Trigger 3: Human Nature is cyclical
For Trigger 1, click here. Identity. Terminated
For Trigger 2, click here. False Idolisation
I no longer believe that humans are evolving. We cycle through phases. There are basic instincts, embedded in our biology, triggered by our environment, which will render true evolution in human nature an impossibility. Education can moderate these impulses but nothing will eradicate them.
The following anecdote may sound racist but it is not intended to be. It involves race specification because the recollections can not proceed without actually stating the common denominator. If anyone has any suggestions on how I can better broach this topic, please let me know.
Expat Life in Japan as an Australian Asian Woman
Living in Japan and working with foreigners as well as with the Japanese, I can vouch that human nature has remained stagnant.
There are dominant natures which will never cease to be dominant irrespective of where they are.
Growing up as a minority in Australia, I assumed that the dominance of the majority group, white Australians, was concomitant with subsuming a greater demographic balance.
It makes sense to cater to the majority rather than the minority group. As politically incorrect as this may sound, every minority group will concede that things will never truly be equal between the races and they will accept that.
The Western Community in Japan
The most populous group in the English teaching industry are white western men. Western Asians and Blacks are few and far between. Western women are anomalies as well.
Western educated people will usually resort to all the standard bearings of dominant characteristics irrespective of where they are, however, this is especially pronounced if they are white western people. Even though Japan is a sovereign nation with its own culture, language, customs and rules, Western people will insist that their version of reality is correct.
The Benign Things……
The following snippets are conversations held with other foreign friends or English teachers, either socially or in staff rooms.
The Canadian:
Many years ago, a young Canadian coworker went to a local bakery and bought a croissant. Japan has seasonal items which means the food will change according to the months. This particular season saw a bumper harvest of sweet potatoes which naturally made its way into this croissant.
When my coworker took a bite during lunch time, she screamed ‘oh yuck! This is an abomination…..This is meant to be a croissant not a Japanese freak cake!!!!’ She literally threw it away because she was that livid.
What I do not understand is, why our bastardisation of their non existent ‘California Roll’ is perfectly okay, but putting a twist on the croissant is tantamount to a criminal offence?
The American:
A very congenial American lady with a comforting voice and warm nature came to delight us with her presence. Even though she moonlighted as an English teacher, she was professionally known as a ‘Life Coach’.
One day at her house, I asked her why she came to Japan. She told me she had a mission. She wanted to ‘liberate’ Japanese women from their patriarchal society by teaching them the ‘right’ way to think……..little did she know that women in Japan hold the purse strings and take the full pay check of their husbands and give him a stipend. They also hold full autonomy on their children’s education, place of abode and even mandate a healthy weight range for their spouse.
Whether you agree with this Japanese spousal arrangement or not, is irrelevant. The Japanese have their own way of living, is it within our jurisdiction to dictate what is and is not good for them?
The Australian:
One day, a small group of us teachers were having a chat in the staff room. Somehow we got talking about the hustlers in Japan who work for the brothels. The young Australian guy told us very proudly that he was accosted by one of these hustlers late at night and he retorted “I am white. I don’t ever have to pay for sex here!”
Another Canadian:
I was talking to my friend about life in Japan, when he proclaimed that as a white man, he was at the ‘top of the food chain’.
How could I explain to him, that whenever I take over private English lesson students from the ‘top food chainers’ I double their asking rate and get it. I’m a petite Australian Asian women…….that doesn’t compute right?
How could I explain to him, that a Japanese man who earns less than him upon graduating university, will out earn him twice or 3 times over by the time they hit 40?
How could I explain to him, that the Japanese women who white men end up with, arouses no jealousy from Japanese men. Why? Because the great majority of those Japanese women who date foreign men, do not appeal to Japanese men either in temperament or looks. Beauty ideals are not uniform.
What food chain are white men talking about?
Another American:
‘It’s so hard to be a good Christian in Japan’, said my co worker to me on the train. I asked him why. He replied, ‘Imagine if you were a guy and you could have any woman you wanted, what would you do?’
I said ‘What are you talking about, you can’t get every woman you want here, most would reject you.’ He then said, ‘Oh you know what I mean….’
No, I don’t know what he means. Put it this way, in the 2 decades I have been in Japan, I have arranged blind dates for my Japanese friends and students. Whenever I ask them, are they okay to meet foreign men, over 50% would say okay, but they prefer Japanese men.
The reason why the foreign men here think “all” the women are pining after them is because the ones they get, are the ones who want to date foreign men. This does not in anyway mean, that the majority of Japanese women or Asian women generally, want to date foreign men over Asian men. This is a topic I will make a separate blog post on, as it is very detailed.
All the Non Asian looking foreign community: The common complaints
The Japanese won’t sit next to us on public transport.
The Japanese keep staring at us. To them, even a normal white person is very good looking.
I hate it when they say ‘you speak Japanese very well’.
I hate it when they ask us if we know how to use chopsticks.
They can’t tell us apart…..apparently all white people look the same to them.
They are so racist! We are already over that back home!!! (All the Asian and Black foreigners look at each other with stunned muted expressions)
They think we are all American!
Perception. Misunderstood
Most, and this not hyperbole, of the western men I know in Japan assume a birth right to the women.
What’s worse is that they denigrate Japanese men on a fallacious self perceived superiority. Most will not admit to this sober, but it all comes out when they are inebriated.
The most common points of belittlement include the size of the male appendage. FYI, I have been to a lot of spas in Europe where both genders are nude together. I can tell you emphatically, European men range from tiny to huge, just like Asian men. Another point is the Japanese man’s ‘stoic’ manner vs the romantic, caring, enlightened western male…..and finally, the most egoistic – self assessed debonair good looks. Click here to watch the infamous Charisma Man.
White western women work on a similar programming except it belittles Japanese women’s slender bodies as ‘lacking curves’, tantamount to being a little boy rather than a woman, all the while flippantly dismissing their own double chin and wobbly bits. Accusations of Japanese women lacking originality in fashion and just copying trends from a magazine and not being (snap), sassy enough!
Beauty standards are not universal neither are favoured characteristics.
I have not met one white western person who has agreed with me that beauty and morality are not universal. These variants are time dependant. Think about it, quartering used to be an acceptable form of punishment in Europe. The nude human physique was seen to be uncouth and grotesque in Heian Japan.
Whenever I argue that something is beautiful only to a western person and not to a Japanese, women will insinuate that I am jealous, men will accuse me of being a nationalist.
Western people of African ancestry have accepted that beauty and morality varies. I suspect this understanding is awarded to all minority groups who are born and raised in western countries.
The African Western nationals who I have worked with, are generally humble. I remember a guy who was tall and charming. Quite a lot of the girls at the university that I taught at, had a crush on him. When I told him, he blushed and said they were just kidding.
African western women who I met, have also never commented on their relative beauty to the Japanese.
The Western Asian men are possibly the most pitiful. Having spent all their lives being relegated to the side kick, they can’t believe that they look good. Usually still playing the cast off, they will parrot the narrative that its the white guys who get the girls even though they never had any problems in Japan. Old indoctrination, die hard.
Indoctrination Trumps Evidence
While it is the West that is seen to be championing for democracy and equality, ironically, they are also the biggest oppressor of people of colour who see themselves as being equal to white people.
Even though I am espousing vehemently for true equality more than any one else, I will come across as being a nationalist.
I am declaring that White people are either not special, in the way that Asians, Black and Brown people are not special OR we are all special. Pick one.
Being woke means changing your world view when your circumstance changes. Do not keep insisting that your indoctrination is an absolute truth. You can’t fit life into a theory, you need to create theories which fit life.
For Trigger 1, click here. Identity. Terminated
For Trigger 2, click here. False Idolisation