My wife came into my office the other day holding the latest copy of Newsweek (the Japanese version) that contained some interesting article she’d just read. “Did you know the secret rule of gaijin in Japan? When they see another foreigner on the train, they avert their eyes!” Of course after living here for so long, I was well aware of the strange tendency for foreigners to avoid making eye contact with another foreigners they see on the street, be they from Europe, the U.S. or Brazil, and I’ve even done it myself. It’s a strange phenomenon indeed, which I’ve come to think of as the Three States of Eye Aversion. First, a foreigner who has moved to Japan is enjoying himself and getting used to living in a country in which 98% of the people identify with the same ethnic group, which feels a bit strange for a while. Then along comes some Sri Lankan guy on his way to Tokyo, making you re-think your neat little world view of Japan, so you do your best to ignore him. You realize it’s silly to ignore someone for a silly reason like that, though, so you decide to go talk to him, but you then find out that not everyone from Sri Lanka speaks English, so you embarrass yourself terribly. Finally, you decide to keep your eyes to yourself the next time you see a foreigner on the train, which makes for a simpler Japan Experience anyway. Incidentally, I don’t think the odd eye aversion thing applies to tourists or anyone visiting Japan for a short time, so you never need to worry about running into unfriendly people here; this odd custom only affects foreigners living in Japan on an extended basis.
Then there are the times when you avert your eyes for other reasons…
