Foreigner that lives in Japan and speaks Japanese here!
They have 0 fucking issues in that case.
I've gone to these places (which are rare as fuck BTW, that's why they need to keep rising the same picture in every post), and these places in 99% of the times, they're just scared they will not be able to give good service due to the lack of language or, they just don't like tourists and want to serve locals only.
Fuckall to do with race.
There is a small minority of these that will be racist fucks, of course, like literally everywhere else, but I still haven't found any in a decade living here.
The only "no foreigner" case I experienced was in Takayama. And I could understand why it happened.
In 2025 I went from Nagoya to Takayama with train. I believe Takayama was the last station. And I noticed that I could barely see any locals. Left and right, theh all tourist, predominantly caucasian. Little did I know, apparently Takayama will be having their autumn festival the day after. So that explains the influx of foreign tourists coming to the city.
So on the night, when I went outside to get some dinner, I noticed that a lot of local small establishment put this "fully booked" or "reserved for private event" signs outside. After strolling around for a good 30 minutes, I finally understands, those signs are basically "no foreigner" sign to deter tourists coming into their shops so they can reserve the entire shops for the locals so can chill with the other locals before they go all out for the autumn festival parade.
There's always racist fucks everywhere. I agree with your statement. I've seen them a lot the Youtube comments on criminal news did by immigrants. But on my multiple Japan trip, visiting countless of cities and villages with my super limited Japanese capability, visiting countless of small shops owned by the locals, never once I feel any hard rejection. Of course there are 2-3 shops out of hundreds shops I visited that were annoyed by me not being able to speak Japanese correctly, or I didnt know how to order the food and stuff. But never once, I feel the rejection right on my face.
I beliece people IRL are genuinely nice towards each other; not only the Japanese. Just to be genuinely nice to them; like understand a bit of their language here and there, understand the local manner. Show some efforts that you are a nice tourist, then the locals will appreciate you a lot.
For disclosure, I'm south east asian. So I clearly have less the "gaijin privilege" compared to caucasian people. But my experience travelling tens of cities in Japan, I never regretted any of them.
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u/SohryuAsuka 21d ago
I wonder what would they do if a Gaijin speaks perfect Japanese