Nihonjinron

After reading this blog assignment the term "flyjin" immediately came to mind. Even though it's not related to the Japanese identity specifically, I am not Japanese and therefore am more comfortable writing about changes to the foreigner's identity in Japan rather than making haphazard judgements of and comments on the Japanese identity. These changes in the foreigner's identity actually give us some insight into the Japanese identity, which I will discuss later.

A quick Google search brought up a surprising fact -- there is now a flyjin.com! From what I can discern, the first post was on March 21, 2011, and the blog is related to all things flyjin. (The term itself is a pun on the Japanese word for foreigner, "gaijin", and highlights how many foreigners fled from Japan after the disaster.) The term was apparently coined by Twitter users (who else), and this blog features ranging from factual information about the nuclear radiation levels to personal accounts from foreigners who left and why.

I have mixed feelings about the term flyjin. In the days immediately following the earthquake it was not clear how serious the Fukushima situation was going to become, so to me it makes sense that people left -- the age old adage "better safe than sorry" holds true. I think the issue lies in the foreigners who left cities like Osaka or Tokyo even though they were under virtually no threat from radiation, and in the fact that most people have not yet returned to Japan. Yesterday, however, I was walking around Harajuku and my friend and I actually discussed how we were starting to see more foreigners in touristy areas such as that one. So, that is a promising observation but I hope it continues to improve. I also have a serious problem with all of the American universities who canceled their study abroad programs or forced their students to come home - it shows a lack of trust in the Japanese system and the Japanese universities' abilities to make decisions regarding their programs, and it caused most students to miss out on a whole semester of credit. But, I do understand the liability issue, and once one big university announced their plans to withdraw their students, the dominoes started to fall.

As I mentioned, I think the fact that the term "flyjin" even emerged reveals something inherent in Japanese identity: a strong sense of pride in their country. The word "flyjin" is only catchy because it highlights that foreigners fled Japan, underscoring the opposite: the majority of Japanese citizens stayed. This may have been the case in most countries, where national citizens stay put after a disaster due to a sense of loyalty, but I have found this sentiment particularly strong in Japan. All of the ads saying "ganbarou nihon" and "ganbarou tohoku" highlight that the citizens of Japan and Tohoku are all in this together, working to rebuild and overcome. Hopefully in the coming months more and more foreigners will return to join in that effort.