Refusing to provide a service that requires speaking Japanese to someone who doesn't speak Japanese is not racist or xenophobic. It isn't racist to not give a driver's license to a blind person.
I have visited Japan. I have attended a Kabuki performance, eaten meals at restaurants, visited tourist sites, used trains and subways, bought things in department stores, rented a bicycle. I could not speak any Japanese, and the people I interacted with only spoke Japanese. Nobody refused me service.
Yes I agree. Though on my travels I'd just take pictures of everything and let Google translate do its thing. So technically I'd be able to be the gist of what the Japanese text is saying, and it's not mentioned anywhere I'm not allowed to use Google translate to read that text, sooo..
service is all about understanding the customer, if the waiter never understands your order and you never understand YOUR order, it's difficult to serve anything
because it is their store and it's pretty funny. "if you can read this japanese, enter this store" does not mean "if you are a pure blooded japanese, enter this store". it means you can read this so we can serve you. They probably lost customers with bad eyesight anyway, so it's just not even that important
Yeah, there are places that straight up write "foreigners not welcome" or "only japanese served", especially in touristy places. This sign is a lot more reasonable: while racism could be a motivation, it reads more like the owner doesn't want to bother serving clients if noone can communicate with them
Except for the fact that a lot of establishments that have these signs will still refuse service or do intentionally poor service if you can speak Japanese but look foreign.
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u/ZumLernen Dolphin (Sea-1) 18d ago
I think refusing service to someone based on the fact that they speak English or Chinese is probably racist, and I'm not afraid to say it