The Other's Other

A few months ago, after the gold medal match of the World Cup of Softball between USA and Japan, ESPN commentator, Michelle Smith, was heavily chastised for a stereotypical "rice and sushi" joke about a Japanese fan in the stands dressed in a happi coat, which, to be fair, is the standard uniform for men in traditional 和風 related fields, today most commonly found in Japanese dining.

While I actively advocate for the necessity of pointing out individual behaviors and complex systems that perpetuate racial assumptions, I wondered how the dynamic is altered if the appropriated culture, itself, participates in the perpetuation of its own stereotypes.

Because stereotypes have the power to flatten cultures into homogeny, Japanese culture, which has a history of eschewing roughness in favor of uniformity, has become a society which happily trades and is heavily invested in its own stereotypes. It is no accident that ideas of "sushi" and "samurai," "geisha" and "ninjas," robots and technology are quintessentially "Japanese." Even though many households still lack computers, the Japanese, themselves, would say these things to you, even without your asking. Much of the uncritical, national-personal identity is tied up in ideological "samenesses," not limited to appearance, taste or personal philosophies.

But then, of course, such broad, sweeping statements as the one above are flattening and problematic as they don't take into account individual dynamics.

But when those self-same individuals appear invested in these stereotypes for their identity, especially ones that create and perpetuate differences from other local cultures, how much are we to blame as outsiders for participating in those artificial binaries?

Japanese Americans have long benefitted in trading in traditional American-minority stereotypes. As a secondary group of non-indigenous "others" in an otherwise standard majority-minority binary, Asians come out ahead of blacks by merely being a contrasting difference

¹Simply by not being first, but also, importantly, as non-diasporic, financially and culturally affluent expatriates

¹. Like trying to locate a third color in a binary gradient, "yellow" fits fluidly between similarity and dissimilarity because while it is not "pure white," it also passes as definitely "not black."

Taking advantage of the existence of a contentious white-black binary, Asians submitted themselves as an accommodating “model minority"; a triangulating pole against which blacks are judged as a problematic, failing minority group; “proof” that the hegemonic system worked.

This tension between minority "brotherhoods" grows even more when, because of the aforementioned fluidity of their otherness, Asians access and perpetuate culturally flattening black-stereotypes as emotional shortcuts to signify toughness, non-conformity, and, most heinously, solidarity, all of which exists outside of the Asian American reality because of their willful submission to the patriarchy.

It is no surprise, then, that Asian culture groups are in no hurry to overturn systemic racism, lest they put at risk the benefits they reap from being the other's other. And it is no wonder why other minority groups that suffer less favorably have little patience with their Japanese (and Chinese and Korean) counterparts.

But, regardless, cultural appropriation stings equally across races, as Katy Perry's performance at the November 2013 American Music Awards reminds. Appropriation, here, is when aspects of cultural customs and heritages are ripped from their cultural contexts in the service of pandering to larger stereotypes. In this instance, Katy Perry, in order to communicate the beauty of unconditional devotion and self-sacrificial submission, took from the Japanese the Maiko/Geisha, the embodiment of the Yamato Nadeshiko, the delicate floral metaphor of the ideal, pure female beauty, demure and unobtrusive, as codified in the Heian period as part of the 大和魂, the innate, indigenous aspects of true Japanese spirit, the traits that make up the very soul of Japan.

Perry's appropriation of Maiko and the Yamato Nadeshiko is problematic because it subjects Japanese (nee, Asian) women to a sexist, patriarchal submissive ideal, reducing their value to servility and beauty.

But to accuse Perry of appropriation feels a bit disingenuous when Japan still readily trades in such stereotypes. In thinking forward to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, I have a hard time imagining that their Opening Ceremony wouldn't be much different than what was shown here. After all, famous in Japan

²"Japan-famous."

² is Christel Takigawa's "Omotenashi" speech, used as the centerpiece of Tokyo's Olympic bid package, which, itself, has become more famous here because it is a pandering, pan-Asian mish-mash of koans (公安) and hand-gestures

³Spoiler alert: nobody bows like that here. And Christel does it twice in her 2 minute speech.

³ that spoke more to the orientalist constructs the IOC expected to see. In many ways, the entire Tokyo Olympic bid was a formal presentation of the post-apocalyptic, simulacrum-Tokyo that Tokyo (and its people) doesn't just aspire to be but actually believes itself to be. These images become powerful unifying forces that help give Tokyo (and all of Japan) a sense of grandeur, of purpose. But also smashes everybody into a seemingly faceless one-ness and interchangeability.

In many ways, it is easy to see how japan benefits domestically by perpetuating these stereotypes. But more importantly, as Japan has historically been afforded the unique position to control the terms of substantial portions of its own international image through exclusion and mystery, by investing and targeting specific stereotypes to emphasize, Japan has colored in its own paint-by-numbers narrative to positively contrast with the countries in its area.

Though the Japanese drink as much if not more than their closest neighbors, it's the Koreans who are seen as wild partiers. Though Japan heavily squanders energy on inefficiently recycling waste plastics for packaging and wrapping, they are thought of as clean and environmentally friendly in contrast to the Chinese. And while the mob-run gambling and sex-trade flourish throughout Japan, it's Tokyo, not Bangkok or Manila, that's "safe" and "free from corruption."

By holding tightly onto monolithic, hegemonic institutions, Japan has established itself as a stable cultural state, the icon of thousands of years of history and tradition, despite actually being much younger than its Chinese, Korean and even Southeast Asian neighbors. This despite the fact that many of the images we have of Japan weren't established until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

On the one hand, it seems perfectly reasonable for people, like Perry, to reiterate the narrative pieces she hears, especially when they appear to come from credible sources

⁴i.e. the Japanese themselves.

⁴. And, when lacking in exposure, ignorance is understandable. But at what point do we start holding people accountable for their ignorance?

The other day, a friend and I met an international student over coffee. Over the course of normal conversation we came to find out he was from Senegal. In a later debriefing about our interaction, it came to light that my friend had plenty of questions he wanted to ask the international student about his home life and his family, but my friend was unsure about whether the questions he wanted to ask were insensitive or ignorant because of our general American unfamiliarity with all-things-Africa.

I affirmed that this was probably the best course of action in this situation. But that, were we to meet our new friend a second time, such persistent ignorance could be seen as nothing short of willful and offensive in its indifference.

Everybody deserves at least that much, right?