Being a Woman of Color in Kyoto

Being a person of color and a woman of color here in Japan is pretty complicated. There have been a lot of instances for me here in Kyoto where I felt uncomfortable because of my race and gender.

There was a time earlier on in the semester when I was walking through the cafeteria one afternoon. A worker whom I didn’t know walked up to me and started petting my hair. My hair is a naturally thick texture, something I don’t think the worker had seen before. She petted it for a while and then said, “It’s very soft. I like it.” When that happened, I forced myself to think that this was a different country. In the USA, I would’ve been up in arms over the racist undertones of a stranger touching and studying my hair.

Still, Japan has a different history. There aren’t a lot of people of color here, so rather than malicious racism, I think that the worker in the cafeteria felt an innocent curiosity. (Which doesn’t change the fact that I felt uncomfortable!)

Throughout the semester, my host family and I have often sat down together to watch TV. Sometimes on TV, a random black man or woman would appear on screen in a commercial. Whenever that happened, my family would say, “It’s your mom!” or, “It’s your dad!” At first, I laughed it off, thinking that they were joking. But after a while, I started to wonder if they were serious. I eventually explained to them that there are a lot of black people in the world, and that I don’t know all of them. There was another moment when my host mother received a call from a young woman in Kenya. They spoke for a while, and after they hung up, my host mother said, “Kenya is in Africa. That means the young woman is black. You’ll be great friends.” I had to ask her if she would be great friends with all of the Japanese people across the world for her to understand why it’s problematic to think that.

Similarly to those examples, I was once in a hair salon in Sendai when I told the hair stylist that I’m from the Caribbean, and he asked me if I was related to Rihanna. I think that because there aren’t many foreigners here, it’s hard for some people to imagine a world where everyone isn’t Japanese.

Yes, race is an issue here. On the other hand, I’ve been having the time of my life. I’ve met a lot of great people and made a lot of great friends. Despite the examples I’ve written about, I’m glad that I came here. I don’t want to deter anyone from studying in Kyoto. I just think it’s better to be prepared for some of the images you might see or some of the things you might hear.