Helping Japanese Deal with the Likes of Us

It should come as no surprise that, despite living here for years, I don’t fully fit into Japanese society. My mediocre language skills have a lot to do with it. But beyond core communication, there are everyday tasks and behaviors that I have yet to master. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. The native Japanese population is just as baffled about how to deal with me.

We all use various shortcuts and common practices to help deal with this disconnect. For myself, when a store worker is going on and on in Japanese about something that I can’t really understand, I just shake my head up and down and say, “hai.” In most cases, I still get what I expected, since the worker is usually offering me the most likely option. Failing that, I get my Japanese wife to do stuff for me. That tactic works every time.

My counterparts on the native-Japanese side adopt similar strategies to deal with foreigners. At some restaurants, simplified menus with English titles and large pictures help the waitstaff take orders from non-Japanese guests. City hall workers will sometimes fill out complex forms on a foreign resident’s behalf. In the worst-case scenario, which happens more often than I would like, some business will simply refuse to offer services to the foreigner. “Sorry. Japanese only. Moshi wake gozaimasen.”

Such actions stem in part from an expectation that foreigners lack the skills needed to complete the task on their own, no matter how simple. And for some foreigners, especially tourists, this is true. But for those of us who reside here, that kind of thinking leads to unintentional barriers that prevent us from moving forward in society. To overcome these hurdles, foreign residents need to gently and politely communicate that they don’t want to be treated like this.

Such communications need not employ words. One change I’ve instituted in my life here is to use a mitome-in to sign delivery receipts. A mitome-in is a less official version of a name stamp, usually cheaper and more plastic-coated than official inkan or hanko stamps. When a delivery person drops off a package at my house that requires confirmation, they often take a look at my face, hand over the receipt, and say “sign,” in English. At this point, I grab the mitome-in and impress it on the paper. Once when I did this, the driver suddenly said in Japanese, sotto voce, “Of course he has a name stamp.” I expect he was trained to ask foreigners for their signature. Even in this era when stamps are on the decline, using one says to the delivery person, “I am making an effort to fit into the culture. It’s OK to treat me like I belong here.”

Given the above-average sartorial standards in Japan, dressing better than a tourist also helps convey this message. You don’t need to wear a kimono in public, or even a sports coat. But donning a business-casual shirt instead of that Nirvana concert-tour T-shirt you can't bear to part with will increase your acceptance rate among your Japanese peers. And please cover up that tattoo your frat brother dared you to get.

In my own time here, I have found a few other small ways to clarify to others that I wanted to be treated with the dignity of an ordinary resident.

• Just today, when a café waiter handed me a simplified English menu, I asked if I could check out the Japanese edition.

• When I was registering a parking spot for my car at the police department (a required task when you move in Tokyo), the officer asked if the parking spot was at my rental home. I responded that it was located at the condo that I had just purchased.

• When I was consulting with one company about obtaining some insurance and the representative kept calling me “Tim,” I suggested that I had no problem with him calling me by my surname, just as he would have done for any Japanese customer.

• While this might be a step to far for most foreign residents, I did opt to take my Japanese wife’s last name as my registered alias, using it for all in-country documentation (except my Residence Card, which does not permit aliases).

I am not suggesting that you do any of this in a rude, condescending, or threatening manner. There is no disrespect or animosity intended here, just an opportunity to let the immediate Japanese community know that, as a foreigner, you are on the assimilation path. It is not the fault of anyone in Japan that they grew up in a nation where 100 percent of people around them were also Japanese, all of whom could read the cultural air without difficulty. It is also not their fault that you suddenly showed up without those same superpowers. Therefore, it is in our best interest as new arrivals to share with this existing community, in the most socially harmonious way possible, that we will be a valued and comfortable part of their world.

When this message is received, it doesn’t just benefit you as the foreigner who wants to be treated better. It also helps your Japanese counterpart. It tells the other person, “I will meet you halfway, or beyond that if possible.” This benefit to the other person is conveyed even if you have minimal language skills. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen visible relief on the face of a store worker when I uttered a few words in Japanese. With five-star service on the minds of so many people you encounter here, there is an earnest desire to avoid troubling the customer by using haphazard English. This fear of causing meiwaku (being a nuisance) sometimes makes them nervous. But that same employee will go out of their way to grapple with your own faltering Japanese.

I continue to work on my language skills, despite the slow progress. I try to find new ways to enmesh myself into daily life here. Perhaps there will come a day when I have adjusted my actions to the point where I am treated—for better or worse—like the rest of the population. Until that happens, helping Japanese citizens understand that I am attempting to conform with local customs will make that transition smoother, for me and for them.

[Image Credits: coji_coji_ac/photo-ac.com]