What It Is To Be a Foreigner
If you happen to see the random person speaking another language fluently or with a different shade of skin, you’ll probably be thinking “Oh, a foreigner!” But as you use this word, have you ever thought about what exactly a ‘foreigner’ is? Or rather, have you ever thought if you yourself are foreign to Japan, or if the person sitting next to you is a foreigner to Japan?
When considering the definition of a ‘foreigner’, there are a several aspects you can look at this from. These aspects all have some association with at least one: aesthetics, laws, or culture. The most common way to recognize one to be ‘foreign’ at first sight is obviously the person’s ethnicity. If the person has fairer skin or darker skin, lighter hair or curly hair, lighter eyes or thicker lips, you generally assume he or she isn’t the same as you and your usual environment. But then again, a Korean or Chinese that has never cared so much about Japan could look as Japanese as one could possibly appear.
Another way to recognize is by one’s legal nationality. You could just pull the border line according to the internationally accepted law that governs our society all together. In this way, all you need to do to know if someone is foreign or not is to take a look at their passport. But in this way, even those who have never known what Japan is like maybe counted Japanese. Since Japanese
tend to wed within us, this maybe hard to understand, but China for example, has many so-called citizens that have never been to China, can’t speak Chinese, and might even be thinking there are panda’s all over China.
The last of the three groups is they’re culture. In this categorization, people who think panda’s live anywhere and everywhere in China aren’t Chinese. A darker skinned person descended from South Africa who has lived in Japan since they can remember is Japanese. A person who has a completely mixed lifestyle is a cross between whatever he or she mixed into their lives.
The one problem left is that these three aren’t consistent with each other. You can’t apply all three on one person – but that doesn’t mean they’re astray of their heritage. The big “categorizing” of whether or not one is ‘foreign’ –thus not one of the same categorization- or not can’t really do much. What really do matter are that person’s feelings, whether he or she has pride and a sense of belonging to that country. After all, what is the meaning of being a certified-non foreigner when your whole heart is calling for your motherly country? As the world loses borderlines day by day, it is crucial that we can tolerate other people’s home to there souls, and find our own pride.
117-2 Shifumi Nagase
When considering the definition of a ‘foreigner’, there are a several aspects you can look at this from. These aspects all have some association with at least one: aesthetics, laws, or culture. The most common way to recognize one to be ‘foreign’ at first sight is obviously the person’s ethnicity. If the person has fairer skin or darker skin, lighter hair or curly hair, lighter eyes or thicker lips, you generally assume he or she isn’t the same as you and your usual environment. But then again, a Korean or Chinese that has never cared so much about Japan could look as Japanese as one could possibly appear.
Another way to recognize is by one’s legal nationality. You could just pull the border line according to the internationally accepted law that governs our society all together. In this way, all you need to do to know if someone is foreign or not is to take a look at their passport. But in this way, even those who have never known what Japan is like maybe counted Japanese. Since Japanese
tend to wed within us, this maybe hard to understand, but China for example, has many so-called citizens that have never been to China, can’t speak Chinese, and might even be thinking there are panda’s all over China.
The last of the three groups is they’re culture. In this categorization, people who think panda’s live anywhere and everywhere in China aren’t Chinese. A darker skinned person descended from South Africa who has lived in Japan since they can remember is Japanese. A person who has a completely mixed lifestyle is a cross between whatever he or she mixed into their lives.
The one problem left is that these three aren’t consistent with each other. You can’t apply all three on one person – but that doesn’t mean they’re astray of their heritage. The big “categorizing” of whether or not one is ‘foreign’ –thus not one of the same categorization- or not can’t really do much. What really do matter are that person’s feelings, whether he or she has pride and a sense of belonging to that country. After all, what is the meaning of being a certified-non foreigner when your whole heart is calling for your motherly country? As the world loses borderlines day by day, it is crucial that we can tolerate other people’s home to there souls, and find our own pride.
117-2 Shifumi Nagase
posted by SHABUKUST at
7:28 PM
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