A few months back I attended an annual community event where foreign volunteers set up booths dedicated to our countries of origin (NZ, Australia, the UK, the US, South Africa, Singapore, Canada and China). Occasionally additional countries are represented, places volunteers have traveled to, or maybe even their parents' or grandparents' homelands. It's an opportunity for cultural exchange with the Japanese, and to demonstrate a little national pride as we show off pictures and memorabilia, and give away cool swag provided to us by our embassies (for the record, the Irish give away the best stuff).
This year, ten minutes into setup, the Chinese walked out in protest. Someone had made the unfortunate strategic decision of positioning Tibet and China next to each other, and China objected to the display of the Tibetan flag, which is illegal to fly in China. China agreed to continue setup if Tibet took down the flag and the Chinese flag were raised instead. Tibet demurred. Supervisors were called, and in the end, the Chinese removed all their materials and refused to participate.
I confess that at first I basked in the absurdity and schadenfreude of the situation (I can't help it, I'm German). What was this, an episode of The West Wing? But as the story made the rounds, something started niggling at me. I was struck by how one-sided the reactions were. Most of the other participants commented something along the lines of, "Well this isn't China. We have freedom of speech in Japan, so I don't think it's fair to say that someone else can't do something because it's illegal in your country." Even the ethnically Chinese but American-born volunteers seemed torn between wanting to keep the peace and strike a more workable compromise. Only one person said, "I kind of feel bad, though, because it's really easy for us to gang up on [the Chinese volunteers] because we all speak English and have similar viewpoints."
-----
This last statement resonated with me. Sure, you could claim that the Chinese were being ridiculous and unfair. The argument that we are in Japan and therefore not subject to Chinese laws is valid. But we also had a news team coming to film the event, as well as tons of other people with cameras and video equipment, and I could kind of understand how a picture or footage of these two volunteers next to a Tibetan flag might not sit well with the Chinese government if it were to somehow get back to them. Is that overly paranoid? Perhaps. But you could also claim that in the Information Age, it doesn't hurt to be too cautious, as certain things have a habit of coming back to bite us in the end.
This microcosm of international affairs served as an excellent reminder that even though some conflicts or inter-cultural dynamics may seem distant or perhaps unimportant in the grand scheme of things, they do actually matter to some people in a big way. It's also very easy to prematurely dismiss certain issues as being passé, such as racism, discrimination against women, etc. However, for some, these issues are still very real and affect their daily lives. For example, South Korea and Japan seem to be on good if not warm terms, yet earlier this summer Japanese nationalists took to the streets to protest Korean and Chinese immigrants, calling the Koreans "cockroaches" and making threats against their lives. The Japanese government is becoming increasingly alarmed by this rhetoric, and several politicians have denounced the demonstrators' comments.
-----
In the end, other volunteers at the community event stepped in to fill the booth space vacated by the Chinese. America had prepared a bunch of large props so that people could have their picture taken as though their face were on the dollar bill or the Statue of Liberty, and the UK loaned us their Scottish JET dressed in full kilt, who took loads of pictures with giddy Japanese visitors. It was a nice reminder of the pleasures of international cooperation. And the joys of seeing a grown man in a kilt.
No comments:
Post a Comment