Written in 2003, while I was still a bit bitter about the Japanese - please excuse!

So yeah, Japan. That place that any self-respecting otaku wants to go. Yeah, by all means learn Japanese. Just don't learn it from Dragonball Z. People don't really talk like that.

Ever stopped to think how hard it is living out here? No? Let me give you maybe a small explanation, then maybe you'll think twice before trying to extend your .hack collection, and seducing some skinny Japanese girl.

You may be completeley fluent at Japanese, but the countless people who don't want you to be will still ignore you, and pretend that what just came out of your mouth is an unintelligable load of gubbins that is only fit to be shouted "NO ENGLISH!" at along with the crossing their arms movement at your face. Even if you understand what they say, they'll ignore what you asked for anyways.

Let me explain that word. 'Gaijin'.
If you come to Japan, this word will haunt your ears until the day you leave. It was [despite claims to the contrary] not contrived from 'Gaikokujin', which means "Person from a country that isn't Japan and is not exactly known" , but instead it was developed seperately to mean "Outside Person". An Undesirable. Someone who shouldn't be there. In practical usage this can mean anything from the person who is bullied at high school, to the person who isn't part of the company you are workign at. Any Japanese person who is as polite as they have professed to be [and Japanese people love to tell you how polite they are] will definately use 'Gaikokujin' instead of 'Gaijin'. Anyone that insists on using Gaijin, is ruder than [my Okaasan] was.

So first, you're a gaijin. You will not look Japanese, no matter how long you live here. Your face, body structure and language isn't right. You immediately stand out on a train, bus or walking down the street. You can be minding your own business and some people will feel like it's their right to point, laugh, tell their friends that you are there, or even blatantly stare at your face, sometimes a little more than two feet away. You are so immediately different that it's going to happen anywhere. There is no way of looking Japanese, and no matter how many years, you'll only ever become indifferent to it, not immune. You can never 'become' Japanese. Especially if all you can find to wear is some half-naked children's TV show shirt.

I'm not trying to say that racism is only here, but when a Japanese person goes to America or England for example, then they do not stand out. There's nothing that makes you able to say "Yes, they are from Japan", as a lot of people now have mixed race backgrounds. No-one is going to point at the person who looks different and tell their friends. Chances are this different person can speak English, and knows exactly what you are talking about. The same goes for Japan I'm afraid. I know what these people are saying, I can tell when they are pointing to me and telling their friends that "the train is full of outsiders". It's not big, it's not clever, and certainly not polite.

It took me maybe two weeks, if that, to learn the word gaijin. Having had schoolkids shout it at me in the street, seen the staring and pointing. Now, it's still annoying [6 months into my stay] but at least I know what kind of person they must be to do it in such a nasty and blatant way. I've tried educating people, correcting them when they say it b strenuating that they should say "gaiKOKUjin", but it doesn't go through. Chances are they've been saying it all their lives, and will continue to do so.

Picture the scene. Only this afternoon on the train, people were staring at me and my three friends on the train. We've made a new game because of the frequency of this. We call it "Densha Jiro Jiro" which means Train staring. Now, I know we may not be helping the situation, but here's how it works...

When you can see from the corner of your eye, or from simply looking around, a person who is staring at you across the train, do not do the usual, human response to this, and look away, but stare back. Stare right at this person who is looking at you, and more than likeley, their paper will all of a sudden become very interesting.

It really does. They can no longer stare at this apparently once interesting person sat opposite them, but now they have to stare at their paper. Where they should have been looking in the first place instead of looking at you as if this will make you disappear. Maybe they should have learned by now that it won't.

There are some people out there who know you're more than a gaijin; that you're more than a weird foreigner in their country. Occasionally someone will say hello, or smile and your life will be brighter for a while. Until the next person stares at you from their car. The worst thing about this, is there is nothing you can do about it.

Japan is a great place to visit. It's [in my opinion] not a great place to live. The children mock you openly and the grownups do nothing to stop this. The old people stare at you like you're slaughtering a goat right there in front of you. The adolescents are small-brained and easily pleased and the females, females want to date gaijin because of a very few, easy reasons;

"I want to have a big house, and three cars and gun. You have gun, right?"

This is the actual reason [more or less word for word] that one girl gave for dating Gaijin. Me and my friends coudln't believe that one of the reasons she gave was because of a gun. I, for one, would much rather live somewhere like Japan where the only guns are carried by the police [although I feel that is unneccessary] than feel like I have to date people so I can have a gun. I just hope that she gets her wish, and spends the rest of her life in misery with some gaijin, her last days spent clutching her Luis Vuitton bag, rocking backwards and forwards in the corner of her room. Just before she picks up that gun, the thing she sold her insanity to, to do the last good deed with her life.