Ever since Koziumi started beating on foreigners in the Media in 2003, Japan’s attitude towards Gaijin has been on the slide. Right now AS you’re in that stary eyed phase, but if one day you find yourself in a Japanese prison having a firehose used up your anus (yes, Japanese prison guards really did that and the prisoner died) you might think back to your post here. You fall neatly under Benjamin Franklin’s comment about men who surrender their freedom so willingly.

I function along the lines of: “Never state the obvious, never generalize, never think that others are uptight because of this and that”. Diversity, yes. As for acceptance, I still have to apply that concept; I’m much open to everybody but but I tend to back off when I get maintained pressure before I even try or that my efforts have proven to be in vain.

By the way, if people have a first negative impression/concept of your culture of origin (not to mention xenophobic), just try to reason with them by showing the same train of thoughts as stated above. If it fails, try to ignore them.

And for those supplemental administrative procedures, if your will is strong enough, it should only one little more simple trial to overcome before you finally can enjoy the new world that opens up to you.

And Martin sums up my stance on the whole finger-printing thing. I really wouldn’t feel imposed upon if I found myself having to do it. When you live in the country where identity cards are constantly on the agenda, your perspective of civil liberties broadens quite a bit. Plus, America poos on everyone else when it comes to airport security. Well, maybe not Saudi Arabia, but still.

In terms of the racism thing, I’d expect some sort of different treatment since, after all, tourists are visiting their home country and are in many cases unaware of etiquette and so on. Besides, I thought it would be less of an issue for people who are only staying for a short while. Immigration is a major thing in the UK right now (I still notice xenophobia here, even amongst younger people), but nobody makes a fuss over tourists, so I’m guessing Japan is no different. Racism and mistrust of foreigners is part of ALL cultures it seems. I’ve never considered Japanese people to have a lower tolerance level to tourists than any other country.

As for the fingerprint thing…again, I’d say the UK or US are worse what with all the ‘war on terror’ stuff. Being fingerprinted at the airport is no big deal when Brits and Americans can’t even take a bottle of Evian onto the plane!