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Japanese girl says school forced her to dye hair black; sues Osaka gov't

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For ruining her life and maybe her future, 2.2 million is WAY WAY too low.

47 ( +53 / -6 )

Hope she wins. One thing to have rules against that which is artificial. Another thing entirely to force a chemical treatment to satisfactorily alter what is a completely natural appearance. Hope she gets what she wants and more.

43 ( +46 / -3 )

wait, there's a policy against dyeing your hair at the school, but there's also a policy that all students have black hair? so they forced her to break one rule in order for her not to break another rule? confused yet?

58 ( +59 / -1 )

Conformity at work again, sigh. Hope she wins

34 ( +37 / -3 )

In addition to rewarding her with money they should punish the school staff by forcing everyone involved to dye their hair pink.

25 ( +30 / -5 )

Seriously! I know that uniforms in schools aid conformity and allow for everyone to be equal but asking a girl to dye her hair black so she fits in with the rest of the pupils is extraordinary and border line abusive? So much for individuality!

31 ( +34 / -3 )

School abuse even broke their own rules. Fine should be larger than 2.2 mil yen.

33 ( +36 / -3 )

And what's the betting that the board of governors of this school are a bunch of 70-year-old blokes with not a grey hair between them?

29 ( +33 / -4 )

A friend of mine had the same issue, her hair was naturally brown because of her involvement with swimming. The school pulled her up all the time on it but never forced her

14 ( +15 / -1 )

Yeah this is pretty damn bad by the school. She should be awarded more than the 2 million she's asking for

17 ( +18 / -1 )

How ridiculous we humans get sometimes...

6 ( +9 / -3 )

Are we talking about public high school or prison? Oh, hang, there is a major difference. Prisons allow their inmates to sleep at night and don't expect them to do 8 hours extra work every night.

This is so TIJ! Damned if you do and damned if you don't! However, this goes far beyond conformity. This is blatant bullying by the school. What if the student was born albino? Would they make the student dye their skin too? She should be suing the school for 220 million yen, not 22 million. She has had to drop out of high school, suffers irritation from the dyes and has been ostracised by the school. Give them hell girl! You have my support!

19 ( +23 / -4 )

Morons! Simply Morons!!

11 ( +14 / -3 )

@Derek - great point! I hope her lawyers bring this up in court!

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Those teachers and staff should paying that money from their own pockets to make sure they learned something. 2.2 million from each person involved.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

They say they have a policy banning students colouring their hair, yet are trying to force this girl to colour hers. It appears they seem to have a ban on hair that isn't black. I know non-Japanese women here whose children were told to dye their hair black a few years back, I thought this nonsense had stopped.

14 ( +14 / -0 )

My daughter, Japanese Italian American who has beautiful Italian brown, very wavy, and long hair. I came home from work one day to see her with straight black hair. I asked her about it and she got tired of teachers harassing her about her hair. So, breaking school rules, she dyed it black and straightened it and no long had the problem. Boy was I pissed! But the wife wouldn't let me discuss it with the school in fear that the teachers would bully her. Welcome to Japan!

31 ( +31 / -0 )

This country is so messed up at times....too many times, this is definitely one of those times!!

I agree with Did, up the amount to Y220million & fire a bunch of "teachers" as well please!

7 ( +8 / -1 )

GW

You cant fire teachers who are being made to adhere to these archaic rules by their very old and dictating bosses.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

't black. I know non-Japanese women here whose children were told to dye their hair black a few years back, I thought this nonsense had stopped.

I am not surprised that Japanese schools banning students dying their hairs to other colours. But I had no idea that some schools in Japan would force students with natural non-black hair colours to dye their hair black. "Hair colouring" and "natural hair colour" are two different things. If the school really has a rule saying all students must have black coloured hair then it is discrimination.

By the way the article says it is a public school. So are all public schools the same? How about private schools? Last time I was in Japan I went to USJ in Osaka and saw a lot of high school students (all dressed in their school uniforms) there and I remember seeing a Caucasian girl with blonde hair among them. So I assume this is an isolated case. Am I right?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Look this isn't the US where you can hope to get ridiculous sums of money by sue'ing say a McDonalds for spilling coffee on one's self.

I think 2 mil yen for this poor girl's pain & suffering is fair. With that said hope she does win her case and she can move on with her life.

-7 ( +5 / -12 )

My daughter is 100% Caucasian (two Caucasian American parents) and attends public Japanese high school. She has red hair. Not brown, red. She has never been asked to change it. She also has stunning big green eyes. They don't ask her to change those either. :)

1 ( +9 / -8 )

This is what she says happened. It's a pending lawsuit, so we don't know the result of any investigation yet.

I can believe that some school teachers may have said this kind of stuff. Some teachers, especially young ones new to the job, can be over-zealous in how they interpret school regulations. I have met a few of these over the years.

At the same time, there are some "different" students and parents out there who are prone to "misinterpreting" things. I have taught high school for more than 15 years here, and have done the uniform/ hair/ makeup check, and know that the teachers are supposed to check the kids' hair against a photo taken just a year or two before in junior high school. We have samples to guide us in the comparisons, complete with numbered shades. I also know that some kids' parents will say and do anything the kid wants them to say.

I'd wait before passing too much judgement either way in this case.

-11 ( +6 / -17 )

A Taiwanese newspaper in May reported a Japanese newsagent did a survey and found that some schools in Tokyo are asking students with non-black hair to do a "地毛證明書" with baby or junior school photos to prove that their natural hairs are not black or really are curly .

http://www.appledaily.com.tw/realtimenews/article/new/20170501/1109375/

I Google "地毛證明書" and really find a picture of it.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Well a DNA test would confirm her nationality buts that's probably a can of worms best left untouched. My daughters who have black hair were dying their hair exta black for job interviews. This notion of conformity is so destructive on many levels. But...they persist.

13 ( +13 / -0 )

I understand that there are a lot of Japan apologists out there who can’t accept even the beginning of a critical point of view about Japan. But boy this country can be quite a miserable place to live.....

19 ( +21 / -2 )

Causing issues for anyone showing their natural features is wrong. Sometimes being an individual is a strength. Sometimes being part of a group is a strength. Knowing when to be each is a little harder.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Cricket, I believe an enormous amount of Japanese, especially young females, dye their black hairs to other colours. The world "Chapatsu" is on wikipedia and it says "Chapatsu came to be accepted not only on young people but also in certain business settings, and it was established before long as one of the Japanese fashions."

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

This isn't the first time I have heard about kids being asked to dye their hair black, and it saddens me that the nation's educators are so backward and discriminatory in their views. It is shameful.

2.2 million is too low for the loss suffered by the girl.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

@ thepersoniamnow

How ridiculous we humans get sometimes...

I assume you mean humans of the Japanese variety here? I don't think we Brits ever get quite this anal and I'm sure the same is true of most western countries...

3 ( +8 / -5 )

I love the uniformity of the reaction here. It's so predictable. I just have to go against the grain because you're all so comical.

Nobody on this thred has considered that maybe, just maybe, the girl has been dying her hair brown on weekends, and that the school is telling her to dye it back to the way it was before she dyed it brown in order to conform with school rules that were in place before the girl possibly dyed her hair brown. As I stated above in my unpopular post that schools possess photos of the kids from JHS and know the kids' natural hair color. I have seen more than a few of these cases up close. Kids know the rules, parents know the rules, but hey, rules are so lame so let's just break them and throw up our arms in disbelief when somebody calls us on it. The more we protest, the more legit we'll look. Right?

All this wailing and gnashing of teeth about the loss of individuality is so over the top. Nobody can deny that it is possible that the girl and her mother are lying. No, teenagers are always straight arrows, and parents never bend to their overly demanding child's will in order to be "friends" with their kid. Lol

This is a pending case, and the ruling is still months away. Give it a rest.

-20 ( +4 / -24 )

Sometimes being an individual is a strength. Sometimes being part of a group is a strength. Knowing when to be each is a little harder.

Or, simply we might comprehend that one a person can be a splendid individual and a integral part of a group simultaneously. The external differences are irrelevant.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. This is one commands more attention than others because someone is setting boundaries, making a test case and suing.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Totally insane attitude of the Kaifukan School. I really hope she wins the sue but by all means 2.2 million yen compensation is not enough.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

To Marcelito

This kind of story should be picked by the foreign media to shame these twits into changing their archaic rules that are only in place because some other geriatric oyajis came up with them a few decades ago.

No worries. Covered by the BBC news. And I'm really hoping EVERYONE reads it. I'd post it on my facebook, but I'd be ashamed to tell people that I accept to live in this kind of place!

Shame.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Happened to my wife's niece in junior high 10 years ago.

She had dyed her hair (dark brown from black) in summer vacation, and she was forced to re-dye her hair black at school by her psycho homeroom teacher. No contact with the parents at all. School supplied the dye and pyscho man supervised her doing it. Something out of Mein Kampf.

She had her revenge by shaving her eyebrows that night and continued to do so for a few months. Teacher went ape, but no rule about no eybrows. Heh, Heh!

13 ( +14 / -1 )

clearly a system that destroys people's humanity and judgement. knock all the schools down and start over.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

@sourpuss

I agree that every story does indeed have two sides, but if you read the article carefully you'll notice that what the lawsuit is complaining about is the refusal by the school to accept the quality of the dye job. If the real dispute here was (as you speculate) that the school simply disbelieved the mother and daughter about the natural hair colour, I would have expected this to be the main focus of the lawsuit (and for Reuters to report it). The fact that it doesn't seem to be mentioned in the lawsuit suggests that there was no dispute about her natural hair color being brown. Of course we might be getting incomplete or erroneous information.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

I’ve seen this happen, in a staff room, where teachers have used a can of spray dye to colour a students hair. At the time I said in Japan, ‘What are you doing, stop. That isn’t right.’ I was told about the rules, and etc, etc. Yet, well this student had naturally lighter hair. It’s the 21st Century. This nonsense needs to STOP. 70 years ago.

14 ( +15 / -1 )

On the day my daughter started high school, after the Nyugakushiki all the mothers were asked to gather in the classroom so the the teacher could 'orientate' us, i.e. give us a pile of instructions of what our kids were and were not allowed to do. One of the 'not allowed's was dyeing/perming the hair, and we were warned that any student with brown and/or wavy hair would be 'disciplined'.

I pointed out that my daughter had naturally chestnut hair with a definite curl to it, and that any attempt to 'discipline' her for what she was born with would not be taken lightly by her parents. She was never 'disciplined'.

The head teacher at Kaifukan School and the members of the Osaka BoE responsible for allowing these stupid rules to be put in place need to be fired, after they have been given a good hard slap up the back of the head.

26 ( +28 / -2 )

 so they forced her to break one rule in order for her not to break another rule? confused yet?

"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Obey your father. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. What if your father despises the king? What If the king massacres the innocent?"

-- Jamie Lanister

4 ( +4 / -0 )

You can't choose the colour of your hair when your born its natural, how blinking stupid can you get? making some one dye there hair to conform, just stupid. it would be nice if some one told the governent/education officials of the school and the Blinkered morons who imposed this silly rule that were in the 21 century

7 ( +7 / -0 )

You all just don't get it:

Japanese have black hair. End of story.

Next!

-7 ( +6 / -13 )

@marcelito

Thanks, I just had a look. Wow. Apparently the school did accept that her hair was naturally brown and were making her dye it black every four days. Absolutely horrible.

10 ( +10 / -0 )

As usual, 'liberal' Western readers overreact to a trivial news story about a nothing lawsuit in the middle of nowhere. Look at this form the school's point of view. The girl must have appeared to be fully Japanese in every other aspect of her appearance, except for her hair. It probably looked like she was dying her hair for fashion purposes, something forbidden by the school's rules. You can't let one person flaunt the rules and expect everyone else to abide by them. Rules are for everyone.

If it turns out that this girl is of mixed parentage and they proved her hair color is brown, then the school should apologize and pay her compensation. But to all those preachers on your moral high ground, remember that this isn't NY City. It's Japan. The rules in one place don't necessarily apply to another.

There's a lot we don't know here. Did the school ask for evidence of her lineage, ie a birth certificate? If so, did she refuse to provide it, leaving the school no other option? We simply don't know. Stop judging until the facts are made public.

-30 ( +0 / -30 )

Kandyman, or reincarnation of SS agent (sure he does not even know what system it was).

Be Japanese or be not.

Dye or die !

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Look at this form the school's point of view. The girl must have appeared to be fully Japanese in every other aspect of her appearance, except for her hair.

And the onus should be on the school to prove that the color is not natural. For that matter, they should bear the onus of justifying this restriction on individuality. We are not talking a certain practice involving puncturing skin and pouring ink into the punctures. If the guy feels better with blond hair, is well behaved, and will be blond during his entire stay with the school (thus making him easy to identify) ... well, why not? Who cares if it was a natural hair color?

2 ( +4 / -2 )

You can't let one person flaunt the rules 

Except she wasn't flaunting any rules.

If it turns out that this girl is of mixed parentage...

...it makes no difference whatsoever. Lots of 'pure' Japanese have hair that is not jet black. And in any case what business is it of the school to decide what a Japanese person should look like?

17 ( +17 / -0 )

.it makes no difference whatsoever. 

Yes it does. Because Japanese have black hair. End of story.

Half Japanese ain't Japanese. Japanese are pure.

That is the point here. And never forget it.

(BTW I don't agree with this. But that is what the racist in Japan think. And that was the point of my post above. It sad that some lack, uhm, nuance....)

3 ( +7 / -4 )

Up to 90% of Japanese kids are nearsighted. Should schools force the lucky 10% or so to wear glasses, to 'fit in'?

If schools are allowed to determine what a Japanese should look like, and force physical changes on those who have the temerity to be genetically non-conformist, what are these schools going to do about other 'non-Japanese' physical characteristics, such as bustiness? Big nose? Tallness? Forced breast reduction? Rhinoplasty? Surgically remove the shins and reattach the feet to the knees?

Ridiculous, I agree. Just a bit further along the line from forcing a girl to dye her hair to look the same as everyone else.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

She absolutely SHOULD sue. She won't win, but hopefully the schools and BOE and to a larger extent society will realize the stupidity of trying to force conformity, and in this case literally against nature, is a lost cause and harmful.

This will be the verdict:

Judge: We find Osaka Prefecture not guilty, but we recognize that the school was wrong to force the girl to die her hair repeatedly, and hope such unfortunate incidents will not be repeated. As such, for the years of pain and suffering, the prefecture is to pay her 10,000 yen in damages.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

I read this article with my students and when asked what he would do, if he were head of this school he commented:

"I wouldn't care about hair color. I would just want the students to focus on their stuff"

This kid should be principal!

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Truly appalling, and a new height of idiocy as Japanese bureaucrats move one step toward eugenics. Why don’t they measure students' skulls too, just to confirm how Japanese they are?

I’m also wondering what they’d say to students of mixed race ... are they gonna ask them to change eye color too?

And how can they even say this with a straight face: “School staff told her mother they would even ask foreign exchange students with blond hair to comply. ” You also have to break one school rule (no dyeing of hair) in order to enforce another (everyone must have black hair).

It reminds me of when students at the prestigious Kyoto university I worked at came back from their year abroad. All the girls with brown hair had to dye their hair back to black in order to go job hunting. We can never be identical enough!

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Perhaps she, and the rest of her Family should have shaved their hair off in protest, and advised the school that they'd discovered a very infectious form of hair lice which necessitated that drastic action... suggesting also that the rest of the School follow suite.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

One of my former Japanese (wajin) colleagues told me once that his sister once came home from school in tears. This must have a been a few decades ago. My colleague and I guess his sister have naturally wavy hair. In fact, it borders on curly. She was told to 'get rid of the perm'. The Japanese might like to think the population is homogenous (are you listening, Aso?), but just because they all have yellow skin does not mean it's true. As an island nation, there have been waves of migration, and possibly from the south, hence why some Japanese do have wavy hair.

I personally think Asians who have dyed their dark hair to light brown or blond look really cheap. But you can't alter mother nature. I've met Japanese who could pass off as South East Asian just by appearances. Are they going to tell them to lighten their skins? There are plenty who don't look like the typical wajin. I hate to think how Hirai Ken was treated at school.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Uh-oh, Japan, this story is now trending on BBC World. I know you don't like the bad foreign press, better start cooking up some excuses!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

The educators of this school are way off base messing around with discriminatory rules and are actually doing the bullying. They are guilty of causing stress which can cause trauma lasting a life time and responsible for the young woman not attending school. The court had better take this case very seriously.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

So let me get this straight.

Bullies who hurt people and ruin their lives are not banned from schools because those poor little souls would have nowhere else to go. But a young teenage girl who has done nothing wrong except have naturally brown hair gets threatened to be expelled.

Un f*believable.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

That girl needs to ask for a lot more than 2.2 million.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Perhaps those rules were made to purge a certain group from "another era". Those people who are to execute the rules now never take into consideration the reality that some could have been born with colors other than black. As the other posters say, Jpeople have black hair colors but there are exemptions to the rule knowing that there were intermarriages with foreigners centuries ago and in recent times. Rules have no minds and feelings. It is to those who would interpret and execute them that makes them just and fair. Sometimes those responsible for interpretation and execution of rules are bigoted and narrow minded making the rule obsolete and shameful.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The family should be claiming for Y100,000,000, not a paltry Y2,200,000.

If the school "rule" is that hair cannot be dyed the school cannot then insist that non-black hair be dyed. If the idiot teachers cannot understand their own "rules" I'd be worried about what other nonsense they are teaching the children.

Insisting that all the children have black hair is like insisting they all have olive skin. Should white children be forced to "black up" and black children be made to bleach their skin in order for everyone to have the same skin colour? Such an idea is ridiculous and offensive, and insisting everyone have black hair is no different.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Kandyman:

 You can't let one person flaunt the rules and expect everyone else to abide by them.

Nobody is flaunting anything. I think the word you're looking for is "flout".

And the poor girl wasn't flouting the rules either - she was following them by not dying her hair. Until the halfwit martinets who run the school insisted she break the rules by dying her hair so that she could look like their idealised image of a eugenically-pureblooded Japanese.

I hope the girl takes these morons to the cleaners.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

As a teacher here, I noticed that there are some students who naturally have dark brown hair, and I see some with slightly wavey hair too. Not all Japanese have straight black hair.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

My Japanese husband has naturally curly hair, as does his 90-year-old mother. Fortunately when he was a student school officials were more concerned about the kids having enough food to eat and such, and he never got any grief about his curls.

I hope this girl wins. I’ve always considered these kinds of regulations to be gross violations of human rights. The sooner we see the last of them the better.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Japanese school should pay attention to bullying instead of hair color. Teachers and administrators are not interested in imparting knowledge as long as students are wearing correct uniforms and HAIR COLOR (are you serious?)

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Whatever happens, this won't be the end of this outrageous practice.

My eldest is 12 and goes to JHS next year. I hope that this incident can mark the start of resistance to this kind of institutionalized racism in schools. It is simple racism to assume every student at a Japanese school must have straight black hair.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

daito_hakOct. 27 10:05 pm JSTI understand that there are a lot of Japan apologists out there who can’t accept even the beginning of a critical point of view about Japan.

No you're wrong. You assume that anyone who supports any aspect of "Japan" supports all aspects. This exposes your view biased view more than any of these "apologists" you speak of. This article is about a blatantly absurd incident, a twisted application of a school rule which makes no sense and needs to be changed from the top down. While I suspect that the purpose was originally to curb the rampant hair dyeing practice among students we saw over the last decade or so, clearly it is being misapplied to the point of physical discrimination. If many schools are guilty of this then the matter should become an Education Ministry problem.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

So a school who bans hair coloring is forcing a student to color her hair....hmm. Maybe the school should create a new policy: No foreigner hair allowed.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Talk about bullying and harassment! She should put in a Human Rights complaint!

4 ( +4 / -0 )

I seem to be unable to give my input from time to time, but since I am allowed to now...

This is a very demented crime - if before they were enforcing proper behaviour and lack of any attention-seeking attire and colour, now they are punishing people for being born with natural colours? I am strongly doubting the fact that I am conscious as of the moment, for my comprehension is struggling to accept this article as real. But I guess there is always a new low.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It appears there are many differences between the cultures of differing countries. Behavior that to us in the West seems absurd, is apparently the norm in other places. I find many things about Japan, and the Orient, admirable, but I do not understand how this latest example of Japanese culture makes any sense.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The girl must have appeared to be fully Japanese in every other aspect of her appearance, except for her hair. It probably looked like she was dying her hair for fashion purposes, something forbidden by the school's rules. You can't let one person flaunt the rules and expect everyone else to abide by them. Rules are for everyone.

As anyone who has spent enough time in Japan will know, non-black hair is natural in Japan - it tends to be a dark chestnut colour. I have seen it most commonly among the young and presumed it grew out at the point of puberty, although on reflection, this might be the point at which they start dyeing it.

There is no evidence that she has been dyeing it brown, and really would you begin legal action against the local BOE if you had really been dyeing it all along? This falsehood would be uncovered in court immediately through the examination of a hair sample.

This school could also have seen that her hair never had black roots. Had they seem black roots, there would be no case.

All logic sits with the girl, but you prefer to believe that she is lying and flaunting school rules, when there is no evidence that she has.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

My daughter had to do the same thing. They should have revolted and shaved their heads!

I guess if their eyes aren't dark brown and it were practical they would force them to wear brown contact lenses as well.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

My daughter, Japanese Italian American who has beautiful Italian brown, very wavy, and long hair. I came home from work one day to see her with straight black hair. I asked her about it and she got tired of teachers harassing her about her hair. So, breaking school rules, she dyed it black and straightened it and no long had the problem. Boy was I pissed! But the wife wouldn't let me discuss it with the school in fear that the teachers would bully her. Welcome to Japan!

You must be a very calm guy. My daughter is also Japanese Italian-American and I would go ballistic if this happened to her.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

this is so common. Same exact thing happened to my friend (hald Japanese). Most third world developing nations aren't as backwards as Japan when it comes to ethnic issues like this.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

And the first thing high school students do when they leave school is .......dye their hair!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Welcome to Japan: Do not be yourself.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Not all Japanese have straight black hair. yes the majority of the population know this and science can prove it but when your constantly brainwashed into conforming into something that your mentally or physically not it does have a way of changing people.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Japan and its rules, I once went to a pool in Japan and the #1 rule was everybody had to wear a swimming cap to stop hair clogging the filters, so they said. I have short hair6mm crew cut and jokingly said if I shave my head completely would I still require to wear a cap, not amused the staff said yes you still need to wear a cap, you know to stop my bald head clogging the filters. LOL

2 ( +2 / -0 )

She should put in a Human Rights complaint! even if she won it wouldn't make any difference, Japan would just roll out the big impregnable ball of excuses that trumps all criticism, called "Culture"

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Jpeople have black hair colors but there are exemptions to the rule knowing that there were intermarriages with foreigners centuries ago and in recent times. 

and

If it turns out that this girl is of mixed parentage and they proved her hair color is brown, then the school should apologize and pay her compensation.

Plenty of people seemingly unaware that it is not unusual for Japanese people to have hair that is not black. Not necessarily anything to do with 'mixed' or 'foreign' heritage, except to the extent that all modern Japanese (except possibly Ainu) are descended from immigrants from continental Asia and the Pacific.

Madame East had exactly this problem at her school in rural Japan some decades ago. But the school accepted a written message from her parents confirming that no chemical dyestuffs had been deployed.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

My girlfriend is completely Japanese - parents & grandparents & great granparents

Yet she has very light brown hair and very green eyes, though otherwise looks like a normal Japanese girl.

Thankfully, she never had problems with this kind of nonsense in her school days. I feel sorry for anyone who is a victim of such idiocy. You should never be forced to alter your natural physical traits to simply get a compulsory education.

The fact that this was a public school, not a private one, makes this behavior particularly disgraceful.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

This is so sad and lacks humanity towards natural individuality.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Hope the girl and mother win this case for the sake of so many discriminated and harassed students by the rotten system!

My Japanese wife has dark brown-red hair. She's been bullied by classmates but not the school as far as I know.

My daughter has even lighter brown and very thin hair. Luckily she is in high-school that even allows dying hair in all colors for their culture festival! She wanted to bleach and her classmates do it but we strongly oppose it because it might damage her weaker hear. And now she is doing even hair-modelling so being different is not always bad in Japan!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Nobody on this thred has considered that maybe, just maybe, the girl has been dying her hair brown on weekends, and that the school is telling her to dye it back to the way it was before she dyed it brown in order to conform with school rules that were in place before the girl possibly dyed her hair brown.

It says the article that the girl did dye her hair black in order to comply with the requirements, however, she got scalp irritation, hence, she couldn't have been dyeing her hair brown if she is sensitive to the chemicals used to dye your hair.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@cleo

what are these schools going to do about other 'non-Japanese' physical characteristics,

Maybe they'll force students to wear braces to have crooked teeth

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Let a school tell my child to dye their hair or else. Things won't go so easy.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

No school - no authority of any kind - should ever tell a child they are not acceptable as they are born.

This is not a question of culture. This is basic respect for humanity.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

My daughter has even lighter brown and very thin hair. Luckily she is in high-school that even allows dying hair in all colors for their culture festival! She wanted to bleach and her classmates do it but we strongly oppose it because it might damage her weaker hear. And now she is doing even hair-modelling so being different is not always bad in Japan!

I've worked at high schools in Japan for the last 14 years, and the most liberal public high schools I've worked at have always been in Osaka, where I've taught for the last seven years. At the three public high schools I've worked at in Osaka, none of them required uniforms, and all allowed hair dying. One allowed extreme hair dying (shocking pink, for example), the other two were fine with it, as long as it wasn't too extreme (tinting, blond streaks, and other normal types of color changes are fine, for example). However, I guess that's just been the schools I've worked at (the more academic the school, the more liberal the rules were).

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Can you imagine if that happened in another country, like Sweden for example... banning anyone without blonde hair.

Next they'll be forcing any kids with natural amber coloured eyes to wear contacts to make their eyes darker.

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I only hope that the news evokes awareness on how health and identity of the youth should be protected. - That is my short response. Now, please feel free to read my longer story.

There are many Japanese who are born with very light hair and eyes. My son is one of them, so much that he's often mistaken to have white relatives.

 

But everyone understood, and schools always let students like him surrender notes from parents so that they will be allowed to wear their hair in their natural color. Same goes with natural curls.

 

Then a few days before his high school graduation, my son brought home a note telling him to dye his hair black. The reason was because "parents might be stunned when they see different hair color at the graduation ceremony".

 

In the 18 years of his life, I'd never been so shocked. His 18 years had been that well, and this incident was that idiotic, and puzzling at the same time. This was a rare occasion that I phoned his teacher telling him we cannot respond. The teacher asked why, I explained, and thankfully we didn't have to dye his hair. I knew the teacher will always understand. Simple as that.

 

At the final PTA assembly, I let it all out to fellow moms who were equally considerate. Then as the meeting began, the head parent started a lecture on how it was important for "the Japanese" to have "beautiful black hair", and everyone on the board followed suit including the schoolmaster. I figured this was what had happened all of the sudden after 18 years of understanding including the 3 years at this high school.

 

So again, I only hope that people around the world including Japan acknowledge that Japanese hair is not always black or straight by birth. And if people are "stunned" by that, let them learn something new.

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There is a petition you can sign:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_government_of_Osaka_Masahiko_Takahashi_head_of_Kaifukan_School_Stop_forcing_Japanese_students_to_dye_their_hair/

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