{"id":14726,"date":"2017-08-30T17:52:32","date_gmt":"2017-08-31T03:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=14726"},"modified":"2017-09-04T08:05:22","modified_gmt":"2017-09-04T18:05:22","slug":"japanese-only-signs-come-down-in-monbetsu-hokkaido-finally-it-only-took-22-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=14726","title":{"rendered":"“Japanese Only” signs come down in Monbetsu, Hokkaido. Finally. It only took 22 years."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. Good news. A couple of weeks ago, friends Olaf and James wrote in to say that they went down Hamanasu Doori in Monbetsu, a seaport town in Eastern Outback Hokkaido. Here’s what book “Embedded Racism” Ch. 3<\/a> has to say about this case (expanded from the original entry on the Rogues’ Gallery of Exclusionary Establishments<\/a> on Debito.org):<\/p>\n

============================
\nMonbetsu, Hokkaid\u014d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Place<\/strong>: Miscellaneous places around Monbetsu City (Hokkaid\u014d) (two public\/private sector bathhouses, a ramen shop, a restaurant, a karaoke parlor, and more than 100 bars).<\/em><\/p>\n

Background<\/strong>: According to newspaper articles, plus several visits and interviews between 2000 and 2009 by the author and other activists, since 1995 Monbetsu\u2019s local restaurateurs\u2019 association (inshokuten kumiai) created and sold standardized signs in Cyrillic saying \u201cJapanese Only Store\u201d (Nihonjin sen\u2019y\u014d ten) that went up on over 100 bars and restaurants in the Hamanasu D\u014dri nightlife district. Interviews with bars displaying the signs revealed fears of Russian sailors\u2019 custom, including the language barrier, drunken unruliness, nonpayment of bills, rumors of rape, surrounding Japanese customer dissatisfaction, and ties to Russian organized crime (although many interviewees said they had no actual experience with any of these issues \u2013 the sign was a preventive measure); some refused the author\u2019s business even though he is not Russian and was accompanied by other Japanese. Three restaurants and a karaoke parlor expressed similar sentiments, and said they would have refused the author had he not been a fluent Japanese speaker. Two bathhouses (one private-sector, one public\/private (dai-san sekut\u0101)) claimed drunk and unruly Russian bathers were driving away Japanese customers).<\/em><\/p>\n

Action taken by observers\/activists<\/strong>: In July 2000, the Japanese Ministry of Justice, Bureau of Human Rights (jinken y\u014dgobu) Asahikawa Branch wrote a letter (see ER Chapter Eight) to the restaurateurs\u2019 association calling their activities \u201cclear racial discrimination against foreigners,\u201d demanding they remove their exclusionary signs. In an interview with the author in April 2001, the kumiai head claimed that these signs were now the property of their respective purchasers, and what they did with them was not their concern. After extensive media exposure of the situation in local newspapers and national TV between 2000 and 2005, signs began coming down, and further interviews and media exposure of the restaurants, karaoke parlor, and the bathhouses resulted in exclusionary rules being rescinded in the karaoke parlor, one restaurant and the public\/private-sector bathhouse. In 2006, an interview with another restaurant enabled the author to personally take down one of the Cyrillic signs with permission. In 2004, the author and one other activist submitted a petition (chinj\u014d) to pass a local anti-discrimination ordinance (j\u014drei), which subsequently died in committee.<\/em><\/p>\n

Current status (as of end-2014)<\/strong>: Confirmed in January 2010, at least sixteen of the original mass-produced Cyrillic signs are confirmed as remaining on the storefronts of Hamanasu D\u014dri bars and one restaurant. The private-sector bathhouse still has an exclusionary sign, but will let in \u201cforeign\u201d clientele if they speak a level of Japanese that satisfies the manager on duty. One of the former exclusionary restaurants went bankrupt in 2007. Monbetsu still has no anti-discrimination ordinance.<\/em><\/p>\n

============================<\/p>\n

So the update is: \u00a0The exclusionary signs are down in Hamanasu Doori. \u00a0Pity it only took 22 years for it to happen, apparently by attrition. \u00a0No thanks to the Monbetsu City Government, natch. \u00a0Dr. Debito Arudou<\/p>\n

============================<\/p>\n

Do you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0Please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>. Or even click on an ad below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago, friends Olaf and James wrote in to say that they went down Hamanasu Doori in Monbetsu, a seaport town in Eastern Outback Hokkaido. Here’s what book “Embedded Racism” Ch. 3 has to say about this case (expanded from the original entry on the Rogues’ Gallery of Exclusionary Establishments on Debito.org):<\/p>\n

============================
\nMonbetsu, Hokkaid\u014d
\nPlace: Miscellaneous places around Monbetsu City (Hokkaid\u014d) (two public\/private sector bathhouses, a ramen shop, a restaurant, a karaoke parlor, and more than 100 bars).
\nBackground: According to newspaper articles, plus several visits and interviews between 2000 and 2009 by the author and other activists, since 1995 Monbetsu\u2019s local restaurateurs\u2019 association (inshokuten kumiai) created and sold standardized signs in Cyrillic saying \u201cJapanese Only Store\u201d (Nihonjin sen\u2019y\u014d ten) that went up on over 100 bars and restaurants in the Hamanasu D\u014dri nightlife district. Interviews with bars displaying the signs revealed fears of Russian sailors\u2019 custom, including the language barrier, drunken unruliness, nonpayment of bills, rumors of rape, surrounding Japanese customer dissatisfaction, and ties to Russian organized crime (although many interviewees said they had no actual experience with any of these issues \u2013 the sign was a preventive measure); some refused the author\u2019s business even though he is not Russian and was accompanied by other Japanese. Three restaurants and a karaoke parlor expressed similar sentiments, and said they would have refused the author had he not been a fluent Japanese speaker. Two bathhouses (one private-sector, one public\/private (dai-san sekut\u0101)) claimed drunk and unruly Russian bathers were driving away Japanese customers).<\/p>\n

Action taken by observers\/activists: In July 2000, the Japanese Ministry of Justice, Bureau of Human Rights (jinken y\u014dgobu) Asahikawa Branch wrote a letter (see ER Chapter Eight) to the restaurateurs\u2019 association calling their activities \u201cclear racial discrimination against foreigners,\u201d demanding they remove their exclusionary signs. In an interview with the author in April 2001, the kumiai head claimed that these signs were now the property of their respective purchasers, and what they did with them was not their concern. After extensive media exposure of the situation in local newspapers and national TV between 2000 and 2005, signs began coming down, and further interviews and media exposure of the restaurants, karaoke parlor, and the bathhouses resulted in exclusionary rules being rescinded in the karaoke parlor, one restaurant and the public\/private-sector bathhouse. In 2006, an interview with another restaurant enabled the author to personally take down one of the Cyrillic signs with permission. In 2004, the author and one other activist submitted a petition (chinj\u014d) to pass a local anti-discrimination ordinance (j\u014drei), which subsequently died in committee.
\n============================<\/p>\n

So the update is: \u00a0The exclusionary signs are down in Hamanasu Doori. \u00a0Pity it only took 22 years for it to happen, apparently by attrition. \u00a0No thanks to the Monbetsu City Government, natch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,54,28,43,34,35,5,4,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-pinprick-protests","category-anti-discrimination-templates","category-bad-business-practices","category-exclusionism","category-good-news","category-human-rights","category-japanese-government","category-victories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14726"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14733,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14726\/revisions\/14733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}