How Foreigners from East Asia Experience Japan Differently
Some things are definitely less exotic for an East Asian
A couple of weeks ago, I took part in a Clubhouse discussion hosted by Maya Matsuoka and Timothy Sullivan with the provocative and slightly tongue-in-cheek title — “Does an Asian experience Japan differently?”
There are many who, coming from outside of the East Asian sphere — usually from the Occident — find Japan a crazy bag of weirdness and exoticness.
How much of it is down to the exoticization and fetishization of the Orient?
After all, Oscar Wilde has written before that Japan does not exist.
Before I discuss my take on this question — two caveats. As an ethnic Chinese-Singaporean living in Japan, my observations might not be generalizable to the experience of every person with East Asian heritage living in Japan.
Although Singapore is technically a part of Southeast Asia, the population is predominantly ethnic Chinese. I have never lived in China, and obviously, Singapore isn’t 100% East Asia. But I think it’s close enough for me to make these comparisons.
