A restaurant in Osaka, Sumibi Yakitori Hayashin, was forced to close after posting a “No Chinese” sign. The parent company, Sasaya Holdings, apologized, stating the sign violated corporate policy and the Japanese Constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on nationality.
by SkyInJapan
10 comments
Who wrote the Chinese? Even taking into account the differences between Kanji and Simplified Characters, the Chinese looks like it was written by someone who never learned how to write Chinese Characters. Is the shop owner illiterate?
What about all the Japanese only and no foreigners (ment to be white) customers 🤷
Although I don’t agree with such discrimination:
1) Honestly it happens a lot with restaurants in Japan turning away non-local customers and only wanting local ones. But they don’t make it so obvious by posting a sign.
2) On the flip side I can see for certain restaurants why they don’t want to serve non-Japanese speaking ‘non locals’. Maybe the language/cultural barrier causes unwanted misunderstandings and negative experiences.
BUT sometimes I want to remind restaurants and their chefs. Your guiding principal should be “if someone is hungry…it your duty to feed them as a chef”.
Do Japanese people draw a distinction between people who are from China, i.e. Chinese citizens, vs people who are racially Chinese i.e. Chinese in blood but are not from China?
The latter group would include for example Asian Americans of Chinese descent, Taiwanese, the Chinese diaspora in other countries and so on.
Edit: I don’t get the hate for a legit question. Some of us travel, and would like to know whether to expect discrimination or not.
That was fast…
I think one of the things China and Japan must have agreed upon when trying to build better relations was that blatant open racism would be dealt with swiftly and powerfully. Punishments for anti Japanese or Chinese behavior have been swift in both countries. They death penaltied the guy that killed a Japanese kid pretty fast.
woww, I often hear “japanese only, sorry!” and I cannot recall a single occasion where that was not meant to be “ sorry, but we do not speak any foreign language”….
I understand why they do that albeit I don’t agree.
When an asian misbehave here is most likely Chinese, I don’t say that all Chinese are bad, but for sure MANY individuals are bringing a bad name even for the rest of the population.
What Japanese are usually doing that the Chinese don’t:
– be quiet on public transportation
– be generally not loud
– don’t use the phone in wrong circumstances (but now younger Japanese sometimes are doing that more than before, but still acceptable)
– don’t litter (not a high percentage fortunately)
– try to clean as much as possible before leaving
– not blocking the sidewalks in group
– smoke (in Japan you can only smoke in designated areas)
– don’t skip the queues (this is VERY frustrating here)
– don’t waste the food, especially now with a rice crisis
Moreover they usually move in larger tourist groups than any other countries, at least for my experience.
In general Japanese people try to think about the others before of themselves.
I was just in Osaka. There are a lot of rich Chinese there. From China, Taiwan, and HK.
Many of the servers at mid tier to luxury tier store spike fluent Chinese.
I think it would be insane to not serve Chinese if they are the most affluent group.
I get why they do it. But I also get why anti-discrimination laws are in place and must be enforced.