Came across this when i was browsing fuckedgaijin.com a few days ago. This is maybe a perfect example for one of the typical japanese cliché. Even though this American “gaijin” speaks almost perfect japanese, judged by his appearance and English greeting, all Japanese people around treat him as a non-japanese-speaking person.

This is especially true to all kinds of western looking gaijin.

In a German book called “Darum nerven Japaner” by Christoph Neumann (which has also been released in Japanese and English), i read that even though one may speak perfectly fine japanese, and ONLY speak to them in japanese, they may always try to answer to you in english because they think you’re an english-only speaking person. That may be a kind of narrow minded pre-judgement coming from me because i never experienced it myself, but i think that Christoph Neumann is right on what he reports. There are a lot of other curiosities hidden in that book and i definately recommend it to anyone who’s interested in visiting/moving to/working in Japan.

Anyways, this was only meant to be an explanation why i wanted to post that Shin Chan episode. Thought it would be a good example on the stumbling blocks you may encounter when visiting/moving to/working in Japan. Maybe i should ask my Japanese class teacher on that topic when i get to it and see what she has to say about it.