There are many good things about living in Japan. It’s a safe country, and you’ll never experience fear here, except perhaps fear of making a mistake while ordering mango juice from a pretty waitress. Public transportation is excellent, too, and being able to take a train home after a night of drinking with friends is very convenient. Still, because Japan is such a homogeneous place, with 97% of people believing they come from the same genetic stock for reasons of social convenience, the needs of the many often eclipse the needs of the few. The vegetarian lifestyle is one example of a minority way of thinking that just isn’t well understood in Japan — one food blog I happened across had a recipe for a vegetarian wrap and advised readers to add some bacon or shrimp to make it even better. People are much more understanding of left-handedness today, but this may not have been the case in previous eras, as parents felt pressure to make sure their children wrote with the same hand as everyone else. (Fun aside: Minmei’s song “My Boyfriend is a Pilot” from Macross is a parody of a song called “My Boyfriend is Left-Handed.”) It’s not that the Japanese are insensitive jerks that don’t care about other groups. To my mind, the problem lies with the word joshiki, literally meaning “common sense,” the knowledge, beliefs and values that are shared in a society. In general people possessing similar knowledge and values is a good thing, but it can be carried too far, like the way most Japanese consider “normal” milk to be the 4.3% milkfat kind, and wonder why anyone would drink anything else.Other groups that will face difficulty are diabetics (do you know how many foods in Japan are bad for you guys?) and people who can’t drink caffeine (hard to find decaf tea or coffee). Oh, and gaijin ^_^
The Japanese often don’t “get” minority points of view.
