Building an Unbiased Society: Reflections on Discrimination in Japan

Facing Discrimination as a Foreigner

A year and a half later, I returned to Japan to stay. In the six years since, I have come to know my adopted home of Tokyo better than any Taiwanese city, and my love of the metropolis continues to grow. I speak Japanese well enough, and look enough like a Japanese person, to pass as a native most of the time. In fact, my life in Tokyo is so comfortable that I sometimes have to remind myself that I am a foreigner. I know that not everyone is as fortunate, though. Many who come to Japan to work or study face harsh living conditions or are exploited by employers who pay slave wages for low-skilled jobs that Japanese no longer want to do.

This does not make me a complete stranger to the discrimination that exists in Japan, though. One area where I have come up against discrimination is when trying to a rent an apartment. In 2018 I decided to go freelance and was looking for a new place to live. Having resided in the company dorm for two and a half years, I had forgotten about the barriers foreigners face when apartment hunting. I had permanent residency status, good Japanese communication skills, and a job at a major firm, but these were insignificant against the simple fact that I was a foreigner. Not being Japanese put me in a “risky” bracket, resulting in several of the real estate agencies I contacted turning me down flat before I could even ask about listings.

I was eventually able to find a nice apartment in my price my range, and all I needed to finish the deal was a rental guarantor. Without any family who could co-sign, though, I had to turn to a guarantor company. These are common enough in Japan, but I was shocked to learn from the real estate agency that I could not use the same firm as Japanese clients. Instead, I had to avail myself of one that specialized in dealing with foreign renters. To add insult to injury, the service fees was double what the “Japanese-only” company charged.

Young and uninhibited—I was still only 25—I was determined to fight. I pointed out to the realtor that the policy blatantly discriminated against foreigners, to which he candidly agreed. To my surprise, he promised to talk with his superiors, and several days later he called to say that the higher-ups had sympathized with my situation and would allow me to rent under the same conditions as Japanese clients.

I was pleased with my victory, but the battle was far from over. Soon after, the real estate agency called to tell me that the guarantor company, a purported leader in the industry, had balked at me being a foreigner and required I have a co-signer to use their services. This was confusing since my reason for going to the firm in the first place was that I did not have a guarantor. I immediately called a company rep, but argue as I might he stood firm, insisting that there was nothing he could do as it was “company policy.” In the end, I had to cough up twice the fee as a Japanese client for the exact same service.

I am certainly not alone in my experience. The Japanese news agency Jiji Press recently reported that nearly half of foreign residents in Japan say they have been turned down at some point when trying to rent. I would not be surprised to learn that the figure was actually much higher.

Even if it is not explicitly illegal, refusing to rent or charging exorbitant fees because a person is a foreigner is without question wrong. However, discriminating against foreign nationals has long been a practice in the real estate industry. Reform is necessary, but any attempt will be a slow, step-by-step process. Change will certainly not happen from within, which makes it vital for people to point out the industry’s biased policies. The same is true with the labor market. As Japan opens its doors to a growing number of foreign workers, people need to call out discriminatory practices if the nation hopes to safeguard the human rights of laborers coming from abroad.

Toward an Open Society

I firmly believe that all people should have the right to live freely and follow the path of their own choosing, regardless of factors like their birthplace, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or skin color. Put like this into words, this society, open and tolerant of people’s individual lifestyles, whatever they may be, sounds like laughably wishful thinking. But how wonderful would it be to freely make our own decisions and chart our own courses in a society like this? Looking back over my works I find that the longing for it underpins many of the stories I have written.

In my novel Hitorimai (Solo Dance), the main character Cho Norie flees to Japan from Taiwan to escape the memories of a violent attack. Even in Tokyo, she is haunted by her thoughts and begins contemplating suicide as a way out of her personal torment. Justifying her self-destructive thoughts, she concludes that “since none of us ask to be born, we should at least have the right to decide whether to endure or escape the absurdities of life.” Similarly, the female protagonist of my novel Itsutsu kazoereba mikazuki ga (Count to Five and the Crescent Moon. . .) struggles in her youth under the rules and expectations of society before eventually discovering that she has the freedom to choose her own identity.

There are aspects of our lives we are born into and must accept. Words like male, female, gay, straight, cisgender, transgender, and even foreigner and Japanese define us, whether we like it or not. It is my hope, though, that society will learn to disregard such labels. Only when liberated from the assumptions and expectations of society will people finally be able to truly live as equals.