Meet Mr. James, McDonald’s newest mascot in Japan:
Per the blog The Escapist:
Baka gaijin! McDonald’s in Japan is having a little fun with stereotypes of ignorant Caucasian foreigners with its newest ad campaign. The ads feature one Mr. James, a bespectacled white foreigner who dresses like your stereotypical IT nerd, with an ugly part, geeky shirt and tie and a consistently goofy smile. Mr. James speaks awful Japanese, and can only communicate in katakana, the system used in Japanese for transcribing foreign words. Mr. James is too stupid to know any kanji.
According to some people, Mr. James is also a racist stereotype of white foreigners. Thus a non-profit called the Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association (FRANCA), has written an open letter to the McDonald’s homebase in the US to shut down the ad campaign.
Oh well. Maybe it’s karma.
(HT to Japan Probe)
{ 59 comments… read them below or add one }
Karma?
Depicting buffoonish white people in Japan/Asia has nothing to do with stereotyping Asians on American TV. You’ll find countless examples of ridiculous foreigners on Japanese and Korean TV, and this Mr. James is more a product of that than of some swipe at white people who, let’s not forget, probably will never see the McDonald’s Japan ad in the first place. And reducing it to “karma’s a bitch,” like that article did, trivializes legitimate complaints unfairly renders those who gripe about it ridiculous. I don’t suspect Asians would take kindly to saying that KFC commercial, for example, or the Six Flags one is in response to the ridiculous portrayal of gaijin talento or the clownish English education shows on TV.
Perhaps those two writers should do a little research before they venture on this side of the Pacific again.
Japan Probe had more to say about this, um, article.
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=12140
http://www.disgrasian.com/2009/08/we-dont-care-about-white-people.html
Well, my first comment didn’t show up, so I’ll keep the second one short. Karma? One thing has nothing to do with the other. That article misses the mark, and ignores the countless examples of ridiculous stereotypes of foreigners in Asia. Perhaps these two should do a little more research before they offer their opinions on things happening on this side of the Pacific.
I tell you, unrequited love for another country, it’s a sad sad thing.
I would say it’s a slur, but I’m apprehensive that I will be chased by following such arguments that follow me around different unrelated posts :
1. five links to Japanese people discussing whether it’s a slur or not.
2. the innocuous word origin of “Mr.James”, written in Japanese(with Kanji, which being a Mr James myself, *I* cannot read).
3.the argument that some people actually call themselves “Mr.James” in Japan (because that’s their name) so it cannot be slur.
so I dare not say it’s a slur.
Wangkon, that was mighty naughty of you, but it was also funny.
Mr James’ words appear in katakana not because he cannot read kanji (though the character probably cannot) but because katakana is what Japanese people use to indicate poor pronunciation of a foreigners Japanese. The American soldiers depicted in はだしのゲン (barefoot Gen), a manga published in 1973, also has their speech written in katakana. Japanese American soldiers were also written in katakana, so it is not exclusively a racial thing.
Are the ads making fun of white foreigners? Yep. Is it a horrible instance of racial discrimination that should make white foreigners fear derision, or assault by Japanese people in Japan? Not even close. Also, some of the activism that has been proposed to fight the commercials, like going into the local MacDonalds and complaining the the workers there will harm foreigners way more than these silly ads.
By the way, his foreigner speaking poor Japanese is spot on. Most of the foreigners that I met in Japan spoke Japanese just like that.
http://mcdonalds.dtmp.jp/blog/movie.html
# 2,
I have only three syllables in response to you Ms. Yuna: Long Duk Dong (of “16 Candles“).
I’m more interested that Japan has an NPO for the anti-defamation of foreigners. Isn’t that the sort of thing that people lose their job in Korea for even suggesting?
As for disgrasian, I would probably go for Jen if I was drunk, but I need to see Diana without her glasses and with a different hairstyle before the alcohol could sufficiently cloud my senses.
Someone should simply tar and feather the dumb-arsed whitey for allowing himself to be the monkey in the ad campaign.
I think the McDonald’s spot is pretty harmless, but Dave Aldwinckle’s original article and later book on racial discrimination at the Otaru hotsprings makes compelling reading. Japan has so many Western apologists that it’s good to see people like Aldwinckle fighting the good fight.
DLB
# 7,
The question is…. would you tar and feather him if you saw his pay check?
Absolutely. I don’t think you can put a price on pandering to that sh*t. And I would be surprised if was paid more than Y50,000.
Consider also the ongoing trend of Japanese police stopping *any* foreigner, on the street and demanding an on-the-spot urine sample for drug tests, simply for being “Gaijin”, not to mention the pictures and full-fingerprints that are taken at the airport. Stopping people in the street, IMHO, is discriminatory and improper.
Frankly, I have little incentive to visit Japan nowadays though I know others who still visit to relax but then they don’t spend time in Tokyo,.
#3 shakuhachi, what a Japanophile. If this happened in Korea, the tone of his comment would be totally different on how terrible Korean people are. But since these are Japanese we’re talking about. It’s OK, no big deal, they’re just making fun of how foreigners really talk.
This is one reason why I try not to get too riled up about racism issues over here. It’s a pointless exercise. No matter how hard the vast majority of the foreign community works to dispel stereotypes and backward attitudes among the native population, it’s a sure thing some ignorant c*cksucker will come along to prostitute himself for a nickel and set everything back 20 years.
cm, the Mr James thing would not even be that bad in Korea. At least the image is not that of a sinister white man out to harm Koreans. Mr James would be a vast improvement. Bring it on.
reminds me of that big-nosed white freak who teaches English on Korean TV.
this guy:
http://theyangpa.wordpress.com/2006/10/06/isaac-durst-escapes-from-his-cage/
yes, we white people should recognize that it’s only karma. allwhites should have known that our collective decision to make jokes out of asians in our collectively produced movies, tv show, commercials, etc. would eventually come back to bite us in our collective asses. it was only a matter of time before all asians wisened up and collectively conspired to get all white people back for what we all collectively did to attack all asians. we’ll have to have another group meeting of all white people to plot our collective retort against all asians. i’m thinking a movie about the virginia tech massacre would be effective. i’m sure all whites will agree with this response, because we all know that negative depictions of other races is ridiculously funny.
Mr. James? You sure it’s not really Mr. Carr?
I see the likeness anyway.
Wangkon has been posting that guy on craigslist who has mad Asian fetish/Japanophilia. Mind posting it again? That’s the guy Korea should get for its McDonald’s campaign.
I often think people get too carried away with the notion that ‘all stereotypes are bad’ and I’d also say that this is one of those times. How exactly is this guy setting things back 20 years? Are people really suggesting that the concept of “the nerdy white guy in Japan” is just a myth, and also that perpetuation of that ‘stereotype’ is somehow harmful? How should the character be depicted if not like this?
Hilarious protest by debito, full of rubbish,
1) The character speaks broken accented Japanese (using the katakana script, one used for foreign loanwords). The impression given is that Caucasians cannot speak Japanese properly, which is simply not true for the vast numbers of non-native (and Japanese-native) foreigners in Japan.
Yeh, right, like there’s not a big difference between some caucasians being able to speak Japanese fluently, and the vast majority who have no ability whatsoever, or are learning but still a ways to go.
2) The character is called “Mr. James” (again, in katakana), promoting the stereotype that foreigners must be called by their first names only (standard Japanese etiquette demands that adults be called “last name plus -san”), undoing progress we have made for equal treatment under Japanese societal rules.
Pretty ignorant comment since James is in fact a common family name in english including my family included.
3) The image used, of a clumsy sycophantic “nerd” for this Caucasian customer, is embarrassing to Caucasians who will have to live in Japan under this image.
So Ronald McDonald was OK, a japanese nerd is OK…..get a life please….
# 17,
Oh you mean this?
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/tor/881177993.html
A close second for me is this one:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sea/561877622.html
I don’t think a woman actually wrote it, but wouldn’t it be cool if one did?
I just watched a few ads on Youtube. I don’t see what on earth is offensive about this. He’s a little bit of an assclown but still couldn’t come close to holding a candle against Isaac Durst.
Damn Micky D’s racists commercials!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOiwODsDtkw
And the spirit of victimhood marches on. Look, if you’re a gaijin in Japan and your skin isn’t thick enough to handle this, then go home and cry to mama. If anything, this campaign should help us whiteys get laid over there.
You know, I can think of a lot worse things to be stereotyped as than a geeky IT type who speaks poor Japanese.
i’m wit u, robert! given that there must be negative stereotypes about foreigners, this one seems to be really fair. as a matter of fact, thank you mcdonald’s japan!
I think Debito is really going overboard with this. Fight against stereotypes, sure (even though I am not sure that Mr James represents a stereotype about white people in Japan) but also take into account the level of harm it could cause people. Will it cause Japanese to hold whites in contempt? Inspire racial hatred? Motivate racial assaults? I just can’t see Mr James causing any of those things. I can’t even see people remembering him after 6 months.
I can see a worse stereotype down the road for white people in Japan. The big mouth white man, hypersensitive and always complaining of discrimination.
Oh, one last thing. Debito’s pronunciation is fairly atrocious for someone that has been in Japan for 20 years. He could fairly be transcribed in katakana.
Meh, nothing to see here. Another gaijin getting a paycheck. It’s funny that they would complain about the use of katakana. They use katakana all the time for many things, including subtitles for Japanese people that speak a non-standard dialect.
Japanese people are very sensitive to their own lack of foreign language skills that it is very difficult to live in Japan without speaking the language. Of course they will pick on the nerdy gaikokujin that can’t speak the language well. That’s life in Japan. At least they aren’t showing him using drugs, guns, or other common steroetypes.
Every country has steroetypes, this isn’t so bad. Get over it.
He reminded me of this person on Arirang Superkids. I often wondered if his wardrobe is sponsored by a clown shop or if he has a stylist imposed on him by these horrible Korean TV producers. If it’s just his own taste, no offense meant.
As for Japan, I want to commend its wonderful dramas, including the latest, “Smile” about a half-Filipino guy played by Matsumoto Jun(who looks like he had a Milo bath) getting into trouble and the system being discriminatory against him. His gruff-in-the-beginning-but-later-nice defense Lawyer is meant to be a Zainichi Korean, who hides this fact but hints at it throughout…They address the issues with some good dramas, *some* which are, orders of magnitude better than most 막장 Korean crap.
I did like the popular daily Korean sitcom “거침없는 Highkick” and I hear that they are starting a second series with (most) new cast including a wegukin. That should be interesting. I wonder if he is an English teacher. Why, Yes he is!!
However, I do know that Japan’s once-love of gaijins who speak the Japanese language is gone and that the honeymoon period is over, unlike in Korea where it’s still a relatively rare thing (but becoming common fast)
I’m also impressed at how some of you are like, “Meh, you should see my scar..” & “Try offend me!! I’ve been in KOREA…” That’s funny..You should swap some war stories with that guy who writes loco-in-yoko blog over a can of pocari sweat.
Yuna,
Actually I would say that Japanese people prefer gaijin that speak a bit of Japanese, but not too much. There was a famous guy on TV that said 外人の日本語は片言の方がいいよね (“Foreigners broken Japanese is better, isn’t it). A lot of Japanese people agreed. The usual suspects were pissed off.
Do Koreans have a love affair with foreigners that speak Korean? I remember Oranckay saying that by speaking Korean, he was often treated with suspicion by Koreans that questions his motives for knowing Korean.
Yup.I’d agree with that. It’s part of that they don’t actually *really* want to accept you. Similar to what we were talking about. (that word I dare not utter) The Japanese like Koreans fresh from Korea, but they have/had a prejudice against the ones who live there and assimilated, because, well, some of them have built a stereotype lives there, being rough, getting into trouble, rebelling against the years of historic discrimination etc.
As for Korea, I think the novelty still remains – you still get the happy pat on the back “wow, how come you speak Korean (with a happy face) , 잘 하시네요” initial reaction.” much more than the suspicious reaction, would have thought. As long as they don’t find out that you are a one-man-let’s-give-Takeshima-back-to-Japan-brigade, and your Korean is not some part of infiltration into the mindset of these crazy gooks ^__^. and as long as they lump the few Vera incidents in the correct way, I think that trend is likely to continue on a flat plateau.
Gaijin no Nihongo wa ?? no ho-o(?) ga ii yone?
I cannot read 片言.. katakoto?
I have to agree. To most Japanese, their language is a code which shouldn’t be broken by foreigners.
Yep. Katakoto. Gaijin no nihongo ha katakoto no hou ga ii yone.
In Japan you get the ‘your Japanese is good’ bit if you speak broken Japanese. When you are fluent, and lack a foreign accent (or more appropriately, speak in a Japanese accent), they stop saying that and just treat you as normal. Not sure about Koreans, though. I still get that bit that you wrote from Koreans, and I am far from fluent. I think my pronunciation is alright, though. 일상회화는 괜찮은데…
It’s just a numbers game. I still get amazed at a non-East Asian person speaking Korean (with or without accent) and I cannot help but marvel at this not yet everyday phenomenon. When I talk in Korean with a Nepalese guy who spent 5 years in Korea and I have to bite my tongue from saying “well-done for learning such a hard obscure language like Korean” at the end of his every sentence, but I’m sure my beaming attitude shows it.
Yuna, I guess that is true. I am still out there looking for those Korean girls that 무조건 let foreign guys do whatever they want. I am using articles in the Korean media like the Choson Ilbo as an instruction manual. They tell me where to go, what to say, and what equipment I need to prepare (like 엑스터씨 and 대마초). Lucky I can read Korean or I wouldn’t have the inside dope.
“I have to agree. To most Japanese, their language is a code which shouldn’t be broken by foreigners.”
As noted at #29 I think thats fairly typical here too….certainly treated with suspicion
Pretty interesting observations – I’ve often felt that Koreans can sometimes seem a little taken aback if a foreigner’s Korean is too good. It’s a bit like how people can find a bright and intelligent child charming, but a genius child just freaks people out. Speaking fluently will probably win you more respect, but won’t win you the popularity contest.
When I went to Japan for two weeks, I was taken aback by how many FLUENT foreign Japanese speakers there were. Do you think Korea will ever get like this? I personally don’t see it, at least not in the near future. Japan’s population of fluent foreign Japanese-speakers is supplemented by all those Japanophiles; it seems safe to say that there aren’t quite as many ‘Koreaphiles’ to compete.
I met plenty of Westerners at Korean language school. While there was a mass of them in the beginning first three levels, when I finished the final sixth level there was exactly ONE white person, a woman (she was on Misuda but I forgot her name), who was in the entire program.
And not only that, I was the only Western gyopo (plenty of 재일교포 and 조선족sic?) as well. So my fellow gyopo sisters and brothers from the U.S. were already too good to go to a language school or had given up. But there were plenty of Mongolians, Vietnamese, etc.
@yuna
That “foreigner” you mentioned, his name is Julian Kang. Is he really the younger brother of Dennis Kang? If that’s the case, Julian is a 혼혈?
Anyways, I’d like to also hear your thoughts on the increasing number of gyopos in Korean drama. On one hand, it’s nice to see some of them succeed, from Wonder Girls to the baseball show, but I don’t quite know how to feel about it. Certainly with the baseball show, Marco (I think that’s his name) is really crazy, speaks decent but broken Korean. I wonder how native Koreans feel.
t_song… I’m sure native Koreans feel that Chicago gyopos are much lower on the totem pole than LA Gyopos like Han Ye Seul and An Seung Ho….
Damn… forgot Han Chae-young (a.k.a. Rachel Kim), who is a Chicago gyopo. I guess you Chicago gyopos are a’rite.
t_song, of course the western foreigners give up. It is easy to start something, much more difficult to begin. Also any person brought up in China or Japan (but especially Japan and kyopo or not) has a massive advantage in learning Korean.
My uncle actually knows “Rachel Kim’s” family. Sadly, I never met her before she got famous. Damn!
Hey, you lost your chance. Oh well. Btw… are Rachel’s boobs real or fake? What’s the word in the Chicago gyopo community? Enquiring minds wanna know…
That I dont’ know. my uncle’s knowledge of Rachel Kim extends to her elementary school years. So it’s tough to say.
@t_song:
I made the same observations while taking classes at a few KLIs. The only university KLI with a large population of Westerners is Sogang, renowned for its communicative approach. Yonsei has a rigorous, comprehensive curriculum that is difficult for Westerners to master. Yonsei assumes that since the students live in Korea, they have plenty of opportunities to use Korean outside the classroom, so lots of sentence patterns are crammed in during the lessons with little time for fluency practice. Non-proficient speakers most in need of oral language development are least likely to find Koreans willing to converse in Korean because it takes a lot of patience to communicate at length with someone whose language skills aren’t very good. The only non-ethnic Korean native English speaker I know who started as a true beginner and finished all six levels of Yonsei was married to a Korean who agreed to speak Korean only at home.
Korea needs a strong anime industry! Only then would young and uh, not so young, white men be willing to learn the language since they would grow tired of reading the freak’in subtitles.
Yes, Korea had strong dramas, but it only encourages middle aged women from fellow Asian countries to try to learn the langugage…
Middle aged and up from there, buddy. Guys like Yonsama remind them of boyfriends they had in the 50s.
Oh, and if they want English speaking westerners to learn Korean, someone should publish some decent Korean textbooks for the purpose of learning Korean. The ones published for English speakers are all crap, as far as I can see. When will we see the Korean equivalent of this –
http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789004546
This is the benchmark for a language book. They should copy the format and methodology without mercy.
I have that book, Shak, along with a couple bilingual and one monolingual grammar dictionary of Korean. The monolingual one provides enough examples to communicate the meaning and usage clearly. What’s sorely lacking among Korean language learning materials is listening practice materials providing authentic language modeling and comprehensible input for beginning and to high intermediate learners.
I have to agree with you on that one. Readily available Korean language materials for English speakers is indeed crap and/or hard to find.
Yonsama reminding them of bfs they had in the 50′s? I don’t think all of his fans are THAT old…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65jC_IPPQ2A
@Sonagi
Weird. I know you were at language schools before me — I was there like 2006 and ended 2007 — but Yonsei had the reputation of being very catering to English-speakers. Sogang was still known for being “conversational,” i.e. easy. SNU, where i attended, was known for preparing mostly Chinese and Japanese to attend college in Korea.
I actually learned a lot of Korean from my classmates. I started at the 4th of 6 levels, and I might know one difficult word, like “gender discrimination” which, should I be speaking with natives, would lead into a whole conversation on words I didn’t know. But my classmates and I had a similar foundation.
I think the biggest problem for foreigners, especially men, learning Korean is that the teachers are all women. That results in them sounding very feminine and childish.
That final word choice is interesting.
Sonagi, quit jumping on words. It is very feminine and childish of you do so
LOL.
This is certainly true. I think it’s like everything else – there is a mad choice of books available for Koreans to learn English, Japanese etc. but all the books I’ve seen for learning Korean for English speakers are par standard.
For nearly 10 years I’ve thought about doing it myself. I have a website I started and I want to bring out some material in the future, after I finish what I am doing now.
“Sogang was still known for being “conversational,” i.e. easy. SNU, where i attended, was known for preparing mostly Chinese and Japanese to attend college in Korea”
That just sounds like an SKY put down.
What I suspect is really the case is quoting Sonagi, “Sogang, renowned for its communicative approach” i.e. yes they are actually able to hold a conversation and communicate after Sogang. As opposed to korean methodology of years and years of english studies and still unable to communicate effectively.
@argh
Language is more than just speech. My friends who went to Sogang can speak conversationally but can’t write or read the language proficiently. That you would need to learn how to speak in a classroom is very Korean–no?
Any successful language student will take what they learned in class, then find ways to learn it outside of the classroom or with their relatives.
@sonagi
Your word choice is interesting–ya know, the “interesting” part. You care to elaborate or will you remain a backseat dri–err, commenter.
I don’t know about Sonagi’s reasons, but I found it “interesting” not because you put feminine and childish together in one sentence, but I was wondering if you hadn’t meant to say “child-like” instead.
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