@ Bigskies, please leave your ignorance, prejudices, and bigotry in the US when going overseas. Comments like yours make life difficult for those of us who live overseas and constantly have to explain that the majority of americans are totally ignorant about anything that is outside of the lower 48." Just what are you implying by posting asinine comments like "the muslim population is growing, and bringing with it anti-western sentiments"? Did you talk with these Muslims about why they may have anti-western sentiments? Did you read something other than a story by a right-wing bigoted Europhile journalist or a ghost-written piece of anti-Muslim propaganda by a 'former' Muslim? And just what do you mean by "I saw several incidents of suspicious behavior by groups of middle eastern men that made us feel extremely unsafe." Were these groups of Maronite Christians from Lebanon who were standing around looking suspicious? Or, maybe it was a group of young Orthodox Jews who were standing around looking suspicious. But you mean Muslim men, don't you? What were the men doing Bigskies, talking? That certainly is suspicious isn't it? You know what they were talking about? They were saying, "It sure would be nice if the people would stop staring at us and looking like we are about to self-detonate ourselves." That's what they were saying, because my Muslim students here in Tokyo face the same kind of racism on a daily basis that you've amply demonstrated by your remarks, and which characterizes the same sort of racism shown by the Dutch Right, who happen to be in the country where you felt most 'at home.' Small wonder. Too bad you didn't get a chance to live in South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s. You would have surely felt you'd reached the land of milk and honey.
But back to your ignorant bigotry and why you shouldn't leave the usa anymore. First, if you are too stupid or too arrogant about the local customs, then you deserve what you get for being a stupid and arrogant american. Do you see Japanese businessmen pissing on the side of buildings on 52nd Street? No, but they would think nothing about pissing on a building outside of Shimbashi station here in Tokyo. Despite their racist attitudes and overt bigotry toward other Asian people, they at least understand that the 'rules' are different in New York than they are in Tokyo. And about the 'drug haven' in Central America, where do you think those drugs are going? To the 'favelas' of Mexico City and Managua where those who live on less than a dollar a day spend their time snorting 90% pure Peruvian flake all day and night? Think again, nitwit. It's all going to the usa, except for the little bit that can get up to the drug-starved Canadians who get hooked on China White instead, which unfortunately results in physical addiction and other health problems common to junkies. But the American coke-head (and that's coke, not crack, because you know what that means, right?) can go about living respectable lives until one day, there's no more money, no more family members around, and the county sheriff just nailed an eviction notice on the door because the American coke-head forgot that just because you feel like you are a god, doesn't mean that you are one. And that's a very stupid mistake to make in a country that frowns on those who don't pay their bills on time, or especially if they don't pay them at all. Anyway, that's why Central America is a 'drug haven:' it's to make sure that the market can supply enough norteamericanos with Colombia's #1 export product, so they can feel like gods as long as they can pay their bills.
But back to your disgustingly racist statements about Muslims and middle eastern men. You don't even know any Muslims, do you? What exactly do you mean by suspicious behavior? Were they speaking in their native language and acting according to the customs of their homeland? You don't know do you, because you wouldn't be able to distinguish Arabic from Farsi from Urdu. So, before you start labeling peoples' behavior suspicious, try to remember that they are not ignorant European Americans acting strangely, but are a group of men from a culture about which you know nothing. You disgust me, and it's people like you who are the reason I left the usa 13 years ago because there is no hope for you. I don't even think an advanced re-education program inspired by the late Pol Pot would help you.
Do you know why their behavior seemed 'suspicious' to you? Besides the US mass media propaganda that has brainwashed you, the men were standing close together, about 18 inches apart, rather than about 30 or 36 inches apart, because spatial distance between people in a social setting in the Middle East is half of that common to people in Europe and North America. So when you see a group of Muslim men standing around, it looks suspicious to you because they are standing so close together, which must mean they are plotting something to make you feel unsafe. The only 'unsafe' thing is your complete ignorance about their culture. Do you know why they are in the Netherlands and many other European countries, and in Japan as well? Because the young natives of the developed world decided to stop having babies a few decades ago. After all, it's more fun to f*** around and live a hedonistic life than to raise a family. Or, I think it is anyway. But the numbers back me up. There are simply not enough members of the native populations of the developed countries to do the low wage hard work jobs that need to be done. That's why the college from which I just retired has 98% of a student body that consists of international students. And maybe about a quarter of them are from Muslim countries in Asia. And you know what else? My Muslim students are the kindest, gentlest, and most thoughtful students that I've taught in a career that includes 7 years as a university instructor in the usa and 13 years as a college professor and administrator in Japan. I've taught students from every continent except Australia, easily covering at least 50 or 60 different countries. And besides white american students, I've found my Japanese students and colleagues to be the most ignorant about other cultures, although the Chinese and Korean students are not far behind. Part of the reason over here is geographical: There are only three main groups in Northeast Asia: Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. You might include the couple of million Russians who live in Vladivostok, but they don't count themselves as Asians and no one else does either. There are also some indigenous groups that were 'ethnically-cleansed' northward when those three main groups staked out their territorial homelands thousands of years ago.
It's a pretty far hike from Tokyo to Hanoi, so there's not a lot of knowledge about the Vietnamese. Some of the swinging businessmen here in Tokyo will know a little about Filipino culture because they've spent some time with some cute young Pinay working in the sex trade here, and some will have gone on a 'sex tour' to Bangkok back in the good ol' days when Japan Inc. could do no wrong. But a few got STDs and when they gave it to their wives, it kind of fell out of favor among the packages offered by travel agencies, so that meant another squandered opportunity for the insular Japanese to learn about other cultures. It's no wonder you felt comfortable and safe in Okinawa. It's basically just one big US military base. The majority of Okinawan people don't like it, but so what? The decisions are made in Tokyo. The American servicemen stationed in Japan usually just rape underage Okinawan girls or murder bar owners, neither of which are a big constituency for the heavy-weight metropolitan politicians, journalists, and fixers in Tokyo. An overweight white woman would definitely feel no threat from anyone in Japan, but you might feel a little uncomfortable about the nervous giggles you hear every now and then when you ask why everyone looks alike, or wonder why they put soy sauce on everything and not ketchup.
As for the Russians on Sakhalin Island and the Kamchatka Peninsula, no one counts them as Asian, most of all themselves. I know, I've taught a couple of them. Their heritage is European, and they make damn sure you know it, too. Why? Racism again, but this time with a Russian twist, meaning that the Russians west of the Urals are Europeans, while those east of that mountain chain are Asian, meaning they aren't 'as good' as Europeans. They have neither the sophistication nor beauty that Eurpeans possess. And what's wild is the Northeast Asian people have bought this reasoning hook, line and sinker. I look Italian, and that happens to be a popular appearance, especially since my body mass ratio is 20, I have the profile of Michelangelo's David, and I stand 6 feet tall. So, although I could easily fit into your group of 'middle eastern men' when talking with my fellaheen students and would be a suspicious character, I also have to endure the constant stares by lonely middle-aged woman and adventurous young ones. And then there are the stares of nearly-concealed resentment from short, stumpy , and round Japanese men who see me and know that they will never get the advantages that I have, simply because of my physical appearance. This place makes me sick, and I'm finally able to relax knowing that this Saturday I'll be moving from here to India. It may be huge pain, but I've endured worse in the usa I'm sure, and I know how to tie a sharp-looking turban so I shouldn't be too obvious an outsider among the masses in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Japanese culture is the only culture in the 'old world' that places more value on the superficial surface of something, or someone, than even those masters of design, the Italians, from where half of my genetic code comes. But I feel as much connection to Italians as I do to the Yanamamo in the Brazilian rain forest. In other words, I know nothing about either culture so I'm pretty hard-pressed to say why Italians are said to be so focused on external appearance. But they are famous for it, and it's certainly not because of their ability to discuss articulately in English aesthetic principles, elements of design, and their theories of what 'works' and what doesn't.
It seems I've strayed from the topic once again, which was my wish that you keep your ignorant ass in the usa so you don't go ruining things for americans like me who happen to like NOT living in the usa. So, it's no mystery why those two bright fellows wrote nearly 50 years ago, the book titled The Ugly American. No, it wasn't about physical appearances, but attitudes, attitudes just like yours that measures every other culture and country by those of the usa. Well that's fine for you, but please don't spread your ignorance in public forums because it can make life more difficult for those americans such as me, who live among the other 6.4 billion people on this planet. No one likes an ethnocentric boor, especially one who openly displays an ignorance and arrogance that many would find offensive. I certainly have, and I'm an american, too.
The racism in Japan actually works to my advantage in some ways though. My height advantage, attractively proportioned body, and Roman countenance allow me to do whatever I damn well please over here, simply because of that physical appearance. For example, it's against the law to smoke on the streets, but I smoke whenever I want and when a policeman walks by, he turns his head the other way. My students from south and southeast Asia might be doing nothing, but the racist cops can take them to the station where they have to sit all night trying to convince those racist cops that their papers aren't forged. Why? Because many of my students are from poor south and southeast Asian countries that have no opportunities for young people, just like in southwest Asia, and your 'group of middle eastern men.' The south, southeast Asian, and Chinese students are here to fill seats in colleges that have seen their domestic market cut in half in twenty years (from 8 million in 1985 to 4 million in 2005, for traditionally aged college students). This demographic group is also the one that is the main source of labor for low wage, low skill, hard work jobs in any developed economy, you know fast food, convenience stores, restaurants, night shifts in warehouses, the fun jobs that everyone should do sometime in their lives to know how much those jobs suck. So, most of my international students are getting screwed twice. They have to pay tuition, then they get student visas so they can work "28" hours per week at those lousy jobs that pay about 20 times what they would make in their countries, but it costs 21 times as much to live in Tokyo as it does in their hometowns. So, they are getting screwed.
I know because I was a young and poor american 30 years ago. I had most of my undergraduate university paid for by the government because I've always been an excellent student, but after I graduated I worked in convenience stores for 3 years and an aircraft parts factory for 4 years. Why? I had no money to buy clothes or a car, and I couldn't get any credit in Reagan's Morning in America economy because I didn't own anything because I'd never made enough money to buy anything (which suggests his Alzheimer's disease was much more advanced than what the public was told if he thought 1984 was 'morning in america': the guy didn't know if it was 1954, 1964 or 2014, he just read his lines and said, 'Is is lunchtime Mommie?') So, after 9 years of graduate school, which the government generously paid for once again although I had to teach university courses in exchange for their largesse, I got the hell out of the usa before I got screwed again, or had to deal with anymore ignorant racists like you. So, I guess it all depends on the perspective of the individual. You want to kiss the ground in the usa and I think you are kissing a pile of s***. You see a 'suspicious group of middle eastern men' and I see some young guys who are sick of being exploited at their dead-end jobs while blue-eyes stare at them everywhere they go.
You are right about one thing, and that's many of my students would love to go to the usa. And I encourage them because as much as I dislike the land of my birth and citizenship, I also know that my Southeast Asian and South Asian students would face much less racism in the usa than they do here in Japan. And if they work as hard in the usa as they do here, they have a slightly better chance of being rewarded for it, while here, they really don' t have a chance unless they open their own business. That's a sad fact about Japan. It is more racist than the usa, in its own way of course. And so, I will retire in India starting Saturday. Please wish me luck, so I don't have to return to the usa and deal with bigoted racists like you. You're just one of the millions in the 'greatest country in the world, god bless america' that have been brainwashed by american mass media and the former executive administration of assorted thieves, idiots, and mass-murderers who wanted a permanent base in the Land of Oil so they ratcheted-up the anti-Muslim paranoia. And it worked. When my first Muslim students came to the Tokyo college where I was academic dean, principal, and professor, and from which I recently retired, I found myself being nervous for no reason. I had 3 Muslim students in my classroom, and all the sudden, certain actions or facial expressions would make me a little nervous. This didn't happen with my Chinese students or Vietnamese students, so why did it happen with my Bangladeshi students? It was simply the association of their faith with the twisted propaganda the usa mass media has used for years to demonize the Other. And it worked. But I understand these things, so I got to know those three guys really well, and they turned out to be my best students, and I still keep in touch with them 4 years after they graduated. How many Muslim people or 'middle eastern men' do you know? How many Muslims, or 'middle eastern men,' have you talked with? How many Dutch people that you knew had Muslim friends? Do you know how many Muslims there are in the world? None, none, none, I don't know, right? See, you are ignorant. So, stay in the usa where you belong. We don't want you here.
