Archive: 2007-02
Pub quiz: official languages
Question 1: In how many countries is Japanese an official language?
Full to the brim
The Thames was particularly high this afternoon:
Oi, bigots!
The level of discourse around foreign immigrants can be bad in the UK, but it’s worse in Japan. There’s a lot of casual racism: one example that always used to annoy me was the poster in one station on the Osaka subway warning passengers to beware of pickpockets—illustrated with a blond-haired, big-nosed caricature of a stereotypical gaijin (foreigner). To be fair, though, most of it is driven by ignorance.