The Profile of a Gaijin Whiner
Hey folks long time no see. I’ve been busy on a crusade or something. I’m back now so it’s all gravy baby.
Anyways, let’s talk about a person we’ve all met here in Japan. You know him/her and I know him/her. They are the Gaijin Whiner. A person we are so sick and tired of, we barely have the patience to put up with their crap anymore. They piss and moan, moan and piss and then desire to be supported in their feelings that Japan is such a terrible place. It’s annoying and boring. We all know it. Do you know a gaijin whiner? Here are a couple characteristics of one:
#1: They complain about Japanese people slighting them almost daily
“Japanese people don’t sit next to me on the train!” is something I hear oh so often from the Gaijin Whiner. It’s as if they feel Japanese people go out of their way to avoid them in every situation in life, even something as mundane as sitting on the train. PROTIP: It’s all in your head. No seriously, it is completely and utterly all in your head, unless of course you smell. I ride the train like anyone else in Tokyo and everyday I have someone sit next to me. Also, like normal people, I get grumpy when people sit next to me. Yeah, normal people would rather others DID NOT sit next to them on the train. You know, extra room to get comfortable and no stinky drunk breath blowing on you. It’s not so bad.
Suggestion: My guess is that if people aren’t sitting next to you on the train its probably because you are looking at them. Don’t look people in the eyes here. They understandably don’t like it. Either that or they just simply don’t want to sit down. That happens a lot on the Yamanote line. In general people don’t want to sit next to others on the train, hence all the open spaces you see between people.
Jordan says: Blessings come in the form of space next to you on the train. Better start enjoying it Gaijin Whiners.
#2: They treat acts of kindness from Japanese people with suspicion and contempt
As I have established, the Gaijin Whiner is always looking to feel slighted by Japanese people. It fuels their self-centered world with quiet assurances that they are special and are being treated unfairly. So even when some unsuspecting Japanese person tries to help them out, in any fashion, but usually by speaking to the Gaijin Whiner in English, they have to turn it into a negative and complain.
Case in point: I met a person here who told me about a time when she had to fill out some forms for something. Anyways, she had to go to the post office to do so. She got to the post office asked about the forms in Japanese and the post office worker, perhaps to this Gaijin Whiner’s surprise, replied in English. In fact, he gave her all the instructions for this form in English. This, for some reason normal people wouldn’t understand, made her very upset given the fact that she had spoke to the gentleman in Japanese. I asked her “Well, why is that a bad thing?” Here only reply was that “It was rude to speak to me in English when I spoke first in Japanese.” Now how is this sound reasoning folks? I would have thought they were just being polite and trying to help out, but apparently this is some terrible plot to communicate in more than two languages! I’ve heard this so many times that it makes me sick.
Suggestion: Be patient and remember that they are trying to be nice.
Jordan says: If you don’t want to be spoken to in English you’d better get off the face of the planet.
#3: They are always complaining about what isn’t right with Japan
This is perhaps the most annoying factor in the profile of the Gaijin Whiner. From ATMs closing to the trains stopping shortly after midnight, the Gaijin Whiner is constantly looking to complain about Japan’s shortcomings. It’s a ritual that gets repeated whenever two or more of them congregate. The bitching starts with a personal anecdote about some Japanese person running into them (see #2) while they were walking in Shibuya which is promptly followed by a round of “If we were back in (home country here), I would’ve (reaction)” type sentences. From that point on it’s an all out war to measure Japan up with whatever god forsaken place their anime dreams pulled them out of. You know sometimes I wish the trains ran a little later too, but they don’t. Oh well..
Suggestion: Japan is Japan. Get over it.
Jordan says: You can only bitch and moan about the place you live in for so long folks. If you really don’t like it you should talk to the Priceline negotiator about getting a plane ticket and getting the hell up out of here.
Conclusion
Japan isn’t that bad. Sure it isn’t perfect, but who thought it would be before they came here? If you did, and are disaffected with the reality of things, you have only yourself to blame. I’ve had plenty of positive experiences in Tokyo with Japanese people of all stripes. Japan is a great place with great people even though I’ve probably experienced all the complaints a Gaijin Whiner can dish out. People sometimes don’t sit next to me on the trains and I enjoy it. People talk to me in English when I’ve spoken to them in Japanese and I know they are being polite. People occasionally bump into me in Shibuya and I give them a shoulder check (lol). It’s OK. Let it go. Enjoy Japan while you can. You never know when the big one will hit……
March 11th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
The Profile of a Gaijin Whiner…
A little profile on the bane of everyone’s Japan experience: The Gaijin Whiner. Can’t they just get over it already and move on?…
March 11th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
No place is perfect. But I’ve been living in Japan for years and I’m still in the honeymoon stage. I hope that never changes.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Well, I do not live in Japan but has travelled as a visitor. Not much issues for me, after all, different country, different culture, different lifestyle, so get used to it. I don’t see why Gaijin makes such a fuss. I want to stay there (Note that is “stay” not “live”) But the exchange rate is alittle too costly for me.
The only thing I couldn’t get used to is the number of people they have, appearing during peak hour.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
I don’t really agree about being spoken to in English. I lived in Japan for a year precisely to study and improve my Japanese. Now, of course most people I run into wouldn’t know that, and I get that. But in most cases it was pretty clear that my Japanese was better than their English, so it was usually more trouble for both of us when they tried speaking English.
But the ones I feel sorry for are the people who aren’t from an Englsih-speaking country, and might not know English, but still get lumped in with all the other Gaijin who obviously know English.
March 12th, 2009 at 7:56 am
I always reply in Japanese because I am evil.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Thought-provoking post as usual btw!!
March 12th, 2009 at 11:41 am
“Japan is Japan. Get over it.”…How great! I think in these few words you have really summed it up. As much as westerners say they are attracted to Japan for all its uniqueness, they are frustrated when things in Japan don’t happen the way they do in Chicago or London or wherever. You have really nailed it! Thank you!
March 12th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Okay buddy, try addressing Asian-looking people in (learn them all first) Chinese, Japanese, and Korean whilst working a service job in the West and tell me how long it is before you get fired for some sort of racial harassment. THEN COME BACK AND WRITE YOUR BLOG ABOUT HOW YOU WERE JUST BEING POLITE AND DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU LOST YOUR JOB.
March 12th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Billy: It won’t change so long as you continue to enjoy life in Japan as much as possible. Only when you go idle will you start to look around you for things to complain about. You can do it buddy!
Skye: The trains do get a bit crowded and it does get uncomfortable at times, but try to experience it at least once.
It’s something you probably couldn’t do back home so go for it! 早くおいで！
Bobby: I understand your situation. I studied here as well and occasionally had someone speak to me in English at restaurant or so on. It still happens and to be honest in those kind of communicative situations I don’t feel it is such a bother. To each his own though. It might definitely get a little tricky for those who appear to be English speakers but are not. I agree with you on that.
Marie: You naughty girl! Thanks for the kind words. I check your blog all the time keep up the good work!
Mr. Kato: Thank you for stopping by and commenting! I also think it is a bit peculiar that Japan is admired for it’s perceived differences, but is at the same time often put down by those who live here for rather trivial things. Thanks again for reading!
Parasitius: To start out let me praise your awesome Sith name. Darth Parasitius would sound awesome. Anyways, I’m not sure exactly how anything I wrote here is related to your capslock rant. We are talking about Western people in Japan who speak English complaining about Japanese people speaking to them in English. Perhaps you didn’t really understand what I wrote seeing as Japan is, in fact, not the West and such a dismissal on the grounds of racial harassment has nothing to do with Japan. If you are trying to make the argument that Japanese people are some how being racist for assuming that any Western looking person they come in contact will speak and understand English I would like you to ask yourself how many Eikaiwa schools there are in the city you live in. The vast majority of Western foreigners who come to Japan are English speakers. Your logic makes very little sense. Start thinking a bit less about yourself and more about whats going on around you. You might learn a thing or two.
March 13th, 2009 at 6:40 am
Anyone who works in an eikaiwa school and gets pissed off and rude toward a server who used English (even if said eikawa school worker/customer used Japanese perfectly) should be aware that a number of incidents like these could accelerate the process of his/her English school being shut down.
March 13th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Billy: Bingo. Don’t shoot yourselves in the foot English teachers.
March 13th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Anywhere else in the world, the same people can be found living in foreign countries, or even foreign regions of their own country, and bitching about it. Often these are Ugly Americans, and don’t make me proud to be American. As an Army brat, I got to encounter the same people over and over, they basically take their own culture shock bitterly out on the culture. They take such a stubborn effort to resist adapting that they can’t appreciate anything of value, or accept any critique of their own native culture.
I’ve loved every chance at living in a new country, but I’ll be the first to admit that southern California brings out the bitch in me.
March 13th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Rob Brezsny of Free Will Astrology often talks about pronoia or “the suspicion the Universe is a conspiracy on your behalf.” Most of the whiners that I’ve met could use a good dose of pronoia in their life. It makes everything so much easier.
March 14th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Having lived here for 15 years, I’ve definitely paid my dues, and consider myself to be very open-minded and understanding about life here. I don’t consider myself a whiner, but I ‘ve noticed that things are getting to me more and more. I don’t think the country has changed as much as my relationship to it. I look at these increasingly negative feelings as a sign that it is indeed time to buy that plane ticket. I still love Japan, but i think I need to see other people for awhile…
March 14th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
According to the criteria above, I suppose I fit the profile (except for #3…I don’t think I do that) so I qualify as a Gaijin whiner.
I don’t like the word whiner.
That said, I agree with you Jordan. Whining is annoying and boring…
I didn’t even realize I was whining. I don’t even like to think of my writing as whining . I actually thought that I was painting a picture of how life in Japan really is, the ups and downs. If you speak of the ups too often you get labeled as a Japanophile. If you talk about the downs too often you get this whiner label. But, if you can manage to find the balance between the two, or at least make your whining extremely entertaining and insightful, then you’re a god writer, an ideal Gaijin and fine person in general (I’d like to think) so that’s been my goal…shooting for balance.
But I admit I have tended towards the darkside, replete with hardly disguised anger and delusions of persecution, perhaps as a result of upbringing and some racial trauma that occurred back home in the states…
But like you said Japan is Japan.
And you’ll never know when the big one will hit, so best be enjoying my life a great deal more (-:
Thanks for the post!
Loco
Sorry if I’ve bored you guys
March 14th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
What qualifies as whining is subjective, right? I mean, if you’re well-behaved and tolerant all day long and you save your rants for a blog, that’s cool, right? And, even though I know better, I do overreact on a rare occasion; nothing crazy, but maybe a choice comment or two. Part of being human, I guess. When I post a blog rant, I always make sure I can laugh over what I’m writing about. Otherwise, it’ll come off as too venomous, which is not my style. But, everyone’s entitled to a mistake or two, and we’re all better off if we try to put ourselves in the shoes of even the most annoying people to try and see where they’re coming from. Of course, preservation of one’s sanity is first and foremost and escaping from a whiner is the best thing you can do if they’re bringing you down with them.
March 15th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Jordan: My capslock rant was meant to include all the things you said, but the one which you missed, and which I think gives a person the most license to be very rude and intolerant with these English bandits is that… I’ve read a good number of anecdotes about Japanese people being very unhappy and unwelcoming when getting stalked for Japanese when they came to the US to learn English. Ironically, I believe this is the very same group that will turn around when they get back home and think their “special status” of having learned a bit more English than the rest entitles them to force people living in Japan to help them keep their English abilites up. (And you can say there is no way I can prove it is so — but I suspect the English stalker in the Yamada denki who will never make it to the US to study English would do the same inconsiderate thing if he ever did have the chance. He just doesn’t have the chance. Doesn’t make him any less guilty if that’s who he is as a person.)
March 16th, 2009 at 7:58 am
More: “Foreign (non Hollywood, that is) films on video/DVD aren’t subtitled in English.” As no films in the UK are.
“They can’t send out (bureaucratic form) in English!” Like back home Japanese is used so extensively. And this is not an Anglophonic country.
My personal pet peeve is Western women (for it is usually they) who call Japanese girls J-bitches, J-sluts, J-whores, etc. Cos such endearing racism’s gonna get you laid so much sooner, darling.
March 17th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Loco: This wasn’t necessarily pointed at you. I find some of your articles pretty interesting to be honest, but on that particular article I wasn’t really feeling the way you justified being grouchy at that lady. Other than that post I like your blog quite a bit. Thanks for stopping by and reading.
Marc: Ha. It’s tough for the Western ladies here from what I’ve heard. I don’t understand the hate, but I can sympathize with them just a little.
April 1st, 2009 at 8:24 am
haha..you profiled me to a tea…tell me if I’m wrong but there definitely is a stereotype of gaijin in japan..
there will always exist social segregation to some extent between us…you get it in any country but it seems to be amplified in Japan…I guess we are so different..and that will never change..no matter how well we can speak or do all the nihonteki practices…
whiners get to me to but whining about whiners makes you a whiner too, no?
Stu
April 1st, 2009 at 8:49 am
I’m not whining about whiners. That seems to be a common accusation coming from the whiners themselves. I’m simply pointing out things that make gaijin whiners what they are. So the answer is “no.” I’m not whining, just elucidating.
April 6th, 2009 at 10:49 am
lol I actually snapped when a guy kept insisting on speaking in English when I first came to Japan when I spoke in perfect Japanese when I first came here. Likewise, I find foreigners who insist on talking in Japanese when I speak fluent English is a tad annoying.
So as for #2, it depends on the speaker’s language ability, but it is a bit annoying when the other party insist on talking in an another language than the one you want, because they assume that you would prefer speaking that language. It is a bit strange, if not rude, really, when people insist on talking in crap Japanese/English when I am fluent in both.
Anyways, I know about the whiner. If you hate Japan, then just leave. The most ridiculous thing I hear is that Japan is racist. Erm… You mean more so than in other countries? The last time I checked, no one got killed over their race in Japan for years, and in other supposedly developed countries, racism still persist.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Intersting article. From the looks of things is got some good discussion going as well. As for me, sometimes shit gets to me. We all have our days. Sometimes, just for the hell of it, I insist that poeple do not call me gaijin. I guess this comes from my natural human desire to feel accepted as the person I am. Usually, I really don`t care how I am thought of by the people of Japan. I like living here and plan to be in Japan for a long time.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:15 am
People who live anywhere long enough complain about things that irritate them. Ever stand in line forever for your driver’s license back home? Did you complain about it? It’s the same deal with waiting for hours in an overheated immigration office. I’m not sure that applying the same standard of judgment to life in Japan that one would apply in one’s own culture makes one a whiner who doesn’t appreciate Japan.
Also, honestly, you’re wrong about the trains. Some Japanese people are uncomfortable being near foreigners. Even if you don’t look at them, touch them or do a thing, some will get up and move if you sit near them or stand rather than sit by you. Mind you, I don’t care about this. I never complain. It’s not a problem if I get more space on the train due to their reaction, but it’s a pretty weak question for you to use as one of three “criteria” and based on your incorrect assessment of the situation. I also believe that three questions are not nearly enough to know if someone is viewing Japan via a skewed perspective and I do wonder why so many foreigners are obsessed with pigeonholing other foreigners. If they bore you, tell them, and get on with minding your own business.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:53 am
This post had nothing to do with “standing in line forever for your driver’s license” in Japan nor back home. Neither did I bring up an overheated immigration office. It deals with the Japanese as seen through the eyes of a gaijin whiner. You just wrote out a throw away paragraph. It had nothing to do with the post. Good job.
I’m wrong about the trains huh? I just got back from work and a 30 minute train ride. In the course of that 30 minutes I had 4 people sit next to me and 3 stand in front or beside me. Of course some people will freak out about you being a foreigner but not nearly as often as some make it seem. This has probably happened to me a handful of times in my 2 years of living in Japan. From the sounds of it, you too might be a gaijin whiner. The “I don’t care about this. I never complain” part of your comment seems to be an attempt to cover up the fact that you, in fact, do mind it and wish
My incorrect assessment of the situation? It’s called an opinion. My criteria is limited since there are only a few things the gaijin whiners in Japan actually enjoy doing. It’s not my fault their silly complaints fall into only three categories.
That being said, please feel free to get on to minding your own business which is apparently running a dime a dozen “this is the latest stupid drink/snack in Japan” blog. Thanks for stopping by!
August 12th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Oh oh oh, very funny article indeed. “They’re only trying to be kind”…don’t make me laugh. Japan is the most racist country I have lived in, and Japanese society is very, very dirty, you like it or not. Either you’ve not lived in the country long enough, or you’re in love with some Japanese girls that prevent your seeing clearly the reality. Open your eyes, dude!
August 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Sure there are plenty of racist Japanese folk, but having lived in the land of racism and having seen straight up in your face racism, I’m thinking the racism you see here is nothing, not to mention rare. I’ve lived here for 2 years of my life, have had all of 2 incidents with someone who didn’t like me because of my skin tone.
Anyways, the point is that people who try to speak to you in English aren’t being racist, they are making an attempt at being polite. Context, my friend, is everything.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
August 14th, 2009 at 8:41 am
although it might be obvious for most, I’d like you to spell out if “the land of racism” for you is U.S. or where.
August 14th, 2009 at 10:05 am
The U.S. and I was being sarcastic.
August 14th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Yes, I see. For Southern Europeans like myself, for sure a rather distant reality.
However, let alone the U.S., I cannot agree with your statement that people are trying being polite. A few, are. Most, are not.
There are plenty of Japanese around in offices, hotels, hospitals…who just utterly refuse to speak Japanese with non-asians.
You have been living in Japan for two years: too short a time to really grasp the matter, I fear.
Wait until you’ll have spent in the country let’s say more than 7 – 10 years. That’s the true threshold in my opinion.
At that point, unless you’re one of those speaking English all day long, it’s likely your Japanese will come out very naturally from your mouth. Took me about 7 years to become truly fluent and becoming able to do such things like giving lectures in Japanese (not that my Japanese is perfect, but it is surely much better than my English). At that point the real challenge for you begins, believe me. I want to be there and see your reaction when you’ll be wanting to speak Japanese and an oji-san in front of you will go on muttering in Jenglish that white people do not need to care speaking Japanese.
All the best
August 18th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
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