Is Miss Japan Japanese?

[AviatorTom]

Miss Japan 2024 (center), flanked by her court

Ukrainian-born Carolina Shiino was crowned Miss Japan this week, but her Caucasian look rekindled an old question in a country where many people value homogeneity and conformity: What does it mean to be Japanese?

Shiino has lived in Japan since age 5 and became a naturalized citizen in 2022. Now 26, she works as a model and says she has as strong a sense of Japanese identity as anyone else, despite her non-Japanese look.

Here's the complete story from the Associated Press...

Ukrainian-born Miss Japan rekindles an old question: What does it mean to be Japanese?

What do you think?

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I often hear Japanese accused of being among the most racist people by many Americans, but I think there needs to be a distinction between "racist" and "culturist".

All but the worst Japanese generally don't care much at all about actual racial phenotypes in my experience; they do care strongly about a reasonable degree of cultural conformity given that Japan's social fabric is held together by the most delicate threads of intricate social customs.

So they dislike, for example, someone who doesn't know which side of an escalator to stand on to let people who are in a hurry walk by. They dislike people who don't conform to the rule that virtually every Japanese follows when driving in traffic to always let one person merge in the lane and then pass, only for the next person to let the next person merge into the lane and repeat; it's actually dangerous when people from other countries drive and don't know these rules that everyone else follows. They dislike people who are kuuki yomenai (can't read the social air; Japanese communication is based on very careful attention to what everyone is feeling in a room). They dislike people who don't know to take shoes off before entering a Japanese home since the dirt can ruin tatami. I can keep going and going but the nature of Japanese society is so tightly held together by such customs to maintain order that it can quickly devolve into sheer chaos if even a nontrivial minority started to violate these rules.

Japan also has such low crime rates, especially in the way of street crime, that you can observe completely unarmed elderly Japanese men unloading duffle bugs from a truck with millions of US dollars worth of cash, completely unarmed, to deliver to a bank. You can observe 9-year olds riding the subway to and from school completely lacking adult supervision since parents trust that to be safe.

I even had a white ex-girlfriend everyone politely called "Japanese" and not "Caucasian Japanese" or "French Japanese" (she was born in Japan but her mother and father came from France as immigrants to Japan), just "Japanese", since she conformed perfectly to all these mannerisms and spoke beautifully fluent Japanese. So Japanese considered her one of their own given how well she understood Japanese culture.

I also had an acquaintance in Tokyo who was half-black American on his father's side. We all called him Japanese because he spent his entire life in Japan (actually spoke Japanese better than English). It doesn't matter that he's half-black racially. To us, he was as Japanese as any other person born in Japan.

So Japanese can be a bit xenophobic at times, especially in rural areas where they rarely encounter any foreigners. But it's not towards people of other racial types but people who don't understand Japanese culture. To be a Japanese simply means to be someone who understands Japanese culture and conforms to Japanese values. It doesn't require an Asian phenotype or even Japanese ancestry.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Meanwhile, I think the US is a much more racist country even though they're less "culturist". The idea of being just "American" seems to imply being white, since they distinguish people of other racists to be "black American" and "Asian American" and so forth. They can't call these people just "American" since they aren't white.

So racial phenotypes actually seem to matter much more to Americans than it does to Japanese, but conformity to a strict cultural mindset doesn't seem as important to Americans as Japanese.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

other races, sorry

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

So Americans seem to distinguish much more by race but much less by culture. Japanese do the opposite. They distinguish much more by culture but much less by race.

[WindAtMyBack]

First of all, this sounds like a "politically correct" selection of Miss Japan.

Japan is probably the most xenophobic nation in the world. Or at least in the running. I remember a GaG member who was mixed Japanese who lived most of her life in Japan. She complained about "not being Japanese enough". It was obviously a sore point with her. In her view she was just as Japanese as anyone else in Japan. But she was not treated the same.

However that's changing. With the low birth rate crisis, mixed children are better than no children. I think I have read that around 10% of births in Japan today are mixed. Although most are mixed with other SE Asians, so it's not as obvious.

I teach ESL to Japanese students. They all say things are changing. For some, it's not changing nearly fast enough. Japanese culture is very traditional.

[purplepoppy]

it's not a unique situation, there's lots of kids worldwide that are growing up in a foreign country who have little memory or connection with the motherland. Your ethnicity may be determined by your genes and your nationality by your passport but if you grew up in Japan then that is who you are, Japanese.

[DeeDeeDeVour]

"Shiino has lived in Japan since age 5 and became a naturalized citizen in 2022."

Good enough to qualify for that pageant.

[Amy10223]

I think that most Japanese will not look st her as a Japanese women, no matter her background. In their culture, if a person doesn't look Asian (Japanese) then they aren't. No matter how much they speak Japanese, or know about the culture, or even if they are born there. It's a fact they are not accepting that way.

It has nothing to do with racism. It's just a culture thing, just as any person living in a different country would not be accepted as part of that country, no matter how much they know of the country and know the language.

[NathanDavis]

Chavela Vargas: Yes... I am MexicanReporter: but Chavela... you were born in Costa RicaChavela Vargas:..."

[jshm2]

Legally, yes. Culturally and intellectually, likely no.

She has won fair and square, but it's only a pageant, not an election to public office.

Most of the hubbub is around her representation of the Ukrainian issues. Obviously if she says she doesn't really give a fuck about what is going on over there, then this will become a non-story.

[SaoirseS]

According to my Japanese born-and-raised mother, yes she is.

[AngelLily]

Is She Genetically Half Japanese? If so she’s Japanese by Definition. If she was not Genetically Half Japanese then Since she’s a citizen of Japan an Abide by Japanese culture I would say they are pretty Japanese.

[4ngelic]

no. i'd consider her japanese even though she's white if she was born in japan. but she's not so.. dont really see why they allowed her to participate

[Orangekiss]

That's nothing, here is the Ukrainian Miss Ukraine.

[OlderAndWiser]

If you think you are a woman, then you are a woman. Therefore if you think you are Japanese, then you are Japanese. Right?

by the way, I am a bald eagle.

[DryGermanGuy]

That’s incorrect, you are a cat.

[OlderAndWiser]

@DryGermanGuy That profile picture is my Uncle Thunder!

[msc545]

Stop it. My cat Allister knows it's you.

[Cubus]

I heard that Japanese consider Slavic look very sexy. Especially Polish and Russian, but is seems Ukrainian too.

[Zestyassmf1997]

Sort of Japanese. But not as Japanese as someone who was born there, to Japanese parents.

[AngryCarl]

I think if you were born in Ukraine you're Ukrainian but I realize that's an unpopular opinion.

[Iron_Man]

Not impressed with the pictures that I’ve seen in here

[OtterMan68]

What are the qualififcations?