Gawping at Gaijin

As a gaijin, you possess definite novelty value. In a country where the racial majority makes up 99% of the population, a westerner's height and face immediately marks them out as an outsider. Children wave, strangers say hello, or occasionally just stare. It's almost always extremely friendly, but takes some getting used to.

Admittedly, I took this photo on the Saturday before Halloween, in the main station in Fukuoka, as we stood in full fancy dress waiting for some friends. In England, we might have turned a few eyes, though heads would barely have tilted in our direction. Here, people stopped in their tracks and stared. No, gawped. Gasped. Whipped out their camera phones. Came up and posed with us for photos. It was like being Mickey Mouse in Disneyland.

But this is by no means that strange an occurrence, even in a (relatively) cosmopolitan city like Fukuoka. A week ago, we were waiting at the same station, talking in a circle, and this time no fake blood, green fur, or foil carving knives were in sight. A short man, rotund in body and face, sidled up and joined the circle, not saying anything. He was probably pissed, or possibly a little unhinged. He peered at us with round, curious eyes, neither greeting us nor acknowledging his presence in our space. We were something to be looked at, a novelty. Then, after taking a good long look, off he shuffled.

He was in no way aggressive or unfriendly, but such an oblique gaze is very intrusive, and certainly the rudest I've experienced here. The people that I have met here have been almost uniformly polite, but such outstanding courtesy cannot hide Japanese society's colossal fascination with the west.

In Japan, a gaijin always wears fancy dress.