While a few friends and I were taking photos in the park behind my university, we heard a quick greeting from a few little girls walking past. The park is typically rather quiet due to its location in a western suburb of Tokyo—far out from the hustle and bustle people might imagine when they think of the Japanese capital. However, on this Sunday it was spotted with groups of small children and adults walking around the park with maps in hand. Perhaps Sunday morning is the designated “family day” at the park, or it was possibly a school group having a fun scavenger hunt in the expansive park. What got me thinking, however, was the specific greeting from the little girls. They said, “Hello!” rather than “Konnichiwa!,” and, despite how adorable their smiles were, I could not help but think, “That’s right, I am a gaijin (outsider) here in Japan.” Certainly, while this was no more than an innocent moment in which a few children were excited to see people with whom they could use the word “hello,” it reminded me of other experiences I have had so far in this largely homogenous country.
“Your Japanese is so good!”
“Even I can’t read that!”
“Oh, you can write that kanji?”
Most of the time, these comments come in the context of compliments. Gradually, however, I have come to realize that the reason I receive these compliments is not necessarily because my intermediate Japanese is impressive, but rather from the low expectations the Japanese have for gaijin. While this may depend on the person or situation, I find the general feeling towards foreigners to be somewhere along the lines of, “It’s okay; we can use English.” When I go to a restaurant and am offered a special English menu, I always politely decline. As someone who hopes to improve his Japanese language skills while studying in the only country where the language is predominantly spoken, I see even something like ordering food in English as a lost learning opportunity. Of course, helping fellow students practice their English skills brings me joy, yet when friends speak to me in English and assume that I would rather speak in English, I feel disappointed.
This highlights a larger problem in Japan concerning assumptions about foreigners. While people are right to assume that I speak English, if I tell them I am a ryugakusei (exchange student) from “America,” what often goes unmentioned is that I did not actually learn English as my first language. Growing up in Mexico with a Mexican mother and an American father gave me the opportunity of learning both Spanish and English as native languages, yet I can still recall times in my youth when I would visit family in the United States and be unable to even communicate in English. Although I cannot say that my English is currently worse than my Spanish, this part of my history has made me aware of the assumptions people make here in Japan about foreigners.
It is paradoxical that Japanese language is vital to survive in Japanese society, but that the Japanese have accepted the idea of English as a lingua franca, a bridge between Japan and every single other country in the world. The Japanese automatically assume that foreigners must be native English speakers. I have heard many stories from friends who come from non-Anglo countries and speak Japanese better than English, having to ask their Japanese friends and acquaintances “Oh, sorry, can we speak in Japanese instead of English?” I cannot help but criticize how common this type of assumption-making is in Japan.
This issue is far more complex than a simple blog post can detail, yet I will conclude by ambitiously suggesting one of my personal life mottoes to Japanese society as a whole: give people the benefit of the doubt. Ironically, I am happier asking friends to repeat themselves or spending the time looking up a word I do not know, than being faced with the assumption that, because I look like a foreigner, I cannot speak Japanese or would rather speak in English. A cute “hello” from a Japanese child is certainly not the worst thing that can happen when studying in a foreign country, but it is illustrative of the low expectations placed on gaijin overall.
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