There’s some interesting psychology going on when it comes to ex-pats living in Japan, like the Three Stages of Eye Aversion we go through when encountering other gaijin on the train when we first arrive in the country. Then there’s the built-in resentment of other foreigners who have been here longer than us and/or who speak Japanese better than we do, which I learned about when I came here after studying the language at SDSU for four years. This confused the Americans, Canadians and Brits I encountered here, and they weren’t sure how to categorize me. (I know now that I was violating the wa of the senpai/kohai relationship by brashly speaking better Japanese than people who had been in Japan longer than me.) Foreigners living in Japan can be especially jealous of the “gaijin talents” who get to be on TV just because they can be funny and/or insightful while speaking the language, though this is slowly changing. While you can still get your daily dose of Dave Spector’s Hollywood gossip on the morning “wide show” — we all hate him because he dyes his black hair blonde to appear more “foreign” to the Japanese — the rise in Korean stars in has pushed out a lot of Western foreign talents out of the limelight. Which is okay with me — I love the cute accents of those KPOP singers when they speak Japanese.
Dave Spector is the American gaijin love to hate.
