Watching history being made
Last night in the half-time of a televised rugby game I saw an interview by Japanese TV with Eddie Jones, recently retired coach of the Japan national rugby team. The Japanese team was the absolute standout entertainer of the recent world cup, beating South Africa in an incredibly tense and brilliantly played game of rugby, and becoming the first team in world cup history to fail to progress despite winning three games in the group phase. This team is half “foreign”, and the captain was a man called Michael Leitch, who came to Japan in high school and stayed to take them onto the world stage.
Eddie Jones was asked about Leitch in the interview, and after discussing his playing qualities (Leitch is a pretty good player), described some of his personal qualities: that he is humble, hard working, and able to unite the “foreign” and Japanese players in the Japan team through both his language skills and his attitude. Jones also stated that he thinks the Japanese national team will always be a mix of “foreigners” and Japanese nationals, and as a result the captain will always need to be someone who can unite disparate cultures, playing styles and attitudes to rugby.
It’s only sport but Eddie Jones here is saying a really important thing about the role of migrants in any society. Every society has its weaknesses – Japan’s size in rugby, the UK’s poor mathematics, Australia’s voracious need for foreign ideas – but usually people don’t recognize their own country’s shortcomings. Eddie Jones, a man with a connection to Japan but obviously not Japanese, can see a shortcoming and can state it, but in general we don’t see the problems in our own societies. In well-functioning societies migrants fill those gaps, make them work, and help a society to achieve great things in areas where it would be otherwise weak. Michael Leitch is a really good example of a migrant doing that in Japan, but from overseas the Japanese team is often seen as illegitimate because of this foreign component. In fact the Japanese team is standing out as a representative of how migrants can make every society better, as is Japanese Sumo (which has allowed foreigners to compete and has not had a Japanese grandmaster for something like 11 years). Rather than deserving scorn or belittlement for having “imported” big players, the Japanese rugby team is a sign of how the future of a better world will be.
As a foreigner in Japan I often notice the different things foreigners offer to Japan, and our unique role here. Obviously I get frustrated with things when I don’t understand them or I am just culturally unable to handle them, and I’m sure Japanese get frustrated with me for being different and wrong; but also I appreciate the new insight Japan gives me into how to live and behave, and I think just as much Japanese people appreciate being able to change their modes of behavior and interaction to deal with a direct and frank Australian style of working and communicating. I say to people new to Japan from overseas: there are 120 million Japanese, they don’t need another Japanese person doing it badly. Following Japanese manners and customs is obviously important, but Japan needs your newness and (from their perspective) uniqueness much more than they need you to become like them. Living in a foreign country that is completely different to my own, I have very quickly come to realize that integration is a myth, and multiculturalism is the only realistic way that foreigners can become part of another society. The Japanese rugby team is a really good example of how that acceptance of and engagement with foreign ideas can improve a culture, and a great example of how the proper acceptance of foreigners into society can lead to huge new achievements.
Of course for every success story of immigration there is no doubt a downside – the cross-national marriage that failed, the criminal, the person who just didn’t fit in and made everyone uncomfortable. It’s inevitable that a project as challenging as welcoming complete strangers into your home will go wrong. But society is very good at absorbing and cushioning failure – that’s why we have it – and all those failures are of no consequence compared to the successes. Japan’s rugby team is a really good example of how those successes can benefit a nation.
We live in a time when immigration and especially refugees have become a controversial and scary topic. As a foreigner living as a migrant in a country completely different to my own, this fear of foreigners has special salience – it is scary and dangerous to think that it might one day come here, to this place that has welcomed me. I also think it’s a thing of the past, a strange and anachronistic spasm of old racism that is doomed in this modern world. I hope the Japanese rugby team’s successes can hasten its death, and make their small contribution to building a better world, with cultural differences but no borders.
Compromise and Conceit 
April 23, 2016 at 11:19 pm
Oh boy! I relate to this post! In the eighties and nineties I tried so hard to BE Japanese and I was really darn good at assimilating but in the end it fell apart. I think it is better as you said, to “behave” and respect the required customs but also bring what is good about my culture and personality to the table. This would be not only for them, those of my non-native culture but also for my well-being!! I was a hideous bonsai trying too hard to conform. Whenever I run across Japanophiles these days I feel how silly it really is to overdue the assimilation. Thank you for writing this!
April 24, 2016 at 11:54 am
Thanks for commenting, sixfootbonsai. Yes, I sometimes see foreigners trying to be more Japanese than Japanese, even to the point of doing things I think must be physically challenging, like pretending to appreciate natto, or slurping noodles. This also occurs with foreigners taking on the worst aspects of the culture (e.g. the workplace bullying and powerplays) while avoiding the inconvenient ones that would serve to restrain some of this in a local person (e.g. the manners, the careful respect for heirarchy). I don’t believe Japan needs any more noodle-slurping overworkers; it needs outside view to come inside. As I said in the post, this is true of every country, but I notice it since I live here. I think once white people live as migrants in another country they really start to see how futile and impossible dominant cultural demands for “integration” really are, and how much easier it is to fit in to a foreign country under a multicultural rather than an integrationist philosophy[1]. I think in most cases this benefits both sides of the migrant process, and I think the Japanese national rugby team are a really good example of this dynamic in action.
—
fn1: This also applies to Japanese who demand integration and then live overseas; I am speaking here from my own perspective, but these attitudes are common outside of western countries too, obviously, and they’re generally just as futile and impossible everywhere.