
Japan’s Rent-a-Family Industry - mgdo
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/japans-rent-a-family-industry
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sdrothrock
Getting a little tired of these showing up.

Yes, these services exist, yes some people use them, and yes, it's totally
"weird Japan."

But no, they're not anywhere NEAR mainstream. I think using the word
"industry" really makes the reader think it is and imagine a huge,
dysfunctional society. I do appreciate the paragraph or so where they point
out that this kind of thing has existed and does exist in other countries, as
well -- I just don't understand why people always insist on pointing at a
minor subculture in Japan and writing entire spiels about it as if it were a
common thing.

Imagine a Japanese writer talking about the "greased pig chasing industry" in
America.

~~~
wahern
It's racism, pure and simple. Which only goes to show how endemic it is. It's
also a great example of racism given its obviousness, difficulty to dispute,
and relative ease of admission--ease in the sense that coping to this attitude
isn't [yet] considered an admission to being a full-on racist person.

Almost every American is guilty of this particular prejudice--perceiving
Japanese as exotic oddities such that they're not only overly credulous about
these stories and the degree to which they reflect the society, but actually
prefer them to the exclusion of more substantive news, like the more prosaic
social and business stories that circulate about the Chinese or French
(notwithstanding political biases, etc). And it shows that racism isn't just
something exhibited by rabid white supremacists; racism necessarily implicates
neither ill-will nor hatred. Yet it shows how if you don't recognize racism
early and honestly it absolutely can metastasize into acute acts of hatred,
such as what happened during WWII where both Americans and Japanese committed
atrocious crimes precisely because of pervasive, fertile racist attitudes that
were seemingly benign before (and after).

At the same time, it shows that merely identifying racism doesn't mean that
everybody is obligated to immediately address it (or, more often, hide it).
Which is good in as much as it proves it possible to discuss racism without
triggering the denialism that comes when people feel imposed upon. Like
vegetarianism, people can be both accuser and perpetrator in discourse without
feeling like a hypocrite or a morally bad person, which is hugely important
for constructive dialogue and achieving incremental improvements--
realistically the only kind of improvement possible.

~~~
sdrothrock
> It's racism, pure and simple.

It is, and I'm convinced it's lasted so long because it's fueled on both sides
-- on the Japanese side by nihonjin-ron (the belief that Japanese people MUST
have unique things that nobody else has) and on the US side by the lingering
effects of the Chrysanthemum and Sword, which started the fetishification of
"Japanese exotic-ness."

