Xenophobic Japan

I wasn't surprised to see this item in Japan Today:

Discrimination in Japan is "deep and profound," with government leaders lacking recognition of the depth of the problem and the public having a "strong xenophobic drive," a U.N. special rapporteur said Monday in wrapping up a nine-day visit in Japan.

Here are some reactions by some Japanese people, also from Japan Today.

Consider that second and third generation Chinese and Koreans, who were born and raised in Japan and only speka Japanese, can't get Japanese passports. There are a lot of other subtler forms of racism. Also consider that a publishing company recently re-relased the "Little Black Sambo" stroybook and it has become a best seller, and the pulbisher doesn't see anything wrong with the book-which is nostaligic for the middle aged in the population.

I don't want to dwell on it, but as I said, the report doesn't really comes as any surprise to me, in a country in which citizenship is based on ethnicity.

Comments

[Edward]

I was going to ask about golliwogs - I had associated them with Rupert Bear, but after a quick check it seems it was in Noddy that they were presented as criminals. Apparently they've re-drawn the pictures with goblins for more recent editions. What an enlightened world we live in.

[MC]

I have no idea what you are talking aobut.

[Edward]

Really!? Golliwogs were caricatures of blacks (I think they were actually dolls), and Noddy (a character in a popular childrens books by Enid Blyton - Noddy has a big blue hat with a bell on top, and his friend is 'Big Ears'), used to have trouble with these particular golliwogs, who were always causing trouble - stealing things/robbing people - that sort of thing. This was pretty obvious racism, so in more recent additions the golliwogs have been replaced by other characters (e.g. goblins). I only mention them because this sambo book sounds really tame compared to the Noddy books of old - but of course they don't get printed in the old format anymore.