
Japan's hidden caste of untouchables - rglovejoy
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34615972
======
chops
In the show _House M.D_ , Dr. House explained his desire to become a doctor as
based on an experience as a kid with the Japanese caste system:

 _" When I was 14 my father was stationed in Japan. I went rock climbing with
this kid from school. He fell, got injured and I had to bring him to the
hospital. We came in through the wrong entrance and passed this guy in the
hall. It was a janitor. My friend came down with an infection and the doctors
didn't know what to do. So they brought in the janitor. He was a doctor. And a
Buraku. One of Japan's untouchables. His ancestors had been slaughterers,
grave diggers. And this guy, he knew that he wasn't accepted by the staff, he
didn't even try. He didn't dress well. He didn't pretend to be one of them.
The people that ran that place, they didn't think that he had anything they
wanted. Except when they needed him. Because he was right. Which meant that
nothing else mattered. And they had to listen to him."_

I always liked that little monologue.

~~~
yourapostasy
Moving passage on when the chips are down, all that matters is what is right.
Here's the audio.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xrZUx1OUjM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xrZUx1OUjM)

------
hyperion2010
The burakumin are the best argument against genetic causes of heritable lower
intelligence (often invoked when talking about African American populations).
In Japan many burakumin show significantly lower scores on standardized
intelligence tests, however when they migrate out of Japan their scores
recover to normal levels. Social caste is heritable. This was a favorite
zinger that my evolutionary biology teacher liked to spring on unsuspecting
students that tried to argue that they could demonstrate that low iq among AAs
was due to genetic differences.

~~~
RottenHuman
They really are not a good argument against genetic causes of heritability of
lower IQ scores in other groups. Their example (if true) only serves to proof
that in their cases low IQ was cause by environment, which as partial cause
for low IQ is not debated by anyone credible. It says nothing about genetic
causes in other groups at all.

~~~
hyperion2010
Fair enough. But I think it is a good reminder that the gut reaction to invoke
genetics when confronted with a heritable phenotype should be met with
suspicion, especially given the tendency to treat 'intrinsic' traits as
excuses for continued poor treatment/disregard.

~~~
Camillo
Inasmuch as it makes sense to claim one's gut has any notion of genetics, I'd
say the gut reaction of the vast majority of people is to reject any
suggestion that there are intelligence differences between groups caused by
genetics.

~~~
rewqfdsa
_My_ gut supports group differences in intelligence. As Heinlein once wrote,
if intelligence weren't heritable, you could teach calculus to a horse. It
takes the entire intellectual edifice of modern radical egalitarianism to rob
people of their common sense.

~~~
tim333
>It takes the entire intellectual edifice of modern radical egalitarianism to
rob people of their common sense

It's not just 'radical egalitarianism'. The seemingly obvious explanation that
such and such group are poor because they are genetically low IQ does not
stand up to scientific investigation on the whole.

------
hkmurakami
At least domestically, it is more of an open secret than an actual secret. (By
the way, the politically correct way to refer to the Buraku is "Douwa")

This open secret history of persecution has been utilized by these communities
to attain some more political and economic power. People who do not have a
Douwa ancestry will sometimes move into these communities to be associated
with the region and put themselves under the implied protection of the Douwa
(since companies / government must tread very lightly around them).

Interestingly, I recently learned that the school curriculum is starting to
remove sections about the Douwa history. Once the "open secret" is less known,
the caste will be able to wield less political power, and this change is
obviously intentional.

------
brianwawok
This is one of those sad human truths right? Put 1000 babies on an island and
let them grow up free from influence. Somehow a group will find another group
and marginalize them. Maybe skin color, maybe hair color, maybe height, maybe
weight. Seems like humans do this in just about every culture, and although we
try to "hide" it in political correctness - it still happens.

Wonder if this is just some part of the bad side of the "humans need other
humans to connect and bond" coin - "humans need enemies so they can bond
together against, and if there is a lack of a real enemy they will somehow
construct one". I mean go to a nice middle class soccer match. Some mom will
be the outcast for her kid always being late to practice, or something...

~~~
chime
> Somehow a group will find another group and marginalize them.

Precisely as demonstrated by this study:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realistic_conflict_theory#Robb...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realistic_conflict_theory#Robbers_cave_study)

More links:

[http://www.damninteresting.com/not-your-average-summer-
camp/](http://www.damninteresting.com/not-your-average-summer-camp/)

[http://www.simplypsychology.org/robbers-
cave.html](http://www.simplypsychology.org/robbers-cave.html)

~~~
brianwawok
Awesome, this was just some of my old man truths - never knew it had a name.

------
patio11
Many churches and temples in Ogaki have a sign in the window saying "We will
under NO CIRCUMSTANCES assist with third-party ancestry investigations
(身元調査)." This is largely because parish records (and the analogous paperwork
at temples) can leak burakumin status or Korean ancestry, both things which
Japanese people have ample reason to not want publicized about them.

A sidenote:

I debated during college (in the US, prior to ever living in Japan, where I've
been for about 10 years now).

I was mildly notorious in debate circles for running a particular "case"
(proposed instantiation of a government policy supporting the resolution which
one would, as the government side of a debate, have to win was beneficial) on
any resolution which would support it. For example, the resolution might be
"The government shall limit the information it records about it's citizens."
One team of the debate has to convince the judge that they have a concrete
idea for how to do that. The other team opposes either that concrete idea
and/or says "That case doesn't actually support the proposition our opponents
are forced to support."

The case was "abolish the koseki", a family register in Japan which was once
considered semi-public information (this has been tightened up rather
severely, but it still exists and companies often still ask to see yours) and
which has a variety of ways to leak extraordinarily sensitive facts about
one's family, in addition to being an odious institution for a host of other
reasons. I say "notorious" for this case because, by American collegiate
standards, the koseki is straight-out evil, and the reason we chose to run
this case is because there are few ways to debate in favor of retaining it and
all of them require you to be better versed at Japanese politics/policy than
my debate partner and I were, which is unlikely to be true of any US debate
team picked at random.

I like to believe that my one lasting contribution to debate is convincing a
lot of tournament directors to change the traditional wording in resolutions
"The government shall $DO_SOMETHING" to "The United States federal government
shall $DO_SOMETHING", because when we interpreted the government to mean
"Japanese government" the other team invariably said something along the lines
of "That's not what the resolution writer intended", to which I would say "You
being ignorant of a major first world nation whose internal political issues
are well-reflected in the academic literature may make this debate
inconvenient for you to win but that does not mean I'm not allowed to pick
something which fits within the clear definition of the word 'government.'"

This drove people nuts.

Ten years later I just had to get a copy of my family's koseki to apply for an
apartment lease, upon which the renting agent said "Oh, you're American. Do
you even know what this is?" Yep -- funny how life works out. (Why does my
apartment renting agent need my koseki? To determine whether I'm the right
sort of people to live in the really nice apartment we're moving to. Does
"right sort of people" sound ominous to you? YEP, exactly as bad as you think
it is.)

~~~
ue_
>To determine whether I'm the right sort of people to live in the really nice
apartment we're moving to. Does "right sort of people" sound ominous to you?

Couldn't this possibly be unconstitutional? In Article 14 (I don't have my
Japanese copy at hand):

>All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no
discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race,
creed, sex, social status or family origin.

That said, this only applies to citizens only, and you did mention the renting
agent noticed you are an American.

Horrible behaviour nevertheless.

~~~
patio11
It's certainly illegal, much like gender discrimination in the workplace,
requiring excessive work hours of salarymen, and racial profiling by police
officers are illegal.

------
ue_
>evidence, perhaps, that old, discriminatory habits may yet be consigned to
history.

There's ample evidence with regard to foreigners in Japan already.

~~~
mahranch
This gets repeated a lot (the whole "Japan is racist!" trope) but it's
nonsense. Actual studies carried out proved Japan is not only the least racist
country in Asia, it's equal to most European countries. They're actually less
racist than France. South Korea and India on the other hand, are orders of
magnitude worse. See the study yourself:

Source:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-
map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/)

The reason why the myth gets perpetuated is because young, white affluent
males go over there for whatever reason (teach for a while, anime, exotic
extended trips, etc) and don't get treated like little princes. So they go
back home, hop on their favorite "gaijin forum" and claim they were
discriminated against and that Japan is racist. That's why young hot Japanese
girls weren't throwing themselves at them, or why people weren't bending over
backwards for them.

~~~
cthalupa
Japan is the only country I've ever been refused a cab ride or entry to a
business solely on account of being a 外人. In both occurrences I was completely
sober, well dressed, and in the presence of native Japanese.

That's a purely personal experience, but these happened in Tokyo. The cab
incident was even in Ginza - one of the most international portions of Tokyo.

Yes, plenty of white males go over to Japan and expect to be immediately
accepted/worshipped/whatever, but just because their claims of racism are
often able to be safely ignored, it doesn't mean that all accounts of it can
be chalked up to unrealistic expectations and self entitlement.

~~~
mahranch
I don't think your one-off experience (a personal anecdote)invalidates an
entire academic study. My point, and the point of the article I linked, is
that all countries are racist to one extent or another. It's just that
_relative_ to other countries, Japan isn't racist. In fact, they're one of the
most tolerant countries around according to basically every research study.
Yes, they're not as tolerant as America, but they're pretty darn close. I
think people underestimate just how racially tolerant America is in relation
to everyone else. It's one of the least racist countries in the world.

~~~
cthalupa
I flat out acknowledged that that is a personal anecdote in my comment.

Regarding the study, it requires that people self-report a negative attribute
about themselves. We already know it's basic human nature to lie to cover up
faults. Why do you expect a study that relies on self reporting is going to be
accurate?

Go try to rent an apartment or lease a house as a foreigner in Japan. You will
find it extremely difficult to do if you are not specifically looking in one
of the expat housing areas. The Japanese may say they wouldn't mind a
foreigner living next door in a study, but they make it an extremely difficult
process for this to actually happen. This thread has already discussed the
family registry, but another important aspect of it is what replaces the
credit check in most Western countries - a contact at the company you work
for. For a Japanese salaryman, all disputes with a landlord go through his
boss. Didn't make rent? Boss talks with the salaryman. Landlord hasn't fixed
the running water? Boss talks with the landlord. This isn't something you get
as a foreigner unless you've been with the company for a very long time.

Buying a house? You better be doing it outright, or already have your
citizenship. Even permanent resident status isn't going to be enough at many
banking institutions.

You can read the accounts of plenty of expats who have lived in Japan the
frequent struggles they face as foreigners, with the entire system being set
up to put them at a disadvantage. There's quite a few of them that have talked
about it on HN, even. And maybe Japan isn't more racist than most other
countries - but it certainly is racist enough for people to have valid
complaints.

~~~
mahranch
> You can read the accounts of plenty of expats who have lived in Japan the
> frequent struggles they face as foreigners, with the entire system being set
> up to put them at a disadvantage.

I've read them, and I disagree with 99% of them. Sure, there's a couple legit
ones, but the vast majority are massively exaggerated. Especially sites like
Debito. If you go on reddit's Japan forum (/r/Japan), you mention debito,
you'll get laughed at. The guy literally profits from pointing out
discrimination and intolerance in Japan. That's how he makes his money so it's
in his interest to exaggerate _everything_. He's written books on the matter.

I don't really want to come across as some overly liberal social justice
warrior, but most of those complaints you speak of aren't justified. As I
stated above, it's just 20-something white kids not getting treated the same
as they did back home and they're not used to it. They're used to people
bending over backwards for them, receiving handouts and not being ignored.
They were sheltered most of their lives (as were the majority of all
millennials) so when they get to Japan and get treated differently, all of the
sudden it has to be "racism".

That's really what's happening here. They're conflating their culture shock
with racism. I'm an expat myself. I've spoken of my time in Japan here on
hackernews several times. I find it's no more racist than any other country
I've traveled too. In fact, it's probably the least racist country I've been
to, only behind America. Hell, I saw more racism in Sydney the last time I was
there.

------
unsignedint
This is a bit controversial, as it is very arguable that some of those groups
that's charted to eliminate discrimination against those groups exists for the
sake of their existence.

In many of those areas, there are so many inflow/outflow of population
(perhaps a majority, especially younger demographics, not aware of even such
notion existed in the area) from "buraku" areas really doesn't mean anything.
So some argue what they are doing is reopening a closed issue.

That's doesn't mean these discriminations do not exist, but there seems to be
a lot of conflict of interest in the way the issue is handled.

------
Foy
There are some strange superstitions w.r.t. death in Japanese culture. In
Japanese the number 4 sounds sort of like death so it's a number they avoid a
lot (it's missing from many elevator options, similar to how 13 is skipped
sometimes) and patterns of squares are sometimes avoided to prevent having 4
corners meet (especially with straw mats).

I had never heard of this, though. The class of untouchables who work close to
death. Really interesting stuff.

~~~
eevilspock
_> similar to how 13 is skipped sometimes_

Sometimes?

 _" Based on records of buildings with Otis brand elevators, as many as 85
percent of the high rises in the world don't have a 13th floor, says Dilip
Rangnekar, spokesman for the Farmington, CT-based elevator maker."_ \-
[http://realtytimes.com/todaysheadlines1/item/15685-20020913_...](http://realtytimes.com/todaysheadlines1/item/15685-20020913_13thfloor)

Superstitions are alive and well around the world. In the U.S., the number of
people who still turn to astrology when it comes explaining success or failure
in dating and relationships will astound you. Even in places like New York
City.

~~~
philiphodgen
In reply to tsotha, 1801 Century Park East, Los Angeles, CA 90067 is an
example. At least it was when I worked there after law school (ahem some time
ago).

------
rangibaby
I worked at a place near some cheap municipal housing for Burakumin once, so
met and became friends with some. They were nice people.

------
ohsnap
Not sure what world you live in but I have never heard students argue in favor
of African Americans having heritable lower intelligence. Such a discussion
would instantly be shamed and publicized. Pretty sure your making this up.

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10445181](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10445181)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
plonh
Been seeing this announcement frequently recently. Thank you!

Of course, you could also collapse subthreads automatically (like reddit) when
a comment gets downvoted very low) instead of policing manually.

