I was recently shown this video on racism in Japan.

Now it would be extremely naive of me to argue that Japan has no racism. No matter where you go in this world you will always find people who hate you because of who you are regardless of whatever race, colour, hair, religion, shoes or glasses you currently own/are. However, this video has made me wonder a few things - mostly is it legal to place discriminatory regulations on a store's policy in Japan? Well according to Wikipedia Article 14 of the Constitution of Japan doesn't. They don't have specific hate crime laws, and so things like assault are treated as regular crimes.

However this isn't what my point is. My point is more to do with taking these signs out of context. On this surface these seem to be akin to the "No colours allowed" signs that were prominent around America pre-1960, however I noticed something. At 0:55 of the video there's a sign entirely in Japanese. The line the guy is pointing at begins with "Nihon-go". This literally translates as "Japanese language" but it essentially means to speak Japanese. I noticed this more and more with the other signs and it becomes more clear that this isn't anything against foreigners per se. It's against "Stupid Tourist Syndrome" where if you speak your native tongue slower, louder and stand closer to whom you are speaking then they should surely understand. This is more along the lines of an old Dead Ringers sketch where they interview Abu Hamza to represent the Muslim community and then Head Dragon of the KKK to represent the white community on the war in Iraq.

This makes a whole lot more sense seeing as I've been to 4 cities in Japan and didn't encounter any racism of that kind at all. In all honesty I've never seen such a collectively polite and curtious nation in my life. Within the next 5 years I shall be moving there to teach English as a foreign language. I cannot wait to go back.