Comments by "PeterC" (@peterc4082) on "The Japan Reporter"
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@kathleencove Kathleen, changing behaviour is very difficult. You're asking me, Peter, why don't we all have love and ponies in the world? Why are some people poor and others rich? Why wars? Etc. Well the world works as it does.
Japanese people elected a government. That government markets Japan in the world. It brings in money and it creates SOFT POWER. SOFT POWER is very important and helps Japanese companies sell products and services abroad as Japan has a good reputation but that rep came because of PR. Japanese products to be honest are not that good, but if one reads PR one would think they are perfect. They are average for a developed nation. I've used products from across the globe and I've run across a lot of Made in Japan junk. Anyway I digressed.
You see tourists will behave in a certain way. Japan has earthquake proof buildings. They can design earthquake proof garbage cans. And if not, then make the Japan visa $10,000 USD and then only a few people will come and if they litter, well $10,000 will pay for picking up a few items.
I actually want Japan to make their country inaccessible. I'm quite sick of this foreigner hate from these kind of youtube channels. If Japan is so perfect, well let it stay like that. I certainly would never force myself on Japan.
As for classical music, you take the good with the bad. If you want to be world leader you have to tolerate a bit. Have a nice day.
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@muralk3153 Believe it or not but I've lived many years on this earth and I've met many Japanese people and they are average people.
I've also lived in a communist system, a capitalist European system, an apartheid system, a modern EU based capitalist system and a post apartheid system. Anyway, what you say is the standard response. I can understand homogeneity. But some points. Japanese people are not different to other people. They are not a different species. Everyone gets uncomfortable around strangers. This is a common human trait. There is nothing special about it. Nobody expects ALL Japanese people to have to interact with foreign tourists. There are some people in the hospitality industry, retail and tourist industries who will have to interact with foreigners in a limited way.
I did not claim all Japanese people are rich. But the country of Japan is filthy rich. This is on the back of European and US and other people becoming poorer because we closed our factories to buy Japanese products. Japanese tourists used to and still visit foreign locations. People there don't produce TV documentaries and put up NO JAPANESE signs.
As for spotlessness of Japan. It's not true that other countries are messy. People don't come to Japan to see clean streets but to see Mt Fuji, temples, eat food, buy gadgets or mementos, see geishas, see samurai, etc. They don't come for the clean streets.
I think some people and you are giving Japanese people too much charity. On the one hand Japanese people have clean streets and are taught to carry their own rubbish, but they are also unable to ignore foreign tourists who bring in money. I don't understand this. This is a sophist tactic, where Japanese make themselves incompetent in some areas and super capable in others. They then excuse their hypocrisy. That yes it's OK for Japan to steal jobs from the West and it's ok for Japanese tourists to come to Europe - because for as dirty as we Europeans are it's Japan which copies us and not we copying Japan.
So all in all I think Japanese people just have to be modern. 1. Not everyone expects them to speak with foreigners. Anyone with basic education will know this. Japan is highly educated. 2. Tourists bring in revenue. Japanese also travel abroad. They are just as much a nuisance for us but we tolerate Japanese tourists. I've shown my town to Japanese people. They enjoyed it. I don't expect random Japanese to show me theirs but I do expect that there are no "NO FOREIGNER" signs and that TV stations don't produce bigoted TV shows. Japanese people are educated and as humans should be able to adapt to some tourists in tourist spots. All places had to do that. Do you think residents of Rome, Paris, NY, etc are happy with Japanese tourists? Or should they kiss them because European and US cities are a little bit less clean? Japanese people DO NOT GET A SPECIAL PASS from me. They would if they were a poor underdeveloped country, but they are well educated, rich and highly developed. This isn't the 1850s anymore. Let's mot make fools out of Japanese people. They are competent and need to live up to the standard. Besides the Japanese government encourages tourism. Blame them. Don't blame tourists.
Thank you. Have a good Sunday or Monday.
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@muralk3153 I'm not American. Unfortunately my people did not steal any land, well not for > 2000 years at least.
And if you want to play the game of early human settlement then what happened to the prehistoric people of Japan and how well do Ainu fare in Japan?
Point was that Japan was rich because we (West) opened our markets to Japan while the Americans actually built Japan. Americans did not have their civilians mass R=ed and killed by Japanese in WW2. They nuked Japan over Pearl Harbor, a military target. That was a war crime and a terrible sin. But anyway, that's beside the point. I brought up the loss of jobs because Japan owes a lot to the West. Now that Japan is a little bit, a tiny bit poorer that it was, built on the backs of our local job losses in the West and transfer of tech in the 19th and early 20th centuries,, there seems to be an ANTI-TOURIST sentiment perpetuated by some media, some establishments and so on. And you bring in clean streets as though people should be worshiping Japanese people and people like me don't know what clean streets are. You even arrogantly said that people can take something home -- to do with clean streets? What exactly? Japan can teach 'dirty' foreigners cleanliness? I think you overstepped your boundaries there.
Japanese do cause a nuisance abroad. Busses full of tourists taking pictures even of people and private places. Asking people to buy stuff for them at Luis Vuitton in Paris and going into private people's homes in the UK to take pics. That's what some Japanese tourists did in the 80s and 90s. But guess what, these people maybe came once in their lives and wanted to get what they could never to return. There was a stereotype of the typical Japanese tourist. But we didn't hate them.
Japanese people should not be cleaning any litter abroad. That's not their job. Also when there are travelers from afar one should be accommodating and tolerant. Maybe install more trash cans in tourist spots. That's what we do in Europe and elsewhere. That's a virtue. We respect people who saved money, sat for 20 hours on a plane and then in a strange land have 1-2 weeks to see as much as they can before leaving and leaving their money behind and generating soft power for Japan. Japanese people always like Europe and the West - they love Chopin, Mozart, our dress, our art, our cuisine, our tech, our history, but not us when we visit. That's what gets me.
I've already said that I don't know what sort of tourists the PLA will be but if people want to not be friendly to tourists including Western ones then maybe they need to be with North Korea.
(As for littering, my family and I, never liter. I always throw rubbish away or carry it with me in any country I'm in. That's not a uniquely Japanese thing. What will Japan teach me?)
Have a good day.
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