It's interesting to me to discuss how various societies treat people who are different -- who think or act differently.
By comparing Japan to other cultures I think we can say something about the thread topic, as well as Macoleco's personal interest in moving here.
There is a lot of prejudice in Japan. Bullying is a huge problem in schools. I'm sure there are still many gay people who are closeted, who would like to be free.
We could compare all of this with what we've experienced in our own cultures.
One of the horrifying things about bullying in Japan is what the bullies say. Every year some poor kid gets bullied and commits suicide, and when the news interviews his classmates there's one kid who says, hey, the world is tough, if you can't take it you should check out now.
This to me is horrible, barbaric. It's also common on forums like this one, in which the self-appointed conformity enforcers are willing to say about anything to those who diverge from the forum consensus.
Since I'm not in a high school or involved with the Yakuza's activities at all, I never experience tough guy enforcers. No doubt there are people who find me distasteful just because I'm foreign, but no one has ever threatened violence over it. Likewise the many memoirs of gay foreigners who settled in Japan after the war. Donald Keene, Edward Seidensticker, and other important figures in the literary scene, as well as businessmen like the uncle in the nonfiction book The Hare With Amber Eyes, found Tokyo safer and more accepting of gay men than the US was.
To be clear, these people often remained closeted in their offices or universities, but they never felt the threat of random violence from self-appointed conformity-enforcers when they were out on the town, in the gay districts or clubs or movie theaters.
In my own case, I have experienced more random insults from Americans in my Kansas hometown than from all of Japan.
Without claiming perfection for any group, the comparison of how different cultures do or do not reward sociopathy would be an interesting topic.
By comparing Japan to other cultures I think we can say something about the thread topic, as well as Macoleco's personal interest in moving here.
There is a lot of prejudice in Japan. Bullying is a huge problem in schools. I'm sure there are still many gay people who are closeted, who would like to be free.
We could compare all of this with what we've experienced in our own cultures.
One of the horrifying things about bullying in Japan is what the bullies say. Every year some poor kid gets bullied and commits suicide, and when the news interviews his classmates there's one kid who says, hey, the world is tough, if you can't take it you should check out now.
This to me is horrible, barbaric. It's also common on forums like this one, in which the self-appointed conformity enforcers are willing to say about anything to those who diverge from the forum consensus.
Since I'm not in a high school or involved with the Yakuza's activities at all, I never experience tough guy enforcers. No doubt there are people who find me distasteful just because I'm foreign, but no one has ever threatened violence over it. Likewise the many memoirs of gay foreigners who settled in Japan after the war. Donald Keene, Edward Seidensticker, and other important figures in the literary scene, as well as businessmen like the uncle in the nonfiction book The Hare With Amber Eyes, found Tokyo safer and more accepting of gay men than the US was.
To be clear, these people often remained closeted in their offices or universities, but they never felt the threat of random violence from self-appointed conformity-enforcers when they were out on the town, in the gay districts or clubs or movie theaters.
In my own case, I have experienced more random insults from Americans in my Kansas hometown than from all of Japan.
Without claiming perfection for any group, the comparison of how different cultures do or do not reward sociopathy would be an interesting topic.
