The current issue of a popular Japanese magazine is running an article on Monster Gaijin.
Foreigners in Japan (usually tourists) who have no knowledge on Japanese etiquette or manners.
I don’t mind these reports if they are actually reporting the truth but as usual with trashy journalism they make a lot of it up or fake the stories.
I’m sure it will provide Debito-san with something to talk about for a few weeks about racial profiling etc.
I don’t see too many Japanese Monsters but they also exist. Nothing exotic about them though and not fun to report about.
I’m sure SPA will sell a lot of magazines this month. Probably to foreigners eager to read about themselves.
http://www.j-cast.com/tv/2008/06/24022314.html
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現役の通訳案内士の証言をもとに「わがまま放題、常識破りのモンスター急
増」（番組ナレーション）ぶりを紹介したのだが……。
証言したのは飯塚眞美子・通訳案内士。それによると……
その1：最近は、外国人観光客の間で温泉が人気。ただ、迎える側の温泉地で
は英語や中国語などの表示がまだ不徹底。そのために水着やタオルを巻いて湯
船に入る外国人やボディーソープを湯船に入れ、泡だらけにして入る外国人が。
その2：旅館和室に部屋をとったものの、座るのが苦手な外人。食事時になっ
て和室にダイニングテーブルを持ってくるよう要求。
その3：有名な日本の祭りを取材にきた海外のテレビクルー。紅白の幕を見て
興奮したまではいいのだが、たまたま黒白の幕を見て祭りと勘違い。「オー祭
り!」と葬式場に闖（ちん）入したクルー。
その4：最近は築地魚市場を訪れる外人が多いのだが、セリの最中に強引に写
真を撮ったり、魚を直接手で触ったりする外国人が多いという。いずれも、わ
がまま放題、常識破りといってしまっては大げさ、たわいのないものばかり
だ。証言者も「外国旅行者は、ガイドを使わず、個人で自由に訪日され、生活
習慣、文化、日本語をご存じないで歩いている。偶発的に問題が起こることが
多い」と。ではどうすればいいか？「ガイドがついていれば、問題は一切あり
ません」と、ぬかりなく宣伝を。司会の加藤は「マナーが悪いというよりも文
化の違いと思う」と、自ら大げさぶりを修正していた。
Looks like I was right. Just found a quote on debito.org
“They get into jacuzzis at onsens still covered with body soap, punch out taxi drivers and so on. Here we pursue the mode of life of the foreigners who swagger in our faces during Japan’s recession!”
This week’s issue of Spa! (Feb 17) then proceeds with a four-page polemic against foreign tourists and residents titled “Report of Monster Foreigners on the Rampage.”
Spa! employs the word “monga” for this phenomenon, a neologism of created by combining “monsutaa” (monster) and “gaikokujin” (foreigner).
The article’s opening page is topped with a dorsal view of the British tourist who went skinny dipping in the Imperial Palace moat last October, just seconds prior to his arrest. How ironic, the magazine notes, that the same month the gentleman took his swim the Japanese government established a new Tourism Agency under the umbrella of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
The first half of Spa’s article is devoted to mutterings over the misadventures of foreign tourists, whose irritating peccadilloes range from utilizing their flashes (which is prohibited) at Tsukiji’s early morning fish auctions to haggling tenaciously over the prices of optional extras in an erotic massage parlor.
One “maid” employed by a shop at Akihabara relates her own tale of woe: While distributing flyers on the street she was pursued by a group of five or six cackling black males, exclaiming “Meido-san! Meido-san!” as they recorded her image with video cameras.
“I was terrified, fled for my life,” she shudders.
A kaiten-zushi shop owner, meanwhile, is convinced the plastic bottles of water from which South Korean patrons sipped while seated at his counter really contained shochu (grain spirits) that they had “ripped off” from somewhere.
An accompanying sidebar titled “What is the source of the increase in foreigners who wander off the beaten track?” complains that foreign-language guidebooks fail to instill proper decorum and frequently guide readers to places that are irrelevant, while downplaying spots that foreign visitors are likely to enjoy—such as the Mitsuo Aida Museum in Yurakucho and Museum of Swords (Token Hakubutsukan) in Yoyogi, Shibuya Ward. (Neither museums’ websites however, provide maps in English and it appears the latter’s has not been updated for about one year.)
The same sidebar also complains bitterly that in its introduction to Yanaka Cemetery in Nippori, the Michelin guide mentions Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the last Tokugawa Shogun, in the same breath with Oden Takahashi, a notorious murderess who was the last woman to be executed by decapitation — while completely overlooking other famous individuals interred therein.
The second half of the article swivels its guns toward foreigners living in Japan, featuring such “monga” as a satyric Turk who reveled in enticing local women to participate in his Roppongi orgies, and Filipinas who have overstayed their entertainer’s visas by a decade or longer.
Vernacular articles focusing on misbehavior by foreigners have regularly appeared in Sapio, a bimonthly magazine with a strong nationalistic slant published by Shogakukan. But Spa!, until fairly recently at least, has been largely indifferent to foreigners here, preferring to cover behavior by the natives. As such, its entry into the fray came as something of a surprise.
Spa!, known as Shukan Sankei until 1989, is published by Fusosha, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fuji TV. The Audit Bureau of Circulation put its weekly sales at 113,397 copies in the first half of 2008.
Good stuff.
Are you a monster? Leave a comment below or come and talk about this in the forum.
I once had to deal with a monster gaijin. He stole 50,000 yen right from under my nose.
Thief & Monster
