiable self-identification stretching back to when Norman William first landed and started being mean to those poor Anglo-Saxons, which is pretty fuckin' venerable in MYHOMO.

Nice point about the European thingy (and again, my only point about that sort of thing): when the Romans met the French they were Germanics. And I am pretty sure the historic ethnic lineage between Da Franks and the modern French is fairly straight. Wasn't Karlsruhe the last Frankish Teuton king? I think he was.

Freaky stuff, good fun.

[matsuki]

I still find it hilarious that there is some sort of concept of "pure" Japanese when I know many such "pure" Japanese who are always being confused for haafu/FG. Few of my Japanese friends in LA kept being confused for hismexicans.

[kurogane]

............. hismexicans.

Sexism degrades all of us, Choko.................

If it helps, they mean Ethnicity, assuming they're saying or thinking Minzoku. That's just a translation lag. Which only raises the question of how Pure that is, given that they write in Chinese, speak Ural-Altaic and eat anything put in front of them as long as it's drowned in soy sauce. Not to mention that any identifiable Ethnicity is equally pure and/or impure (and Unique!) whether or not the members identify as such. I think they just like saying Junsui. It seems to make them feel clean. It's like a spoken version of the shrine visit mouth rinse.

My personal peeve is Unique!, but that's me being a pissy logocentric anthropology geek. I'll leave the head on brick wall banging to those of you that still care.