{"id":16242,"date":"2020-09-21T15:50:52","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T22:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=16242"},"modified":"2021-01-09T16:02:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-10T00:02:41","slug":"my-latest-sna-vm-column-14-visible-minorities-weaponizing-the-japanese-language-on-how-foreign-minister-motegis-discriminatory-treatment-of-japan-times-reporter-magdalena-osumi-is-part-of-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=16242","title":{"rendered":"My latest SNA VM column 14: “Visible Minorities: Weaponizing the Japanese Language”, on how Foreign Minister Motegi’s discriminatory treatment of Japan Times reporter Magdalena Osumi is part of a bigger phenomenon, Sept 21, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

Books, eBooks, and more from Debito Arudou, Ph.D. (click on icon):
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Hi Blog. My latest Shingetsu News Agency Visible Minorities column 14 discusses how Japan weaponizes its language to require “perfect Japanese” from non-native speakers only, and when they can’t speak it perfectly, they get discriminated against. Consider this:<\/p>\n

===================================
\nVisible Minorities: Weaponizing the Japanese Language<\/strong>
\nShingetsu News Agency, SEP 21, 2020 by DEBITO ARUDOU in COLUMN<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2020\/09\/21\/visible-minorities-weaponizing-the-japanese-language\/<\/a><\/p>\n

On August 28, Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan\u2019s foreign minister, was giving an official press conference to reporters in Japanese. A foreign reporter for Japan Times, Magdalena Osumi, asked some questions in Japanese. When Osumi followed up on a point he left unclear, Motegi responded to her in English.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Osumi then retorted in Japanese, \u201cYou needn\u2019t treat me like I\u2019m stupid. If we\u2019re talking in Japanese, please answer in Japanese.\u201d Damn right.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How many times has this happened to you? You ask a question in Japanese of a shop keep, clerk, passerby, or somebody on the other end of a telephone, and they flake out because you got some words in the wrong order, had an accent, or just have a foreign face? Many automatically assume that because you\u2019re foreign-looking or -sounding, you must be able to speak English. So they reply in English.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Or how many times, as a budding Japanese language learner, were you told that what you just said \u201cis not Japanese,\u201d not \u201cit\u2019s not correct Japanese\u201d? Just a flat-out denial, as if your attempt is in some alien tongue, like Klingon.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This phenomenon, where it\u2019s either \u201cperfect Japanese\u201d or you get linguistically gaijinized, is odd. It\u2019s also based upon a myth…<\/em><\/strong>
\n===================================<\/p>\n

Read the rest at http:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2020\/09\/21\/visible-minorities-weaponizing-the-japanese-language\/<\/a><\/p>\n

The video of that Motegi press conference is at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zdlt9n5FDUU<\/a>\u00a0(watch from around minute 2 onwards)<\/p>\n

Other sources within the SNA article:<\/p>\n

Japan Times: In case you missed it: Trump’s awkward response to a Japanese reporter:<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2018\/11\/08\/world\/politics-diplomacy-world\/in-case-you-missed-it-trumps-awkward-response-to-a-japanese-reporter\/\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Mainichi: Minister under fire for questioning foreign journalist’s Japanese at press conf.<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/mainichi.jp\/english\/articles\/20200902\/p2a\/00m\/0na\/009000c<\/a><\/p>\n

======================
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Visible Minorities: Weaponizing the Japanese Language
\nShingetsu News Agency, SEP 21, 2020 by DEBITO ARUDOU in COLUMN<\/p>\n

On August 28, Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan\u2019s foreign minister, was giving an official press conference to reporters in Japanese. A foreign reporter for Japan Times, Magdalena Osumi, asked some questions in Japanese. When Osumi followed up on a point he left unclear, Motegi responded to her in English.<\/p>\n

Osumi then retorted in Japanese, \u201cYou needn\u2019t treat me like I\u2019m stupid. If we\u2019re talking in Japanese, please answer in Japanese.\u201d Damn right.<\/p>\n

How many times has this happened to you? You ask a question in Japanese of a shop keep, clerk, passerby, or somebody on the other end of a telephone, and they flake out because you got some words in the wrong order, had an accent, or just have a foreign face? Many automatically assume that because you\u2019re foreign-looking or -sounding, you must be able to speak English. So they reply in English.<\/p>\n

Or how many times, as a budding Japanese language learner, were you told that what you just said \u201cis not Japanese,\u201d not \u201cit\u2019s not correct Japanese\u201d? Just a flat-out denial, as if your attempt is in some alien tongue, like Klingon.<\/p>\n

This phenomenon, where it\u2019s either \u201cperfect Japanese\u201d or you get linguistically gaijinized, is odd. It\u2019s also based upon a myth…<\/p>\n

Read the rest at http:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2020\/09\/21\/visible-minorities-weaponizing-the-japanese-language\/
\nThe video of that Motegi press conference is at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zdlt9n5FDUU\u00a0(watch from around minute 2 onwards)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,54,28,18,36,22,34,12,26,4,14,13,60,11,65,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-pinprick-protests","category-anti-discrimination-templates","category-academia","category-bad-social-science","category-cultural-issue","category-exclusionism","category-immigration-assimilation","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government","category-japanese-politics","category-media","category-nj-voices-ignored","category-problematic-foreign-treatment","category-racist-images-in-media","category-shoe-on-the-other-foot-dept"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16242","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=16242"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16371,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16242\/revisions\/16371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}