One interesting aspect of living in Japan is finding yourself interacting with other foreign residents here, who may come from wildly different backgrounds and countries from us. Though I normally have very little in common with say, a Brazilian factory worker who assembles TVs at the local Sanyo factory or a clerk from Uzbekistan who’s working hard to restock products at a Tokyo conbini late at night, in Japan all Western-looking foreign residents — collectively called gaijin, a word that literally means “outsiders” — often find ourselves grouped together in ways that wouldn’t happen back home. And because we’re all self-conscious about standing out in a country where 97% of the population identifies as homogenous Yamato Japanese, there’s an odd phenomenon that occurs called the Three Stages of Gaijin Eye Aversion.
Basically, it goes something like this:
- We’re riding a train, enjoying the 和 wa, or the glorious social harmony that comes from everyone around us being Japanese.
- A random foreigner from an unidentified country gets on the train, which somehow breaks the harmony we’ve been enjoying up til now. It’s important to note that our own gaijin-ness doesn’t damage the harmony we’ve been experiencing, only the other guy. You decide to ignore the foreigner, averting your eyes.
- After a few minutes, you realize it’s silly to ignore someone for a silly reason like that, so you go over to talk to him.
- You discover that people from his country don’t speak English, embarrassing you. You start speaking Japanese with him, but Westerners speaking Japanese together is rare enough in Japan that suddenly everyone on the train is listening to everything you say, fascinated at this spectable.
- You sit down, determined to ignore the next foreigner you see, and the circle continues.
Note that the Three Stages of Gaijin Eye Aversion only applies to foreign residents of Japan, who are grappling with various issues of where they fit into the fabric of Japan’s society. It doesn’t apply to tourists, who are by definition okyakusan, or short-term guests in the country, and thus are granted a lot leeway about what social rules they can get away with not following. So if you’re planning a trip to Japan, you don’t need to worry about these issues, as they only affect long-term residents.
Have you ever visited Japan? Did you find yourself doing the Three Stages of Gaijin Eye Aversion with foreigners you saw here? Tell us on Twitter!
Great news! This weekend we’re having a flash sale on all awesome games from Japan, including our English-translated games, plus awesome import games for PC as well as Nintendo Switch and SonyPS4. All purchases give you 5x points on all these great games, so order before Sunday ends!
