ILLUSTRATION BY EMI YOKOYAMA

Half and haafu

By Corey Gaskins

I am Japanese. In fact, I had been Japanese for 21 years before coming to Tokyo to live for the first time in 2006. You might not consider that very Japanese, but I think I’ve passed all the tests.

For instance, when I was 10 and living in Portugal, I endured hordes of people shouting “Hey Chinese boy! What are you doing?” I’ve been stopped from entering bars in various countries because of a “dress code,” while other underdressed Caucasian kids were let in. I’ve had people tell me, “Japanese people are weird. Have you seen that show ‘Takeshi’s Castle?’” They are referring to a TV program that was popular in the ’80s, despite the fact that we have well entered the 2000s.

Because of all this, I expected that when I moved to Tokyo, I would finally be able to blend into Japanese society. How naïve I was! I didn’t realize that I would have job interviewers sniggering at me because I spoke perfect Japanese, or neighborhood women in a store praising the shop clerk for “his bravery to talk to the foreigner.” Or having the dreaded question “Are you haafu?” being asked over and over again, even by strangers.

If I reply “Yes,” I am presented with a stream of other questions and comments — nothing is too personal for them to ask: “Is it your mom or dad that is the foreigner?” “Where did they meet?” “So, do you speak Spanish? No? Why not? But you’re fluent in English.” “Well, you do look Latino. Look at your body hair.”

If I say “No,” I am met with “Whaaat? Really?!? Oh my god! That is like the seventh wonder of the world!”

Some people, namely celebrities, do capitalize on their biracial origins, wearing the “We’re different” sash proudly. But that’s not me. I don’t get paid for how I look or how much I stick out in a crowd. When I moved to Japan, I was simply a recent college graduate struggling to fit in.

Everyone goes through an identity crisis at some point. But most of us haafu are constantly forced to confront the fact that we are “the outsider.” I’ve always accepted being the only Asian among my friends, and being stared at when we went out. Sometimes people would come up and ask me why I am not dating or hanging out with “people of my own race,” but they were quickly shot down by my friends for being racist. Just once in a while, I wished I knew somebody else who could understand how great it is to drink warm green tea after eating the undulated sweetness of azuki-filled mochi.

After the 1,000th time I was asked “Are you haafu?” and after repeating the same set of answers three or four times a day, I’d had enough. Not only that, I started feeling pangs of indignation when the locals seemed eager to point out how much I didn’t belong here — the very country I’d identified as my homeland since birth! I wondered how other haafu coped.

Well, ask Google and you shall receive. I found a local group of half-Japanese people on the web. Having never met anyone else like me, I seized the opportunity and decided to get together with a group of strangers.

Two years down the road, I am still hanging out with the people I met at that first haafu gathering. They were the first true friends I made, the first people I met in Japan besides my relatives who didn’t approach me to satisfy their curiosity and view me as “an interesting being.” I found people who I could go with to my first Japanese matsuri. People who I could rant to and who would understand my frustrations. Whether I was hanging out with half-Chinese, -Peruvians, -Greeks or -Palestinians, my race never became an issue — none of my new friends made a fuss when I was able to belt out a popular B’z song at karaoke. By befriending other haafu, I was able to be who I truly was, and not what my race was.

As I’m about to leave Japan, I would like to say thank you to all my friends who have kept me straight from the beginning. Friends who made me feel confident that, even if I ended up in a jungle, it would be OK if I was the only one enjoying green tea and wagashi.

This commentary originally appeared in Metropolis magazine (www.metropolis.co.jp).

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Latest 15 of 217 Total Comments Show All

notimpressed at 08:34 PM JST - 5th March

why are so many people apologizing for Japans outdated mentality towards ethnicity? Why deny there is a problem, when obviously there is, why else are half kids saying so? Why nitpick each others posts instead of getting the big picture, that we would all like all humans to be treated equally. I doubt law can change that to the extent that education can. Attitudes need to change and you cannot enforce that with an iron fist, but with wise words and actions you sure can. Maybe its not as bad as some make it out to be, maybe its worse than others refuse to believe, but there is an issue, undeniably. The fact that people dwell on ones ancestry rather than the individual themself is sad.

What do you see when you look at someone? A person first? or thier ethnicity? If its the latter, then you also perhaps need to look at your attitude to race etc, as does Japan. Being of mixed race, race has become a non-issue to me in how I deal with people, untill they bring it up.Therein lies the problem. Other people making a deal about your ethnicity, when you would prefer to just be. When you live the life as a mixed race person, you can either try to cling to one or another identity, or settle into your own, as an individual. I guess that is hard In Japanese society, but an individual can do it.

Hanami tried to shoot down one piece of my post above by talking about how Japan has a hierarchy of races? Well, yo missed the point and focused on something I didnt say as well as I should. The point is there is no hierarchy of race except that created within society. In this case Japanese society. It is wrong, and we should not excuse it. That mindset is what fuelled Nazis, fascists, and he Japanese Imperial army, surely no one considers it still acceptable. Shed that racist hangover Japan, even if you have improved, you got a long way to go, and it isnt going to disapear by sweeping this or any other race issue in Japan under the carpet.
jonnyboy at 11:43 AM JST - 6th March

notimpressed - good post. whether or not japan is xenophobic is a matter of opinion but i think it's basically undeniable that this is an intensely ethnocentric society
hannari at 01:37 PM JST - 6th March

jonnyboy: I'm curious as to what "this" in "i think it's basically undeniable that THIS is an intensely ethnocentric society" points to ... the global society, or the Japanese society?

I would agree more strongly to the former interpretation.
jonnyboy at 01:42 PM JST - 6th March

japan. you have to remember that other societies define themselves more by a cultural genus rather than race, the uk & usa being good examples. that's not to say that people aren't ethnocentric to a certain extent and at times downright rascist but the degree is a great deal less. after all, you have to bear in mind that different hair colours is evidence of different racial origins. is this ever an issue? basically not. skin colour? yes, sometimes but considerably less than in japan.
hannari at 01:59 PM JST - 6th March

Ah, I was thinking of 'ethnocentric' = "based on the ideas and beliefs of one particular culture and using these to judge other cultures" as was the definition in the dictionary I was looking at.
jonnyboy at 03:01 PM JST - 6th March

perhaps i'm using the wrong term. what i'm thinking about is having race/ethnicity as a very active part of how one deals with others, whether positively or negatively. as such i think it's fair term to apply to most japanese; the intent may be positive, and it may be negative, but there's no denying the japanese are intensely conscious of race & ethnicity, at least in comparison to other cultures
notimpressed at 04:54 PM JST - 6th March

hannari? Do you care about the issue at all, or just the dictionary definitions and trying to enjoy a debate? Forest for the trees, c'mon.
hannari at 05:32 PM JST - 6th March

Sorry if that's the impression I'm giving... I was just trying to get the point across that a lot of people seem to just not get it.... Corey included. Ethnocentrism (wiki has a good explanation) is a crime that people the world over are guilty of. It is less about race, and ethnicity, and more about culture, although the borders are extremely grey. I find that at the root of Japanese thinking is a hate for ethnocentrism. I wont say they aren't guilty of it themselves either. Its just that if some people can get away from crying "racism!!", or saying "japan is medieval", because that is what it looks like from the western definition, we might get just a bit closer to resolving the actual problem of foreign nationals and mixed race people having a hard time communicating with the Japanese people.
cleo at 05:46 PM JST - 6th March

you have to bear in mind that different hair colours is evidence of different racial origins. is this ever an issue? basically not. skin colour? yes, sometimes but considerably less than in japan.

Different hair colour used to be evidence of different racial origins, but I couldn't tell you how many different colours my hair has been, while my racial origins remain unchanged (and, like most Brits, indeed most Europeans, somewhat murky).

The reason it isn't an issue is in part due to history; by the time the Celts, the Romans, the Picts, the Vikings, the Saxons, the Normans, the Goths, the Huns, the Franks and the rest of them had finished raping, pillaging and marrying up and down the land you had families in which every member could well have different-coloured hair (and eyes) and no one had the inclination or stamina to try and sort it all out, or saw any point in trying to since they were all family anyway.

Skin colour in the West is a slightly different problem. Because a dark skin was an obvious sign of either a slave or a subject from the colonies, prejudice against dark skin should not, in historical terms, come as any kind of surprise. We've managed to overcome a lot of the old prejudice, but hundreds of years later still have a way to go. In that sense it's only recently that Japan has had to deal with large influxes of 'obviously different' people. In time they'll get fed up of asking stupid questions, especially as more and more families find themselves becoming mixed..
aikisako at 07:07 PM JST - 6th March

Amen, Cleo.
knews at 11:59 PM JST - 6th March

People are generally curious and asking questions like, "Are you haafu?" seem natural to many in Japan. Just like in other countries where people might ask a person with an Asian background, "Are you Chinese?" or "Are you Korean?" or "Are you Japanese?" or even, "Where are you from?"

Like it or not, people who grow up in similar circumstances naturally stick together and Corey above is sticking with people who "understand" him. Is it any different that he could relate to his newly-found "haafu" friends than if an Indian relates to another Indian or an Israeli relates to an Israeli or a gay person relates to another gay person or a Muslim relates to another Muslim and so on?

But it is the next step that is important. Crossing all those barriers of upbringing, culture, religion, colour and so on. Those Caucasians who do have parties at home or go out with people from other cultures and vice versa. Learning about one another and our differences and similarities. It's just a bit sad because we don't have enough time in our lifetimes to learn as much as me may hope.
TokyoHustla at 04:12 AM JST - 7th March

I'm supposedly "half" but I don't buy none of that. We are not Japanese, because we are different, in a good way. We are better. I use the katakana term be-ta when I describe myself to people. No, I'm not half Japanese and half English, I'm better. I'm better than you, I'm smarter than you, I'm richer than you. Own up, or watch how we come do.

We are better.
zaboomba at 02:40 PM JST - 7th March

Yes We Can
jonnyboy at 05:38 PM JST - 8th March

The fact that people dwell on ones ancestry rather than the individual themself is sad.

in japanese culture you are never an individual, you always represent part of some form of group.
alexandrina at 11:33 PM JST - 14th March

He should come to Sydney where we have thousands of Asian Australians and Eurasian folk. No-one even looks twice and people would never even think to ask such rude confronting questions. Our daughter has dozens of Eurasian and Asian friends too, and has done since she was in kindergarten. I feel so sorry for this poor guy, would love to tell him that I ADORE green tea washing down azuki bean mochi YUM ! And I am a SCOTTISH Australian! Imagine Haggis with mochi beans and sticky rice washed down with green tea and Glenfiddich Whiskey...Now thats a thought!