With foreign visitors to Japan at an all-time high, there have also been more incidents where people from overseas have been behaving badly, giving rise to a new term being used in the local media: meiwaku gaikokujin.
Translating as “nuisance foreigner," this term pops up whenever a non-Japanese individual acts out in public, breaking rules and disrespecting the local culture. We’ve seen it used by media when foreigners gathered in great numbers at a Mount Fuji Lawson, and today it’s also become a hot topic, this time in relation to another convenience store — FamilyMart.
This “Nuisance Foreigner” incident took place at the FamilyMart in Udagawa-cho near Shibuya Center Gai in Tokyo.
Convenience stores are an iconic part of Japanese daily life that draw foreign visitors like moths to a light, but on the night of Aug 7, this individual went one step further by actually climbing up to the roof above the brightly lit signboard and squatting in front of the windows of the Shakey’s Pizza joint above the convenience store. With the lights out inside Shakey’s at the time, the incident would’ve occurred sometime after it closed at 9:30 p.m.
Eyewitness reports say the man, who was wearing a white T-shirt, climbed onto a signboard at ground level in order to access the roof, but as he was unable to climb onto it, his friend assisted by pushing another signboard alongside it, where he also climbed up to join him. His friend, wearing a black T-shirt, then squatted to give the man in a white T-shirt a lift on his shoulders, allowing him to climb onto the roof.
At this time, a staff member came out of the store and gestured to them to get down, but they ignored his requests, with the man and his friend yelling out something like “I did it!” or “We did it!” Their triumph was short-lived, though, as the cheers turned to calls of “Get down, get down!” and “Police are on their way!” as the friend on ground level spotted police officers approaching. The man on the roof didn’t make it down before officers arrived, though, and so he and his friend, along with another friend in a white T-shirt, who’d likely been taking photos from across the street, had to face the police.
▼ Video of the incident.
While verbal warnings were issued by police, it’s unclear whether further action will be taken. One thing that is for certain is the fact that these “nuisance foreigners” are giving all foreigners a bad reputation in Japan, where formality, restraint and consideration for others is part of what makes the nation so appealing to visitors.
These values form the basis for wa, a concept at the heart of Japanese culture that literally translates as “peace” or “harmony” but is so tied in with the Japanese way of thinking that it’s also used interchangeably to mean “Japan." It’s the reason why people refrain from saying what they really think, consider others above themselves, and prioritise the group above all else — all in the name of maintaining wa or “harmony” with others.
This ethos is in direct opposition to the actions of meiwaku gaikokujin, angering locals who toe the line in their everyday lives. The flouncing of rules by foreigners is often accompanied by another term, yaritai hodai, which literally translates as “doing what you like as much as you like“, another selfish trait that flies in the face of Japanese morals. So next time you’re in Japan and think it’s a good idea to climb onto the roof of a convenience store for a photo, you might want to take a moment to think like a local and refrain from doing what you want, for the sake of others around you.
Source: FNN via Yahoo! News
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
-- Japan’s second-largest convenience store chain changes service policy for sake of foreign workers
-- Hiking restrictions result in huge drop in climbing accidents, with zero on Mt. Fuji
-- Bad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screens
© SoraNews24
74 Comments
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falseflagsteve
Very badly written as if by someone who has lived in Japan for a very short time or not even been here, lol.
I really don’t believe all foreigners are now painted with the same brush because of the actions of a couple of buffoons, probably drunkards.
Dunno about how many people in Shibuya act in harmony with others especially in the evenings but that’s neither here nor there really.
See many ruddy annoying foreigners round here lately, mind you only fights or really bad behaviour I have seen have been by locals.
falseflagsteve
Burning Bush
Whats the gaijin bubble? Never heard of that term.
kurisupisu
This article has a slight xenophobic quality to it.
How many millions of foreigners have passed in and out of Japan without incident?
In my time here, I’ve seen plenty of meiwaku Japanese:fights,upskirting, property,assaults,damage,stalking, drunken driving, several car accidents and failure to obey traffic rules.
falseflagsteve
Kuru
Exactly. Many foreigners I see here I admit are a right pain and noisy etc but the really bad behaviour is by local people. I’m sure if many tourists were being arrested and charged we would hear more about it rather than a couple of idiots getting a verbal warning from the police.
Mind you, Sora News is primarily directed at Japanophiles from overseas who don’t know any better and believe stereotypes you see.
Asiaman7
Respectfully disagree.
Respectfully agree.
—
It was nice to see the police not overreact, but shaking hands with the perpetrator might have been too ‘welcoming’ of such behavior.
sakurasuki
That's only few meters above, not that really impressive.
kurisupisu
@Burning Bush
Too right!
Not all Japanese are meek and mild as many believe.
ifd66
How is this in any way news worthy?
Yubaru
Love to see the media use the term "meiwaku nihonjin" as there are far more of them than the idiots in the article here.
Hell just this AM when I was out walking my dog, a Japanese Oba blew through a red light at a cross walk, right in front of me and my doggie.
Meiwaku-nihonjin!
Hervé L'Eisa
Idiots. Basically just technically adult children. "free-range" children of inept parents.
spinningplates
How is this in any way news worthy?
I agree, but if they don't report minor incidents like this, it won't become a trend, thus justifying and cementing the xenophobic stereotyping the article seems to be promoting.
@Guru Mick: Hahaha!
Hawk
For sure. Yesterday at the local pool there was a big bruhaha because one bloke had caught another taking photos of his wife. Or daughter...it was hard to catch between all the 'korrraaas' and 'ooee!s'
Falco1
A very stereotypical article with a touch of good ol’xenophobia forgetting that the majority of craziness in Shibuya comes from their locals.
But hey,throw the book at the pesky Gaijins putting then all in the same category helps to keep the mantra of superiority alive innit?
Alfie Noakes
Xenophobic drivel that insults both Japanese and "foreigners".
Capuchin
Oh, so that's why it not okay to scale random buildings in Japan.
If an Asian tourist stole a hot dog in America would also provide a lengthy lecture in American values, culture and morals to explain why the act was not appreciated by the locals?
Climbing on top of random shops is an act that I'm sure is universally abhorred across all countries or cultures.
Maybe dial it back on the 'Nihonjinron' moralising and the fetishising of Japan. An annoying people are just annoying people. Same as anywhere else in the world.
DatAss
Shibuya, a place where stupid people go to win stupid prizes.
Corey
Public drunkenness in Japan is really meiwaku. And it’s pretty much accepted Japanese behavior.
This article is funny with its veritable scolding of visitors to Japan. Are Japanese ever told how to act when they visit other countries?
ThonTaddeo
Yaritai hodai only flies in the face of Japanese morals if you're not yet 70 years old, if you have to work for a boss, and if you're not a politician. If you're old, rich, or part of an elite family, it might as well be your motto.
Some dude
Missed chance for the police. Could have climbed up, thrown the idiot off, and shouted "we did it!"
WoodyLee
Stop calling visitors/tourists FOREIGNERS bcz. it is annoying !!.
When Japanese travel abroad as tourists or visitors people call them Tourists or Visitors or Japanese if they know for sure, they are NOT called FOREIGNERS!!?
These guys are probably showing off for their followers on Instagram, & TikTok, and other platforms and most likely from other Asian nations !?
stormcrow
Confiscate all of their belongings except their wallets and passports and then send them back to wherever they're from ASAP.
Sanjinosebleed
Should do an article on drunk salary men disturbing the peace on the train rides home...No 1 wa/peace disturbers!
quercetum
This is nothing compared to pissing on the Yasukuni Shrine. These Peter Pans are still middle schoolers.
Blacksamurai
The Japanese police were too nice - the fool should have been hit with a large financial penalty under some local regulation about risky criminal behavior. If the fool had fallen off the roof he could have injured or even killed a bystander or passer by.
And yep, you can put a lot of the blame onto the foreigners who live in Tokyo and hang out at conbini in the Shibuya area. I see them regularly hanging out conbini and one especially, a Family Mart, spilling out onto the street and sidewalk drinking alcohol and making noise to draw attention to themselves.
These are residents and the most obnoxious ones like the narcissist with red dyed dreadlocks call themselves 'creators and influencers' but are just sad, rapidly ageing foreign losers who won't go home because their behaviour is unacceptable back in the US or wherever. Especially going up to young females as if these J females want middle aged foreign losers annoying them, talking dirty about them and just filming the public in Shibuya without their permission. Deal with this problem of foreing residents and you'll cut out most of the bad foreign tourist behavior copying it.
Gene Hennigh
Some dude -- best post of the day!
bo
Just laugh it off ,no one was hurt . The japanese do the worst stuff imaginable and no one bats an eyelid ,but hey thats ok for the locals to be complete idiots its their country .
Tamarama
Dumb, drunk young men.
A fine of some description would have been appropriate; Drunken disorderly or Public Nuisance or whatever. 50,000 Yen to teach them a gentle lesson.
TokyoLiving
These pathetic clowns deserve a lesson to respect the country..
Blacksamurai
All the excuse making that 'Japanese pople are allowed to be idiots in their own country so don't pick on foreigners' misses the context. Japanese society has its own unofficial rules as well as official ones for what's acceptable and what's not. The last few years in places like Shibuya, foreigners have pushed the boundaries to be an unwelcome, selfish, and semi aggressive presence in streets near conbini, drinking alcohol.
Most of them are not tourists but foreigners living in Japan and filming themselves and their junior high school antics. Problem is they involved the unwilling public, I and my Japanese friends have seen them filming people with permission, and their behavior has encouraged other foreigners like tourists to do the same. And I've never seen so many young J people drinking alchol in those spots until these self-centred foreign 'creators and influencers' started doing it.
In the USA and the other countries these foreigner losers come from, police and security staff don't play about drinking alcohol in public where it's not permitted. In Japan a lot of behavior in public is self monitored and in the context of group thinking so these 'creator and influencer' clowns have got away with doing all this because the authorities in Japan have a softer approach.
Japanese females don't usually get in the face of those foreign men standing around, calling out to them, telling their friends 'Look at her, she wants me' , walking around filming and saying 'Yeah, I'll do her' and putting it all on their live streams. In the countries these losers come from, females have a different approach. Here too, these loser foreigners rely on the language barrier to get away with talking like that.
One of the solutions is to stop issuing visas to those kinds of foreign residents. Most of them work for shady eikaiwa with low pay and no benefits so it's easy for them to get those jobs and stay here - raise the bar for getting a Specialist in Humanities visa when the applicant has no teaching diploma or language teaching qualifications generally so they can't and make it a renewal condition to pay health, pension and taxes all on time and consistently. That will cut out those turkeys.
Yotomaya
What is this, the Daily Mail? The fact that the expression meiwaku gaikokujin has been spreading doesn't make its use less xenophobic. People engaging in this kind of rhetoric are the real nuisance as they make daily life highly unpleasant for foreign-looking people who just want to get through their day.
This guy's a moron (or at least did a really moronic thing this time). I've met morons from all walks of life from all around the world.
Blacksamurai
Don't know why my words in the post below are being altered - I wrote about the kinds of foreign residents similar to tourists in their bad behaviour:
'Problem is they involve the unwilling public. I and my Japanese friends have seen them filming people WITHOUT permission.'
DanteKH
Well, in any other country of this globe, the title would have been "Person, or Teenage climbs into FamilyMart..." But in Japan, you need to show the foreign Xenophobia is alive and well. Even the video talks about the foreigner like it is an international terrorist and only a foreigner can do such as unbelievable thing.
This is news worthy only in Japan, in any other places it would be just a TikTok flic or some random news on a low value Tabloid.
Ruby
Really? Do you mean like this:
Chinese student pleads guilty to violating U.S. espionage act
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Society/Crime/Chinese-student-pleads-guilty-to-violating-U.S.-espionage-act
or like this:
US charges Japanese crime boss over alleged trafficking of nuclear materials to Iran
https://news.sky.com/story/us-charges-japanese-crime-boss-over-alleged-trafficking-of-nuclear-materials-to-iran-13077993
Someone needs to do some reading before they post.
Kaowaiinekochanknaw
I don't have much time for Meiwaku Gaikokujin or Meiwaku Nihonjin tbh.
However, people climbing things doesn't bother me.
Ruby
And kill the kid? Nope. The NPA handled it correctly as we Japanese also do. In the US, they would have shot the kid esp, if he were black. We Japanese dont do that.
Ruby
And sat back and did nothing?
Ruby
A typical post by a foreigner. Is not funny that always same the same thing? I saw this and I saw that blah blah. Yet they offer no other prove the their first hand account- which is always BS.
wallace
It was a senseless action by an unintelligent individual. It gives a bad name to foreign tourists like the YouTubers.
Ruby
And you forgot to add the group was a group of ten year old kids headed to the Disney store. LOL
V Campbell
Fine them, say ¥75,000, and let them go.
Jonathan Prin
I am sad to see Japan getting more and more stormed by foreigners.
I mean I wish to continue to undergo the politeness, cleanliness, safety forever if possible, but clearly there are more and more foreigners and not just tourists coming to Japan. Cultural habits are thus less and less authentic.
The perpretors should have had a fine and a steep warning to have their visa waived next time.
Pukey2
So what does this guy want? A cookie?
Mocheake
One guy did it but we're all guilty
Newgirlintown
Can you imagine any other country’s media creating such a xenophobic term as ‘nuisance foreigners’? I can’t. This country is obsessed with the concept of ‘foreigners’ or ‘outsiders’.
luthierinseattle
As an American who visits Japan as often as I can, the fact that Shakey's Pizza is still chugging along is the best part of this story.
For the record, I am very careful and respectful while in your country. I try to be on my best behavior.
Garthgoyle
You learn new terms everyday. Today I learned meiwaku nihonjin. Because after all, some and by far not all, some nihonjin mendokusai na.
Torelol
This guy was definitely an idiot but didn't really bother anyone. In the contrary, returning home after a hard work day and deal with drunken salarimen on the train almost daily is more annoying. And not forget every time there are elections and we have to listen countless of politicians screaming their nonsense outside the stations or on those mini bans driving since very early in the morning... and yet I don't see any of this in the media.
El Rata
Typical Americans
Moonraker
We're all nuisance foreigners now. Get used to it. Well, we probably always have been - being too big, walking too fast, looking scary, putting out the wrong rubbish, etc - it's just more out in the open now. The media will pile on, the locals are apt to easily stereotype, so we might as well appropriate the label.
oyatoi
Young, dumb, and full of cunning.
Norm
Where, exactly, did you read that they are Americans?
4123
Japanese far-rights exploit such foreigners' "behaving badly" as pretext to spread xenophobia or racism socially.
smithinjapan
Been watching too many variety shows with the Japanese silver medalist in climbing climbing Tsutenkaku Tower, other buildings, and all sorts of places you're not supposed to.
Jim
Two idiot foreigners who should be charged and thrown in prison ( make an example of them to deter others from doing the same )!
The article written by people at SoraNews24 are almost always out of touch with the reality in Japan and mostly written for foreigners abroad who are sort of nerds for Japan and believe all unrealistic stuff about Japan! Foreigners living in Japan know how idiotically unrealistic most of the articles on SoraNews24 are!jinjapan
How about just "meiwaku hito" instead?
DanteKH
@jinjapan
But how else to promove those kind of news FULL of passive-aggressive Racism and Xenophobia into the media.
This is the best example. The moment you differentiate between the locals and the gaijins by calling them specific names and stereotyping it's the best proof one ever needs. The Media is actively brainwashing with Racism and Xenophobia, in the most discrete way possible.
Pukey2
Some of them are actually posting on JT ( although they live in Japan).
falseflagsteve
Pukey
Correct they do live here but just seem interested in being popular on Tik Tok and Instagram, hoping to be influencers. They all write the same way too, over enthusiastic about everything however dull. Most of the info they get from company press releases and just change the words a bit.
ZENJI
Arrest and Deport.
Saine
Yes, Japanese people do engage in bad behavior, but the issue is that foreigners are less common and tend to stand out more.
I worked at a chain restaurant in Tokyo for many years and witnessed plenty of misbehavior from Japanese customers, such as:
-Dine and dash (leaving without paying)
-Kicking the automatic door in an attempt to break it
-Stealing all the eco-bashi from the table
-Being drunk and disorderly
-Using their own chopsticks directly from the shared condiment container instead of using the tongs
-Being abusive to the staff
On the other hand, I would occasionally serve foreigners—maybe 5 to 10 a year.
There was one incident where a foreigner pulled a dine and dash.
From a perception standpoint, that one incident stands out as 1 in 10, while I served thousands of Japanese customers. In contrast, when a Japanese customer behaves badly, it feels more like an extreme outlier because of the sheer volume of Japanese customers I serve. So, if I had the misfortune of two foreigners pulling a dine and dash, I might be tempted to see it as typical, even though the reality is very different.
Unfortunately, this is a common cognitive bias and I am not sure how to overcome it, but I don't think articles like this help the situation or facilitate constructive discourse.
girl_in_tokyo
This is just more of the same ol' racism that presents all crime in Japan being perpetrated by non-Japanese, even though Japanese are doing the exact same things all the time.
I was at the beach yesterday and the place was chock-full of "meiwaku nihonjin" including two guys drinking chu-hai on the train, guys sexually harassing women, guys grabbing one another and play-fighting and knocking down little kids, and more.
This kind of thing has been happening since the first non-Japanese stepped foot in Japan, and it's not only tiring it's just plain BORING.
In other words, this really isn't new, nor is it news.
falseflagsteve
Girl in Tokyo
The articles are written by non Japanese for a non Japanese audience. They just want clicks and views.
Its Sora News, it’s not real journalism.
wallace
This article was published by FNN and posted in Japanese on Yahoo. SoraNews just produced a translation.
falseflagsteve
Burning
Ah, you noticed before me, well spotted old top.
Yes, the original didn’t have the stereotypical wa stuff that you tend to only read from people who just want to get attention.
Nifty
Back in the old days, people reserved exclamations of, "I did it! I did it!" for climbing Mt. Everest, winning first place in an Olympic event, or discovering a cure for a dangerous disease. I don't know this person's country, but it seems that the people there set lower standards for the use of the phrase... making a good cup of coffee, successfully cleaning a counter, or having a nice bathroom break. On the plus side, being extraordinary must be a lot easier.
Tamarama
I tell you one thing I never see.
Asian tourists in Europe or North America or Australia climbing onto buildings drunk and parading around for everyone to see like a lunchbox hero.
Never see that.
starpunk
Some people will do anything for their Famous Fifteen Minutes. Remember how Justin Bieber acted when he was on top of a Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza?
GEEKS!!!!!!