{"id":15482,"date":"2019-03-06T11:44:22","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T21:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15482"},"modified":"2019-03-06T11:44:22","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T21:44:22","slug":"gaikokujin-appetizer-charge-in-osaka-dotonbori-restaurant-debito-org-investigates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15482","title":{"rendered":"“Gaikokujin Appetizer Charge” in Osaka Dotonbori restaurant? Debito.org investigates."},"content":{"rendered":"

Books, eBooks, and more from Debito Arudou, Ph.D. (click on icon):
\n\"Guidebookcover.jpg\"<\/a>\"japaneseonlyebookcovertext\"<\/a>\"Handbook<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\u300c\u30b8\u30e3\u30d1\u30cb\u30fc\u30ba\u30fb\u30aa\u30f3\u30ea\u30fc\u3000\u5c0f\u6a3d\u5165\u6d74\u62d2\u5426\u554f\u984c\u3068\u4eba\u7a2e\u5dee\u5225\u300d\uff08\u660e\u77f3\u66f8\u5e97\uff09\"<\/a>\"sourstrawberriesavatar\"<\/a>\"debitopodcastthumb\"<\/a>\"FodorsJapan2014cover\"<\/a>
\nUPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
\nDEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free
\n“LIKE” US on Facebook at http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/debitoorg<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embeddedrcsmJapan<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.facebook.com\/handbookimmigrants<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/JapaneseOnlyTheBook<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BookInAppropriate<\/a>
\nIf you like what you read and discuss on Debito.org, please consider helping us stop hackers and defray maintenance costs with a little donation via my webhoster:
\n\"Donate<\/a>
\nAll donations go towards website costs only. Thanks for your support!<\/i><\/p>\n

Hi Blog. Debito.org Reader XY sends the following message:<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\nFrom: XY<\/strong>
\nSubject: Racist Izakaya Bill?<\/strong>
\nDate: January 6, 2019<\/strong>
\nTo: debito@debito.org<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hello Debito,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Happy New Year and thank you so much for all that you do for our community here in Japan.<\/em><\/p>\n

A friend of mine found this on a message board:<\/em>
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nI haven’t been able to do a proper identification of authorship and all that comes with that. I understand proper evaluation of sources is, more than ever, really important. However, I don’t have that.<\/em><\/p>\n

Anyway, I have the bill (if it hasn’t been doctored), and the post from the message board.<\/em>
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nMy Japanese is nowhere near good enough to do the proper investigation of this. But I know that this sort of thing would be big news, (if we weren’t living in Japan).<\/em><\/p>\n

Please have a look if you get a chance. You are pretty much my last resort here as I don’t have the skills to properly investigate. We passed it through the usual channels, JET boards, etc. People are pretty conflicted. I think the restaurant should get a chance to respond. Maybe this type of thing is probably normalized anyway and maybe I am just overreacting. It’s interesting to me that this was a systemic choice, not the work of a single employee (often the case in the States).<\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely, XY<\/strong>
\n\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

From: Debito Arudou <\/strong>
\nSubject: Re: Racist Izakaya Bill?<\/strong>
\nDate: January 29, 2019<\/strong>
\nTo: XY<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi XY. Thanks for your email. I finally got around to talking to the Izakaya (06-6646-4888) on January 30, 2019, at around 2PM. The person in charge (a Mr. Tada) said that this was not an addition to the bill for NJ customers. The charge for appetizers there listed is the same for Japanese and NJ. It\u2019s just their way of letting their records know that there was a foreign customer. That\u2019s what he said. Anyway, FYI.<\/p>\n

Sincerely, Debito<\/strong>
\n\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

From: XY<\/strong>
\nSubject: Re: Racist Izakaya Bill?<\/strong>
\nDate: January 30, 2019<\/strong>
\nTo: Debito Arudou<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you very much for getting back to me! It\u2019s great that you called to confirm this with them given the weirdness of the whole situation and wording.<\/em><\/p>\n

At the very least, this puts it on their radar and they will think twice about their \u201crecord keeping\u201d practices. A few of my friends were curious about this and I\u2019ll be sure to let them know the result and that you were on the case! <\/em><\/p>\n

Thanks again so much!!<\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely, XY<\/strong><\/p>\n

==============================
\nDo 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":"

Message to BBS: ‘I was in the Dotonbori area in Osaka for the New Years break. My friend and I were hungry and decided to go to an Izakaya there rather than walk a bit. Given that it’s a huge touristy area we were already expecting sneaky charges and overpriced food, but we were hungry. Anyways, we pay and notice that the price is higher than we expected, but we were super tired and didn’t feel like doing the math. An hour later we’re on the train headed to Kobe and we look at the receipt, we notice a Gaijin fee of 300 yen per person. The service charge was BS too, but somehow less surprising. Has anybody experienced something similar.”<\/p>\n

COMMENT: A reader of this BBS sent Debito.org a copy of the receipt, and yes, “Gaikokujin Tsukidashi” (Appetizers for Foreigners) is clearly listed. Debito telephoned the restaurant to investigate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,54,28,47,11,55,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-pinprick-protests","category-anti-discrimination-templates","category-food","category-problematic-foreign-treatment","category-tourism","category-8"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482","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=15482"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15582,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482\/revisions\/15582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}