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Comment by muninn_ | Hacker News Reader

Heh, meanwhile in the West if we do the equivalent were just racists and bigots. Move a bunch of refugees into a small town and see women covered up in a burqa and get upset about it? You're a racist now. Wear tattoos in Asia and get kicked out of a gym? "Oh that's just Asian country X, you have to respect their culture". I can't roll my eyes enough.

The people in that Asian country should just accept her for who she is and deal with it. Especially since it's obvious she's a foreigner, they could have just chilled out.

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Would you please not do political/national/racial flamewars here? or any other kind of flamewar? These are highly destructive of the kind of site we want HN to be. Your help in preserving it against that would be greatly appreciated.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14803078 and marked it off-topic.

Japan has a country wide stigma against people who wear tattoos due to it being a primary feature of Yakuza (Japanese Mafia), typically due to a history of them bringing their bad reputation into respectable establishments. Public bath houses and hot springs actively ask people with tattoos to leave because of this. While the younger generation have been getting themselves tattooed more these days, it's still pretty much frowned upon by society as a whole and isn't tolerated, period.

> The people in that Asian country should just accept her for who she is and deal with it.

This is exactly the mentality being discussed in this thread that is so abhorrent. You don't see Japanese people strolling into an American house and telling everyone they should take their shoes off before entering. Why should their society turn a blind eye to foreigners and accept something that is non-trivially a massive taboo in their own country?

> Japan has a country wide stigma against people who wear tattoos due to

Reasons I don't care about. Doesn't matter. Deal with different cultures.

> This is exactly the mentality being discussed in this thread that is so abhorrent. You don't see Japanese people strolling into an American house and telling everyone they should take their shoes off before entering. Why should their society turn a blind eye to foreigners and accept something that is non-trivially a massive taboo in their own country?

Why shouldn't they? Everybody else has to. If a Japanese person owns a house in the U.S. and asks me to take off my shoes, maybe I should ignore that since my culture in my country doesn't do that? No, I'm not an asshole and I respect their culture, even if they want to practice it in my country. Obviously this is a trivial example, but it's not like tattoos representing gang membership/mafia is unique to Japan. Ever been to the U.S. ? Do people get kicked out of gyms here for having tattoos of any kind? People get offended by burqas so should I kick them out of the gym too if I don't like it because I believe it's a symbol of female oppression?

It's a silly double standard you're pulling here and I'll have none of it.

> If a Japanese person owns a house in the U.S. and asks me to take off my shoes, maybe I should ignore that since my culture in my country doesn't do that? No, I'm not an asshole and I respect their culture, even if they want to practice it in my country.

But you won't respect their culture in their own country? Double standards indeed.

Wearing your tattoo proudly in Japan is perfectly fine. Just be prepared to be asked to leave an establishment that doesn't tolerate them. It's closer to "No shirt, No shoes, No service" policies in the West if anything.

It might help to understand that, broadly speaking, businesses in Japan that forbid tattoos are usually fine if the person covers up the tattoo with clothing or a sticker, etc. In fact stickers for this purpose are in shops - a friend told me a public bath once even provided her with one when she forgot.

So, while I don't agree with it, it's not exactly the human rights crisis you're envisioning. Also, it sounds like you're holding very strong opinions about something you don't know any details of, which is generally a bad idea.

> It might help to understand that, broadly speaking, businesses in Japan that forbid tattoos are usually fine if the person covers up the tattoo with clothing or a sticker, etc. In fact stickers for this purpose are in shops - a friend told me a public bath once even provided her with one when she forgot.

But this isn't ok. That's the point.

> So, while I don't agree with it, it's not exactly the human rights crisis you're envisioning.

??? I think that Japanese should be accepting of other people and cultures. It happens to be that we're talking about tattoos, but it could easily be something else.

> Also, it sounds like you're holding very strong opinions about something you don't know any details of, which is generally a bad idea.

False.

> I think that Japanese should be accepting of other people and cultures.

Asking A to respect B's culture of not covering up tattoos in the onsen is not materially different from asking B to respect A's culture of covering up tattoos in the onsen.

Sure so why do we have a double standard in the West?

People here all the time complain about being discriminated against for tattoos. Many get their first tattoo after moving here. Many of those people then end up leaving after saying they came to resent this "racist" country.

I'm generally socially liberal, but I fully support the notion that immigrants should try their best to integrate into society. I think massive, open immigration can be detrimental since it makes isolating yourself from the culture and growing to resent it far too easy.

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