A beauty queen has once again re-ignited a debate on what it means to be Japanese.

“There have been racial barriers, and it has been challenging to be accepted as Japanese.”

That’s what a tearful Carolina Shiino said in impeccable Japanese after she was crowned Miss Japan on Monday.

The 26-year-old model, who was born in Ukraine, moved to Japan at the age of five and was raised in Nagoya.

She is the first naturalised Japanese citizen to win the pageant, but her victory has re-ignited a debate on what it means to be Japanese.

While some recognised her victory as a “sign of the times”, others have said she does not look like what a “Miss Japan” should.

  • 520@kbin.social
    181·
    10 months ago

    Oh fucking get over yourself.

    The Japanese are hardly an oppressed people, at least by outsiders. They’re a first world country. With their own customs and culture.

    The only dangers to their identity have been those of their own societal making.

    Japan’s native population has been in critical freefall for a long time not because of any white person interference, but because their culture has become increasingly incompatible with family life for a significant amount of their population. If you thought America had an out-of-whack work culture, your jaw would hit the floor when you see what salarymen and salarywomen over there go through.

    It’s not like they’ve been pushed out by a colonial force with some manifest destiny bullshit. The problem here simply isn’t whitey.

    • Schmidtster@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      222·
      10 months ago

      Yet they are being forced to accept outside culture since they wouldn’t be “inclusive”….

      It’s whitewashing and there’s nothing to get over, other than we need to stop pushing our cultures on others until there is nothing of their own left.

      Nothing to do with oppression, but of course fallacies help to make your agenda.

      • 520@kbin.social
        9·
        10 months ago

        They’re being forced, by nothing more than the mere reality of their situation, to accept outside culture because their societal failures have led to their own population death spiral.

        No one forced their hand or made them take on such damaging traditions and policies. No one is forcing the Japanese to take on elements of other cultures.

        Try doing a bit of research before spouting nonsense theories.

      • FaceDeer@kbin.social
        41·
        10 months ago

        They are being “forced” to accept outside culture because their inside culture has led them to a demographic death spiral. Not by any action initiated by outsiders. If outsiders were capable of forcing Japanese culture to change there are plenty of other things that would be changing that aren’t.

        They could always choose to continue following that spiral to oblivion, I suppose. Or they could reform the aspects of their culture that have led them there. Accepting immigration is one of the ways they could do that.