Introduction
Are half-Japanese people treated like foreigners in their own country? Today my friend Jesse and I are on the streets of Tokyo doing a social experiment to see how Japanese people react to their mixed-race Japanese peers. @jesseogn
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Video
Even today, when we were like walking around yeah, a lot of people were like surprised when I spoke to them in japanese.
They did, and you speak perfectly too, and they still gave you the oh.
Your japanese is so good right right.
It's easy to feel like a foreigner in your own country when 98 percent of the population around you is ethnically exactly the same, but what does that mean for the rising number of mixed families and mixed people here in japan? Well, today we're getting some perspective on that, because I've gotten the chance to walk around with a japanese man, who's grown up in his own country, just a little bit different from everybody else, so my name is jesse and I'm 23 years old and I was born and raised in japan.
So my dad is from nigeria and my mom's in japan.
Even when I was a kid, I guess I got stared at on a train in a restaurant.
I know that feeling, but especially when I go to like a restaurant with my mom, since my mom is japanese and I look foreign a lot of them.
Don't think that we're family, okay, yeah they'll, be like who's, this good um, my mom would be like.
Oh that's, my child, and they didn't believe her yeah.
They didn't believe yeah.
Well, you seem to have a really good attitude about it.
So how do you kind of brush it off? How does it not bother you? I try not to care too much about what other people like think about me and just try to be myself.
I think people liked you're a lot and it's more social than I am people are just like sure.
I'll talk to you all right, it's funny and I think another reason.
Why is because they think I'm a foreigner.
So that's why, like they're, very friendly and trying to help well, we took this to the streets, actually pretending to be english-speaking foreign tourists to see if anyone would catch on to jesse's game and the more people that we talked to the more shocked we were with the results, so make sure you watch this to the very end, so you know we can get like ice cream from like convenience stores.
Oh that one they have ice cream.
What's the what's the best ice cream blue, it's a blue ice cream ice cream.
Soda good! Very good! Excuse me! Excuse me, excuse me: do you know where the bathroom is located? I don't know no english toilet?.
This is a difficult one.
Not Toyota.
Not the Toyota cars.
Toyota? Not Toyota.
Like I said, I went to the school in the states until like last year, so I think that's how I was able to yeah learn english.
Even though japanese is my first language, that's amazing! So when you were a kid and you're growing up in this bilingual household, what language did you use at home? A lot of people assumed that we speak in english, but it's only japanese, really strictly japanese yeah.
I didn't know how to speak.
English to I was 12.
when you're walking around do people that don't know you speak to you in japanese, or do they speak to you in english? Usually, english, every single time go straight, just go straight.
Just keep going all the way.
A couple people guessed that you were japanese like right away right right.
I I guess I do have like some japanese facial features too so yeah.
What's your name, Hi nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Hiroto Your English is so good.
Ah, a little bit.? Are you guys a student or are you do your work? I work work.
Are you working so I want to buy ice cream.
It's like.
I want to buy hot look at how much he's sweating look at this.
Oh this way, this way.
Okay, let's go together.
Where are you? Where are you guys going? Oh they're, so cool they were gonna? Take you all the way to the ice cream shop and they don't even know you.
I know they're willing to help me they're.
So nice, I know they're, really, nice.
Let me take you guys to the convenience store yeah.
I didn't want to like say no cause yeah wow such kindness to strangers.
Do you feel like you could fit in more in the us or more in japan? Oh definitely more in the us really and you're, not even american.
I mean you're nigerian and japanese right.
You fit in more in the us right because in the u.s people, don't really like judge me based on like how I look because, like in the u.s, I feel like it's more diverse.
You know a lot of people from different backgrounds, different religions, different nationalities, but in japan I stand out yeah even like walking through shibuya or like shinjuku, wherever I always stand out, so you stood out less in the u.s you weren't in a big city, indiana right, I think indiana is kind of like the heartland, I'm kind of surprised to hear that you feel like people judged you less in the us than they did here.
Definitely definitely yeah and you're, not you're, not a citizen of the us either, but I'm not yeah because, like japan is a hom*ogenous country, so you don't really get to meet with yeah people like me, because they're like mixed and foreigners, real sumo, HI!, yeah wow, that's amazing, real sumo can I see your biceps?.
You missed it.
You could have said something to him.
I should have you felt.
Why didn't you I I cued you.
I know I should have uh.
I missed the chance yeah, you did what happened: you're, okay with the girls, but you get nervous around men.
I got nervous a little bit because he's a real because he's big, it's big, I was like maybe you'll, hurt me but, like I have a lot of mixed kid friends who went through bullying in elementary school middle school and they stayed home at home.
School was the best situation yeah, not that bad right.
My dad didn't want me to go with getting bullied and uh in japan, because that's like a huge thing, especially for mixed kids, a lot of them get bullied like elementary school.
So so he was worried about that yeah.
He was really worried, but he worked really hard so like he can send me and my siblings to school in the states.
So that's why I considered living in the states after I graduated because, like I feel really comfortable living in the u.s, but I wanted to like come back to japan and because I like the food here, my family lives in japan.
So I wanted to like stay here for a couple years and see how it goes and let's see whether if I want to go back to the states or if I have you know good experience in japan, then I might stay here so, okay, so you you might stay here.
You might move to the us that's kind of on the on the table for you right.
So I'm just out there seeing the options everybody should subscribe to jesseogn.
Thank you so much and hit the like button and see you next time we can do more collabs together for sure for sure alright see you guys bye.
