"No, which country are you REALLY from?" The Western man Raised in Japan

This happened to me at Wal-Mart. I asked a woman working there where something was and had to repeat it multiple times because she kept telling me she doesn’t speak Spanish lol. I was born and raised in America so I’ve got a purely American accent. She only understood when my brother came to my rescue and repeated the same question 🙄

Is that girl Blake Lively?

LA accent obviously

Mini skirt sitting on the grass ...very inappropriate.

Amazing how fluent they both are in English & Japanese.

The disconnect is the product of the human failing of relying on appearances. I imagine you may have a valuable insight into what it may be like to be a person of color in the US in that your society prejudges you based upon your racial appearance.

He doesn't sound Japanese thats why

"I have to explain my life story to every single person I interact with."

Me explaining how long an NPC's dialogue is

Australia is a multicultural nation so it's relatively common for people here to identify their ethnicity as well as their Australian citizenship/residency. For example, I identify as Celtic Australian although I was born in Australia and so were my parents. I have friends who are Indigenous-Australian, African-Australian, Chinese-Australian, Italian-Australian, Iranian-Australian, Anglo-Australian, Scandinavian-Australian. Whew! So a person's ancestral cultural heritage can be acknowledged as well as their Australian identity. Apart from First Peoples (Indigenous Australians) our ancestry is from somewhere else. We are no longer expected to reject that heritage but to incorporate it into our Australian-ness. We are all Australian but we come from many, many different origins. I love it! We ARE the world! Good wishes to everyone from everywhere. It's a beautiful thing to be part of the human race together. ❤

TRULY citizen of the world

UK is even worse, if you can't speak proper posh English you get labelled as whatever they want. Discrimination is so normal by judging from your accent. In Japan, they laugh but it doesn't mean they are discriminating it's more like astonishment or praise, like wow, cool.

How did your family end up settling in Japan for so long? Your background and life sound fascinating. Will you marry a Japanese person and remain in Japan?

These videos are so relateable. My mum came to Australia age 1 in the 60s and has mixed parents, my father is British with mixed parents. I have skin that tans well but my facial features dont look like any one race, so people guess absolutely everything with a slight skin tone (including "white") When i tell people about the 4 races im comprised of, they always label me as the more exotic and assume I have 100% that culture, even tho no one in my family knows anything about it. Its super annoying and othering. Like how can people think im african or irish or japanese? Just dont assume peoples race. At least this guy can go to uk or usa to blend in, us mixed races have nowhere.

He,he,he! All very regrettable I see for this fellow. For me, I'd rather be an Englishman than Globalman or an Earthling in the not too distant EU, when alle Menschen werden Brüder.

Do you know how the English ppl do that to other country ppl …. In every meeting . After colonising us for centuries 😅. I don’t why you need to crib so much. So what !!!!!

hakuna matata

He is simply first real nonbinary...

Fascinating story. I am American but I don’t feel American because I have spent so many years abroad. It can happen in the US too - just a different form.

Still hes fluent in english i mean youever heard a japanese speaking english haha

Ha, this even happens within a country. I was born a northern US person but moved to the south at age 13. From that point on I was never excepted in the North or in the South. When my children became working adults (who were born in the south), they were constantly asked where they were from. When told they were from “here” people would argue with them, “no your not! Really, where are you from?”

I like to let go off all these information about the people who i'm facing and ignore them, to start a more valuable things like'' coffee or tea'' kind of questions. How do we communicate? If he/she starts speaking japanese we just learn that they are japanese speakers. how they look does not matter at any time

Reminds me of the military brat experience in America. I am from Appalachia and the clanishness exists.

Where are you from in america?
"Jeddo, Pennsylvania...."

The background music is too loud and annoying and is impeded the understandability of the spoken dialogue.

no soros no terrorism

Being ethnically Japanese and culturally Japanese aren’t the same things and shouldn’t be treated as such. The problem with Japan is that they treat non-ethnic Japanese people as other even when they are born and raised here. There is a such thing as being culturally different from your ethnicity.

There are white people, Filipino people, Hispanic people, etc. who are not ethnically Black, but they are culturally Black due to being raised in that culture. (Like a white guy being adopted by a black family in south central LA–true story!)

I love Japan but the ignorance is astounding. If you meet a Japanese person who is well-travelled they are less likely to treat you as other because they have a broader understanding of the world. But Japanese who have never left the continent will treat you as other every time.

Japan ... the most racist country in the world.

As a Japanese American (with a British mother) raised in California, I think your "accent" is just like ours. Is the queer community over there more accepting of these differences? Finding other queer Asians really helped me. It was tough growing up, feeling too Asian for my white family, too white for my Asian family, but things have changed so much since the 70s, there is such a larger Nikkei community now, and multiracial community/ies being so much more accepted and visible. I have a friend who is black and was raised in a Japanese Buddhist community in America, still with tons of non-japanese people in it, and yet there was so much we connected with culturally from our experiences growing up. Culture is rich and flexible

As a multi-ethnic person born and semi-raised in the US, we deal with this identity crisis as well but in a place like Japan I can only imagine how much stronger it is.

I’ve had people tell me I’m not a real American, and I’m like… I just have different circumstances to yours, and grew up surrounded by more than 1 culture, it doesn’t make me less American. What even IS a “Real” American? And in this case a “Real” Japanese?

So different from the Netherlands. Here you expect everyone to speak Dutch.

It's because the japanese are racist

Japanese is a race. Chinese is a race and identity. People of colour can never be English. It is what it is. Simple as. People of colour class themselves as British. This is just white entitlement white people want the privilege to be called any nationality whereas people of colour dont have that luxury. Its a bit hypocritical and asians are protecting their identity just like white people always have. It is what it is.

I am British. he doesnt sound British he sounds like a gay american.

You are everything! You ARE special.

how come you always make videos with pufters

Real racism, right there. They're miles behind. It'll be a long time coming, in Jipangu !!

I can empathize, but really - lucky you, you can better empathize more people.

I'm a third-culture-kid with dual-citizenship and parents from different countries. I can 'pass' for uk or american, but mostly just get labeled as privaledged white boy. At the end of the day, your personal story and identity should only matter to you, and others you decide to share your life with. Everyone else? Just go about your day. Yes it's a pain to explain yourself (I seriously get it) but you really don't have to. Just gloss over it and move on.

You sound like you're from here. You have a perfect Upstate NY accent it's weird.

It would be nice to hear about times where you felt like you made a connection or belonged with someone else!

LOL!!! Seen this before with a guy who was raised in, Tiajuana Mexico he spoke fluent Spanish and had a Latin first and middle name of, Mario but when I met the guy he wasn’t a, Mexican National but a full blooded, Chinese that spoke English, Spanish and Chinese Mandarin along with some, Cantonese. We laughed together when a delivery driver had arrived onsite with a load of construction material for him. The driver was shocked that a, Chinese person could speak perfect Spanish. Why you may ask? Because the driver was, Mexican himself.

His accent sounds Canadian to me (west coast) if he was her on Vancouver island where I live no one would question it. BUT also in Canada we have a lot of immigrants and 2nd generation Canadians from other countries so we are more used to different ethnicities being Canadian.

and they say western countries are racist 😆

Sure its an inconvenience but really look at other people's perspective. You're an unusual person in their eyes and they're are expecting you to not speak Japanese. "You are what you appear" is basically the principle in most social cultures. If you look white then you're white. If you look black you're black. People assume because they fear making mistakes. In a way, its a sign of respect for you as a person because a white person being born and raised in Japan is very rare, that the very concept of itself don't register on average people. Because you appear white they treat you like a white because they don't know you're a local. And because some people are ill equipped to deal with white people (language barrier, cultural difference) they hesitant to interact with you. I guess you can just suck it up, stop complaining and surround yourself with good friends.

Dude. You're a tall, bearded, White guy. Of course they're shocked. Quit whining.

His nationality is Japanese, but his race is Caucasian. There’s nothing wrong with that.

This guy has made a cottage industry of going on different social media channels bemoaning his awful, awful burden!
cry me a river!

Now white people may understand what it’s like to be Asian-American in America.

The children of immigrants living in the US go through this as well. Of course it's different, but still very similar.

im from San Diego, our city is (typically) very diverse and accepting of other cultures. being a Mexican American here I never had this kind of problem, but once I started traveling different parts of the U.S. i noticed Mexican Americans outside of San Diego view me as a simple white American, whereas the white folks assume I'm from Mexico. I guess wherever you live being mixed is hard to fit in . Although people In san diego are accepting sometimes I feel out of place as Its often hard to fully embrace my fathers Mexican heritage and my moms British heritage at the same time.