Ukrainian-born model winning Miss Japan re-ignites identity debate
Ukrainian-born model winning Miss Japan re-ignites identity debate
A beauty queen has once again re-ignited a debate on what it means to be Japanese.
"There have been racial barriers, and it has been challenging to be accepted as Japanese."
That's what a tearful Carolina Shiino said in impeccable Japanese after she was crowned Miss Japan on Monday.
The 26-year-old model, who was born in Ukraine, moved to Japan at the age of five and was raised in Nagoya.
She is the first naturalised Japanese citizen to win the pageant, but her victory has re-ignited a debate on what it means to be Japanese.
While some recognised her victory as a "sign of the times", others have said she does not look like what a "Miss Japan" should.
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She grew up in Japan. All her friends are Japanese. Her life experience is of Japanese society and culture. She's been through it all. What is she if not Japanese? Get over it.
I am part Japanese myself and the language is literally my mother tongue, but when I go to Japan to visit family, I always feel alienated because I don't look the part. Don't get me wrong. People are very polite to foreigners, but you will always be a foreigner. Even when I spent a year at a Japanese elementary school, I felt this persistent sense of not belonging.
But maybe things are starting to change? I admittedly have not been back in a couple of decades. I hope so.
My neighbor who was born in Pakistan and moved to the USA in 3rd grade, and now has a kid going to school with mine, is more American than I’ll ever be tbh.
his moms brisket samosas are dope as fuck and ought to be enshrined in a immigrant fusion cookbook
Japan has had a long history of being insular, putting it lightly, so this is big regardless of how you look at it
If someone were to look up images of a Japanese person, they would be very confused to find pictures of a white person. Yes they are Japanese culturally, but not physically or genetically. These are what the pageants are about, not everything needs to be inclusive of all aspects. It ruins the intents of it.
It isn't called a genetics pagent. Beauty is already subjective enough without layering your myopic view of race on top of it.
It becomes genetic when you bring race into it “miss” “Japanese/japan” “Ukraine/ukrainian” they also have to show knowledge of their culture, race, language, etc. the beauty is a tiny fraction of it. But let’s make it the largest part of our argument….
But hey, apparently I’m the myopic one….
Call it the beauty pageant of Japan if you don’t want to bring anything but beauty into it… not up to them, do it yourself if you want to put your culture on them.
If you want a racist pageant then you can make one yourself.
Yes, you are myopic here.
Well, according to whatever panel was judging this competition, she had all of those things. But you weren't talking about that. You said she isn't "physically or genetically" Japanese, and that that was what "pagents are about".
Ah yes, the futile desperation to maintain "racial purity", because that's never turned out badly for anyone ever... 🙄🙄🙄
How well did that work out for Native Americans…? They were so overtaken they were forgotten lmfao.
Not everything needs to be whitewashed, just look at native Americans, they’ve already even forgotten and this happened to them. History repeats itself….
They can always go and make their own inclusive pageant, instead of the reverse happening in every country. Since they are more or less forced to be inclusive and give up their heritage so they aren’t protested by people who don’t understand.
ainudude has entered the chat.
What the heck are you talking about. Beauty pageants aren't about ethnicity. This is farrrrr from the first time that a pageant winner is a different ethnicity than the predominant ethnicity of a country.
Yes everything gets whitewashed and entire culture gets forced out again.
Why is it that native Americans had to go and make their own pageant so they weren’t forgotten?
“Japanese” means something, unlike American. When you hear Japanese, you don’t think white person, same with (Native) American. See how I had to specify so you know which? Same thing is happening with these pageants.
Oh fucking get over yourself.
The Japanese are hardly an oppressed people, at least by outsiders. They're a first world country. With their own customs and culture.
The only dangers to their identity have been those of their own societal making.
Japan's native population has been in critical freefall for a long time not because of any white person interference, but because their culture has become increasingly incompatible with family life for a significant amount of their population. If you thought America had an out-of-whack work culture, your jaw would hit the floor when you see what salarymen and salarywomen over there go through.
It's not like they've been pushed out by a colonial force with some manifest destiny bullshit. The problem here simply isn't whitey.
Yet they are being forced to accept outside culture since they wouldn’t be “inclusive”….
It’s whitewashing and there’s nothing to get over, other than we need to stop pushing our cultures on others until there is nothing of their own left.
Nothing to do with oppression, but of course fallacies help to make your agenda.
They're being forced, by nothing more than the mere reality of their situation, to accept outside culture because their societal failures have led to their own population death spiral.
No one forced their hand or made them take on such damaging traditions and policies. No one is forcing the Japanese to take on elements of other cultures.
Try doing a bit of research before spouting nonsense theories.
They are being "forced" to accept outside culture because their inside culture has led them to a demographic death spiral. Not by any action initiated by outsiders. If outsiders were capable of forcing Japanese culture to change there are plenty of other things that would be changing that aren't.
They could always choose to continue following that spiral to oblivion, I suppose. Or they could reform the aspects of their culture that have led them there. Accepting immigration is one of the ways they could do that.
She's culturally Japanese. Nothing is forced out.
Except for what is genetically and culturally identifiable as Japanese.
Whitewashing…
Whitewashing… you keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
White washing means to attempt to change history to make something seem less bad than it actually was, or who someone was.
Do you mean cultural appropriation? Though saying it like that kinda damns your point of view.
If she was of African origin, would it be whitewashing?
There would have to be a term amalgamated, but by the essence of the definition, yes. You would be altering something in favor of another race/ethnicity.
Oh golly, please amalgamate a term for it right now. You’re clearly the best person for the job with your enlightened (read: narrow) view of race.
You are in favour oh human stagnation?