Please record my journal in a normal speed. I would like to practice reading just like talking about it to someone. Thank you!
I felt like crying while I was listening to my friend's stories and her feelings about her experiences in Japan. She is an American, who has been living here for over 20 years, and one of my best friends.
She opened up to me about why she went back to America and stayed there for over three months this spring, leaving her Japanese husband alone here.
I didn't know it at the time, but that was a trip for her to seek even one way to live for the rest of her life as a "gaijin." She said that if she was not able to find some way, she wouldn't have come back to Japan, ever.
Today, I read an article written by an American musician who has lived in Japan for 16 years. The title is: "Gaijin--just a word or racial epithet with sinister implication?"
I thought about the word "gaijin" over and over again today. I was stupid enough to say, "oh, it's just a contraction of gai-koku-jin. Don't take it seriously" before.
Now, I don't think it is just a word. It's our behavior toward people with a different skin color, with a different eye color and a different hair color. Either way, they are fascinating or considered hostile by Japanese people, and no matter how many years they have lived in Japan and how hard they have tried to understand Japanese culture, it would not be easy to be counted among one of the citizens living in the same country. I'm sorry I got a little carried away about it.
On the back of her hard efforts to learn Japanese culture, understand the people and master the language, she has shown she really loves Japan. Despite that, why are there still people who try to punch her? I'm sad. (Ｔ＿Ｔ）
We are living in a largely homegeneous society. At this moment, I feel ashamed that we have firmly held on to an aspect of the "inside and outside" culture. "Gaijin" is a word that is steeped in history. But, time has passed, and it's about time we became more accepting of other people.
Wow. That's so true!
You may not have thought about it before, but the concept of "gaijin" exists all around the world, not just in Japan. All of us, no matter what language we speak, have something to learn from this journal. Racism and discrimination--they can come through bold letters on signs, or they can come through the most unnoticeable split-second glare--it's all the same.
Let's hope, in learning the languages of the world, that we can erase racism. If we cannot erase it in others, then at least--the very least--we can erase it in ourselves.
This journal is such a good reminder. Thank you so much!
~~Murt