Memoire : Public Insult to Parents in the Heart of a Big City back in 80's
Around
forty years ago in the late 80's, in the heart of London, I, then a teenager,
was standing with my family, waiting for the traffic lights to change.
It was in this moment that a white woman, standing beside me, suddenly erupted
into a loud exclamation, as if she had witnessed something deeply unsettling.
"Chinaman has got a kid!!!!" she cried, her voice brimming with a
strange sense of astonishment.
Her companion, the white man, responded nonchalantly, "Apparently,
yes," as if to acknowledge the statement, albeit with a sense of
resignation. Yet the woman, seemingly struck by some unseen force, continued to
voice her disbelief.
“But… a Chinaman! They are animals! They can’t have a family, can’t they？”
The man whispered something to her. However, she did not stop yelling.
“But it’s impossible! They get married and have a kid? Oh, yes, they don’t have
freedom to get married, so they must have been through arrangement, and forced
to get married against their own will. But still… how come they have a child?
How old do you think she may be? How can an animal rare a child!?”
Openly
insulted in front of my parents, I turned to face the woman with a harsh tone
and exclaimed,
"How dare you insult my parents in public! They are human being, and can't
you even tell difference between Chinese and Japanese?!"
The man accompanying her immediately responded with an apology, "We are
sorry," yet it was not his apology that I sought.
"I’m sorry, sir, but I’m looking for an apology from this woman
here," I insisted, fixing eyes towards the woman.
In response, the woman widened her eyes in what seemed like shock, pressing her
hands to her mouth, remaining completely silent.
When the traffic lights changed, I followed my family. Glancing across the
road, I saw the couple standing motionless, staring.
Racism, in
one form or another, persists across eras and nations—this, too, was merely one
of its familiar patterns. Though angered by the insult to my family, I did not feel inclined to blame the woman.
After all, this incident took place nearly 40 years ago, at a time when the
media had not yet developed to the extent it has today.
Back then,
if Japan was portrayed on television at all, it was through stereotypes —
images of women dressed as geishas reclining in ways that appealed to male
fantasy, or animated depictions of samurais shouting strange, exaggerated
sounds. There were also hastily edited clips of people walking through the
Shibuya scramble crossing, jerking along like robots in fast-forward motion.
Also, to the British at the time, distinguishing between Chinese, Japanese, and
Korean people was likely a challenge.
It is quite possible that this woman had never actually seen a Japanese person
walking down the street before. Perhaps she had never seen an East Asian family
walking together in public at all.
Furthermore, with the limited knowledge available to her, she may have assumed
that the my parents, in keeping with what she understood of Eastern customs,
had been forced into an arranged marriage — a union they may not have desired.
In her view, it might have seemed utterly abhorrent that two East Asians, who
had been coerced into a marriage against their will, could go on to have
children.
It is true that countries in Asia, such as Japan or India, have a tradition of
arranged marriages. However, the idea of being forced into a marriage against
one’s will — a practice which was once more common — strikes a very different
note in Japan today, and might be considered a tremendously old-fashioned
concept.
What this woman failed to grasp was the complexity of personal and familial
histories that transcended the reductive categories of her limited
understanding. The troubling assumptions she held about marriage, family, and
ethnicity — all rooted in stereotypical imagery and fragmented knowledge —
reflected the deeper social structures of misrepresentation and racial ignorance
that were prevalent at the time. The woman’s shock did not come from a genuine
engagement with my reality but from the rigidity of preconceived notions that
served to uphold certain social and cultural boundaries.
In a broader sociological context, this encounter reveals not only the personal
clash between individuals but also the tension between globalising trends and
localised, ethnocentric worldviews. It underscores the persistent, often
unexamined, power of cultural narratives that define "the Other" in
ways that are more about cultural reproduction than any genuine understanding
of the Other's life experiences. The woman's astonishment at the sight of a
family of East Asians with children, when set against the backdrop of a 1980s
Britain still struggling with its post-colonial identity, points to the
continuing dominance of essentialist ideas about race and culture.
I could have feigned ignorance, pretended not to understand, and let the moment
pass. But I wanted, at the very least, for that woman to recognise that East
Asians are human beings—people who, when insulted, get angry.
Perhaps my words were wasted on her. I will never know what she thought
afterwards. But if nothing else, I hoped that such encounters might erode the
unconscious perception of people of different races as something other than
fully human.
It is likely that Japan, too, in earlier times, harboured similar attitudes. In
the early to mid-Shōwa era, Japan was a largely homogenous society, with few
residents of different ethnic backgrounds. A family of a different race walking
together in public would undoubtedly have drawn curious stares.
But there is a fundamental difference between curiosity and outright
dehumanisation. To be loudly likened to an animal, to have one’s parents
publicly degraded, is something no one should have to endure.
Now, with the rise of the internet and the ease of global travel, things have
changed significantly. Japan’s turn towards becoming a tourist-friendly nation
has brought about a new normal—families from abroad of various backgrounds,
rolling their suitcases through train stations and Shinkansen platforms,
enjoying their travels just like anyone else.
While some tourists prefer to stick to major urban centres, many seek out rural
sites and historical landmarks. I have heard that places such as Kanazawa in
Ishikawa Prefecture, Shirakawa-gō in Gifu, and Miyajima in Hiroshima are now
teeming with international visitors. Many of them, no doubt, are travelling as
families.
Overtourism is now a pressing issue, but perhaps an unintended consequence of
this influx of visitors is a gradual shift in perception. As people grow
accustomed to seeing families of different ethnic backgrounds in everyday
settings—not only as fleeting tourists but also as residents who have chosen to
settle in Japan—the impulse to categorise certain races as somehow outside the
bounds of humanity may begin to wane.
At least, that is what I hope for.
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