Graffiti on the Walls of Valhalla

Soap stinker gets up nose of Japanese-Americans

"Sakura," a TV drama about a fourth generation Japanese-American from Hawaii who returns to her ancestral land to help teach English, may have been a ratings winner for government broadcaster NHK but most Nikkei loathe the show, calling it "insulting," according to Josei Jishin (10/15).

"It's simply not possible for a fourth generation Nikkei to arrive in Japan and speak flawless Japanese. Third generation Japanese-Americans don't even speak Japanese. And why does (Sakura), who's supposed to be American, speak English with a British accent?" House of Representatives member Taro Kono writes on his website. "NHK's lack of awareness of Japanese-Americans is extremely disappointing. I thought the Japanese-Americans who visited me in the spring would see 'Sakura' as being totally normal. Now that I realize that's not the case, I feel a bit silly."

More in link.

[Erik says: The topic of Nissei (2nd-generation Japanese immigrants), Sansei, Yonsei, etc., is of some concern to me as my wife is Japanese, and our children (when we have them) will have to deal with the fact that they will not be wholly Japanese nor wholly American, but a combination of the two. In America, this is not particularly unusual or much of an inconvenience; outright racists aside, most Americans seem perfectly happy to assume that everyone they meet is American and speaks English until proven otherwise. In Japan, though, the opposite is assumed: unless you look 100% Japanese, you are obviously a foreigner and will be treated as such (sometimes as a guest, sometimes as a nuisance, often as a child). And if you look 100% Japanese but for some reason do not speak Japanese fluently, sans accent, you're likely to be treated as a moron, a somehow deficient human being.

I have not seen the series in question (it probably won't make its way to the States for a few more months), so I have no idea how the stereotypes are handled. I worry, though, that in a country that prides itself on "common sense" and the phrase "everyone knows..." a show like this could do a lot of longterm harm to the image of Japan's emigrants.]