Bonsaiii comments

I read the article and pretty much all the comments, and I must say some of the comments are rather opinionated. Japan are hardly a perfect country, NEVER WAS and NEVER WILL BE. Same goes for everywhere else. I personally think westerners have always had a negative image of Japanese and their country. And I don't think that will ever change. Westerners, especially American and Canadians are the most verbally opinionated people on the planet. The feeling of superior complex, I will not take sh*t from anyone are well documented.

I am a Asian woman living in Toronto (Canada), stands at 5"8. I have been in Toronto all my life, born and raised in Toronto and if anyone think Toronto is a safe utopia they're 100% WRONG. When was the last time you heard news of someone getting shoot at a shopping Mall in Tokyo? It's happened last summer inside the Eaton centre, this sort of thing happened all the time in Toronto. There were 54 homicides in 2012 in Toronto, that's pretty high for a city of over 3 million people.

Toronto by far are the most racist and discriminatory city in Canada, if not in North America. Any western woman ever been insulted in Japan before because of their look and color of their skin? I'm curious? I guess having a white male coming up to me and said you're very tall for an Asian woman isn't insulting right? As all Asians are suppose to be short to begin with. If only I could cash in the amount of time I was insulted growing in Toronto because of how my slang eyes and Asian looks didn't match the blonde hair and blue eyes they were looking for.

I've stalked, harassed, and been approach my white men asking for my phone # on subway many times. They think all Asian women are easy to get and easy to toy with. It's insulting. How if an Asian woman have a white male as a boyfriends, for some mysterious reason it's because ASIAN WOMEN LOVES WHITE MEN. This is one of the reason why I have never gone out on a date with white man, it's degenerating to me as a woman when a white man approach me and everyone thinks I'm the one chasing after him.

There also the fact that white men likes to talk bad about Asian men in general if they have Asian girlfriend. Which are outright disgraceful and disgusting to me. Asian in Canada are not treated with respect, they're viewed as inferiors people. There was this article by Maclean magazine a few years ago about Canadian Universities having too many Asians and therefore white kids don't want to go there. Needless to say the Asians were very upset about it.

http://www.straight.com/news/henry-yu-macleans-offers-nonapology-writing-nonstory-called-too-asian

My hearts goes out to all the western women in Japan, but if you were white women living in Toronto do you think you're have the same problems as a Asian women? Lucky for you because racism isn't a crime in Toronto, we Asian obviously can't report this to the police and tell them that someone verbally insulted us because of how we look

I'm studying Japanese now and can't way until I come to Japan, I visit Japan twice already and plans to stay much longer the third time. I have been groper once on the subway in my first visit, but for some reason I didn't feel like I was insulted the same way when white kid called me CHINK or A GOOK, that kind a pain last a life time. I pushed the Japanese away and told him to stay away, and he did. So it wasn't all bad.

I think western women who came to Japan never experiences racism and discrimination back at home expected they should be treated the same way. And if one bad thing happened on a Tokyo subway ride it's became a violation of rights, and they go home and never want to deal with that again.

Hope to meet some on you gals in the future. take care.

I just found this article so I'm a year too late.

@napoleancomplexFeb. 09, 2012 - 07:43AM JST

***Shima-guni syndrome?

In a nutshell.. no immigration.

99.9% of the people are Japanese so dealing with foreigners for most is a rarity. I would believe that many have no idea how to deal with a foreigner in their midst, not in a mean way.. but more so of language/cultural barriers and possibly just ignorance (which is kinda mean..). I've been in several situations when I lived over there when I was the only non-japanese person in a group and people were freaking out if I could understand what was going on, if I knew how to use chopsticks, if I was okay with sitting on the floor.. stupid things, complete nonsense and an almost childlike innocence from them. Annoying as hell but I accepted it.

Compare that with Canada (where I am from and living now) and almost nobody thinks anything of you if you're not white. At first glance, most people would assume you are Canadian.. even if you're white, black, asian, brown, purple, whatever. Hell, even if you spoke with an accent it wouldn't make a difference."***

As an Asian living in Canada(Toronto) all my life, you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE SAYING DO YOU? Telling everyone on this site that Canada is a wonderful country is a a outright LIE. Canada is a wonderful if YOU'RE WHITE. Do you have any idea how RACIST TORONTO IS? Toronto by far is one of the most racist city in the world, not to mention dirty and smelly, do you know what happened in Toronto in the summer of 2009 for 6 weeks?

Ever heard of the Macleans article called "Too Many Asians"? It's not something you would proudly want to tell your Japanese friends about.

http://www.straight.com/news/henry-yu-macleans-offers-nonapology-writing-nonstory-called-too-asian

AND NO, MOST white people in Canada do not assume you're Canadian, even if you're if you're ASIAN, BLACK and BROWN, that's a outright LIE buddy. MOST White people in Canada think ALL ASIAN LOOK ALIKE, and MOST Asians are Chinese. They also think that most Asians can't speak English. Sorry to spoil the truth, but ASIANS are second class people in Canada. That's the damn truth and you can take that to the bank. Give me a million bucks you'll never see me in Canada for another day.

Now, regarding the article, not much of an article to begin with. All I see are westerners complaining about Japanese. The truth is westerners should be really complaining about themselves. Yes, it's not a lies to say most westerners that comes to Japan DON"T SPEAK Japanese. How do you expect Japanese to talk to you if you don't even bother to learn the local language? And NO learning how to say "Konnichiwa" and "ME NO Americanjin" does not mean you can speak Japanese.

This is some garbage double standards westerner have about Japanese. They're expecting to be treated like GOD, in a foreign land, when they don't even both to learn the language or know about the cultures. Then cry about in Japan Today.

Do the Japanese a favor and GET OUT OF JAPAN.