She says it was entirely unnoticeable for her in Japan. Obviously, folks were curious about her race and her differences. The main difference for her is the way she was treated by strangers, shopkeeps, govt employees, law enforcement, etc... She is always aware of the differences in the U.S., often painfully so, but those things were not present for her there. She finally felt like a regular person. She came home because of family and visa stuff.
She'd probably have to stay longer to notice. It's very different than the US. They are generally very friendly and gracious to strangers, which has very little to do with race. I love the place, but it's not without its faults. Hussar would know better than me, of course.
Im sure much of it is cultural too. It's probably not as nice for someone from a different Asian country. There was lots of colonial stuff there that hasnt sat well. Similar to what happened here in the states.
Yes exactly. To (some) westerners, Asians may appear as one group (to put it "nicely") but the Japanese, when racist, are very likely to be more racist against Chinese or Koreans, than black or white folk, who they have much less cultural baggage with. I'm going to stop there, though, because while these are my observations, I'm really an outsider on the whole thing. This is also probably not the place for it.
At least not much. Although, it has been a struggle to get the vaccination rates up. A lot of people are resistant to the idea of getting vaccinated. I mean, the booster rate right now is about 20%. And it wasn't until about November of 2021 before we hit 80% for second shot. Heck, I just got my notice for my booster in the mail this week.
Welcome to what the rest of the world went through over the last few years. Too bad you didn't hold it off forever.
Eventually, New Zealand would be exposed again to the rest of the world in large numbers, and thus to Covid. This may the best possible outcome, getting hit with Omicron with a high vaccination rate.
