How would you feel?
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So, I have recently been getting kinda annoy by people cashing out daughter a gaijin. She is Japanese and was born here. She resembles me more I think. But when I walk by people with her, I hear them talk about the gaijin baby. How do you handle it or does it even bother you? I feel in a way that I overreact or am overly sensitive, but I really just want our daughter to be treated normal without a label. Am I naive?
My daughter looks just like me and people constantly try to ask me indirectly if her father is Japanese or not (“Is your husband here on business?”) – (“Why did you come to Japan?”). It doesn’t bother me but I dislike when people call her a gaijin because she’s not, but she stands out and maybe always will. When people walk by her with her daycare they spot her right away. People will often say how big her eyes are or how I will have to worry when she’s older (I assume most parents of daughters get that). But I don’t say anything. I don’t know what I would be able to say gracefully without just coming across as defensive.
Thank you for your perspective! I hear how big her eyes are (which I don’t really think they are but whatever) and all different comments too. I try to tell people she’s not a gaijin but then they just label her as hafu which I equally dislike and try to say she is Japanese but get a look of confusion.
Yeah, my daughter does have big eyes, although her hair has darkened, she looks a lot like (white) me. But now that her Japanese skills are better I do worry a bit about what she will overhear and take in. She still doesn’t really understand. I’ve gotten a lot of “wow hafu really are the cutest” but luckily not when she’s with me, just people I work with… for now. I’m always wondering what I should or shouldn’t be saying or how I should be handling it but I don’t have much confidence to be honest.
Pilaf,
I apologize for not responding. Thank you for your thoughts! What to say is always the difficult question. Correcting normally gets lost. When I’ve spoke to my wife about it, she says that hafu isn’t meant to be hurtful, it’s just the natural label for mixed but we talked and IMO all people are mixed so the label is unnecessary. I’m really grateful for your thoughts.
Yeah, a lot of people also just try to find out why I’m in Japan, because they don’t think that my daughter looks like she might be “hafu” – but people back home are like “omg she’s so cute, Asian babies really are the cutest” which is another issue in itself.
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