I’ve been living in Japan for quite a while now. I own a house here, I’m married to a Japanese woman, we’ve got kids, and I even run a business. Basically, this place is home for me. Personally, I’ve never dealt with serious racism—not in my town, at least. Sure, there was that one time a drunk kid in his twenties saw me on a late-night walk and muttered, “Ah, gaijin da,” but let’s just say he won’t be calling random strangers that again after what went down next.

Now, if you’ve never set foot in Japan, you might think everything here is sunshine and rainbows. That’s partly because people here usually keep all the dirty laundry hidden. The media? Yeah, they’re not exactly keen on stirring the pot, either, given their news filters. They don’t talk about the pedophilia you see in plain sight, or cops who flat-out stomp on your rights—especially if you’re a foreigner. Take random bag checks, for example: under Article 35 of the Constitution, no one should be searching your stuff without good reason. But that doesn’t stop the police from acting like it’s perfectly legal anyway. Which, by the way, it isn’t.

Japanese folks are proud as hell, but damn, a lot of them don’t know the first thing about their own laws. I spend a lot of time online, interacting with all sorts of people, Japanese included. Whenever someone dares to mention anything negative about living here—maybe they struggle making friends, or they got hassled by the cops—some random Japanese commenters come storming in with their xenophobic nonsense. “Go back to your country!” or “Entitled American.” Sometimes they get personal, ragging on people for being fat or having tattoos. Because, obviously, your waistline is the real root of all problems.

What cracks me up is that in person, I almost never get this kind of attitude—yet online it’s everywhere. It’s like half the population is harboring racist thoughts but keeps them under wraps because, well, omote/ura culture. Online, they can spew that crap without fear of someone rearranging their face. One example: a foreigner gets stopped by the cops, for absolutely no reason besides looking foreign. Then you check the comments section: half of Japan is going off about how the police “deserve respect” and how the foreigner might have a weapon. Right, and maybe you’ve got a dildo in your bag, so why not let me rummage through it, too? Guess they conveniently forgot their own Constitution (cough, Article 35).

I once watched a video where this middle-aged Japanese woman was basically stalking and filming a group of foreigners at a temple because—get this—they laughed too loud. The foreigners even apologized and acknowledged they were wrong, but she just kept being a pain in the ass. Cue the comment section: “This is Japan, not America. Don’t like it? Leave.” Funny how these people rail against racism but then act exactly like the assholes they claim to hate. In other countries, that kind of behavior is usually called out and shamed. Here? It’s mostly crickets.

I’ve asked Japanese friends about this “online vs. real life” split, and they just shrug and say, “That’s how it is.” That, to me, is a weak excuse. It reveals a side of society that hides behind surface politeness. Online, there’s zero accountability, so trolls feel safe being the worst version of themselves. Sure, every country’s got trolls, but at least in a lot of places, people call them out for being pricks. In Japan? Not so much.

If you’re Japanese and reading this, don’t be a dick. It’s that simple. Love your country but acknowledge its bullshit, too—that’s how progress happens. As for why there are so many xenophobic jerks online, maybe it’s the safety of anonymity, or maybe they’re just on the lower rung of the country’s “exceptional IQ.” Either way, it’s a problem that needs addressing. And hey, if you ever feel like spewing hate behind a faceless profile, remember: the internet is a pretty good mirror. It shows everyone exactly who you are.

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