"B Robson" <luvrethecat@hinet.com> wrote in message
news:dcupqm$n9n$1@nnrp.gol.com...
> If you take the technical meaning of discrimination as meaning noticing
> difference and acting on it then it happens all the time. Even in Tokyo
> people will notice that they are standing next to a foreigner, if you
> are non Asian you cannot disappear into the crowd at all. That isn't
> necessarily wrong.

So many stories... One of my favorites was when I nearly knocked a lady over
just by asking her directions.

> Serious cases of discrimination vary somewhat. I have had little
> experience of racism but when I first arrived I lived in port frequented
> by Russian sailors and was often barred entry to shops and restaurants
> and I was denied service at a bank even though I was a customer.

When I moved down to Okinawa 3 years ago, I got pretty heated up for the
first time in a while when Okinawa Bank refused to allow me to open a bank
account with an ATM card. With the account they insisted was the only one I
was eligible for, I could only withdraw money at the teller counter, and
only at that branch. I got the bank manager, and even the manager's manager
on the phone, they all rejected my very reasoned (and correct!) arguments.

So screw it -- went next door and opened an account with Bank of the Ryukyus
with no problems. In fact they lent me more 10s of millions of yen for a
house than I care to think about soon after I opened the account...

> Recently while searching for an apartment I gave up as I was continually
> rejected. For me, an engineer with a job at a good Japanese company and
> references it was difficult. Others must have an impossible time.

When my wife and I first moved to Japan in 1995 (yes I am a newbie), we (or
she rather) literally called/visited 10s of real-estate agents looking for
an apartment. After a while it got to be a routine:

"Do you have any vacancies? Great. By the way my husband is a gaijin... Oh,
I see. Well thank you then."

We eventually found a place in a 4-gen nagaya called Taisho Apaato, located
in Taisho-cho, and it really looked like it was built in the Taisho era...
We had to go outside to fire up our bath at night, and our laundry area was
on packed earth outside our tiny room. But it was actually a lot of fun!

-- 
Regards,
Ryan Ginstrom
ryang@gol.com