Sometimes riding one of the numerous trains in Tokyo, I will look down the length of the car and notice a strange person.
Unlike most of the people on the train, this person is usually not sleeping, texting someone with their cell phone, or staring at the floor avoiding eye contact or conversation with anyone around them. This person is a fellow foreigner, called "gaijin" by the Japanese (the literal meaning is "outside person").
The criterion for identifying gaijin, even in Tokyo, is very easy: skin color. This is not as offensive to the Japanese as it is in the United States. Japan is a very homogeneous society; about 99% of the population of Japan is ethnically Japanese, and much of the remaining population consists of Chinese or Korean permanent residents, who are not readily discernible from the native Japanese population.
Japan has a reputation for treating gaijin, if not badly, then at least somewhat oddly. Japanese policemen are very friendly and helpful, but if you are a foreigner riding a bicycle at night, it is likely you will be stopped and asked for your ID and bicycle registration card to ensure the bicycle is not stolen.
Sometimes I get the feeling Japanese people in Japan are uncomfortable around foreigners. Several times, my Irish friend has sat on a crowded train with an empty seat next to him, but nobody will sit down there, waiting to take a different seat if one becomes available.
Moreover, some clubs will not allow foreigners in without a Japanese companion. Servers at a restaurant might be less enthusiastic at your table than at others. Japanese citizenship is notoriously difficult to obtain. There are many little things that lend further credence to the possibility of an underlying xenophobia in Japan.
But if that flaw exists, it is not entirely unwarranted. Recently, the alleged rape of a girl in Okinawa by a U.S. soldier stationed there has been a major story in Japan. This is only the latest incident in a troubled history of Japanese-U.S. relations on Okinawa.
Crime is rare in Japan, even in large cities, so when foreigners commit a crime, as has happened several times in the past in Okinawa, it is only natural to look at foreigners with some amount of wariness and distrust.
The U.S. base in Okinawa is seen as disruptive in the otherwise stable society of the island, and many of the island's residents resent the military presence there. The situation is representative of the latent animosity some Japanese hold toward gaijin, a feeling that sometimes finds itself expressed, given the proper impetus.
Despite the sense that I don't quite belong here, I am still very glad I came to Japan. The Japanese friends I have made are as laid-back and affable as my friends from elsewhere in the world.
I have also actually learned a lot about other countries by talking to other friends I have made from places like Finland, Samoa, Mexico, Papua New Guinea and even mysterious Canada.
Being a gaijin, when you are surrounded by many others, is not hard at all.
