Kaika at home, February 16, 2004. Canon EOS Elan IIe, 50mm f/1.8 II, Konica Centuria 400.
Of late, spurred by some private conversations, as well as some online reading, I’ve been thinking about Kaika and his ethnicity, and namely his “status” in this country as “half,” which is to say half-Japanese. Now, we haven’t been approached by any modeling agency reps on the street like Mark’s wife was recently, but it’s clear that Kaika’s interracial ethnicity is something he’s already being defined by, at such an early age, whether he wants it or not, and whether his parents want it or not I might add.
Today as we were cycling around the neighborhood looking at cherry blossom trees, Naoko heard a woman remark to her friend, yappari haafu no ko wa kawaii yo ne, which roughly would be something like “ain’t it the truth that half-Japanese children are so cute.” What wasn’t said but is assumed is that “half” refers to children of Japanese and Caucasian parents. It’s mightly unlikely that the same would have been uttered if I were Filipino or Black, for example, regardless of how cute my kid was.
I can’t quite put my finger on it but there’s something that really rankles me about comments like these. Now, I have to admit that growing up in Hawaii, with it’s large Japanese-American and Caucasian populations (about 30% each of the state’s ethnic makeup when I lived there), it was generally accepted among me and my friends that children of Japanese and Caucasian parents were the cutest, and I remember when I saw John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s son Sean Lennon on TV the first time, just after the elder Lennon was assassinated, I thought much the same thing as this woman said today: yup, Japanese-Caucasian children really are cute, aren’t they.
Is it just a case that now that I’m on the other side of the fence I see it differently? I don’t know, but I think one of the things that bothered me today when Naoko told me about this woman’s comment was that the woman had said it loud enough to be heard. It struck me as very rude, although perhaps she didn’t realize how her voice would carry, or perhaps it was her way of throwing us a compliment. Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t help but think that the same comment wouldn’t be uttered within earshot of a similar mixed race family, if at all, in the States. I’m not saying folks wouldn’t think it, I’m sure some of them would, just as I did when I was young and still do to some extent.
There are a lot of things we think privately or might share in a whisper with our companion, like “gee she’s fat” or “boy does he look like a geek,” that only the most insensitive among us would say loud enough to be heard by the object of them. Of course, these are not compliments and perhaps therein lies the rub. I’m sure most of these people who feel that “halfs” are so cute see nothing wrong, or at least problematic, in this sentiment. But why isn’t “he’s cute” enough, why the need to link the child’s cuteness to the child’s ethnicity? I have some further speculative thoughts on the subject, but I’d be curious to hear what others may think, especially those in a similar situation as Naoko and I.
It is probably not meant offensive, however that doesn’t justify it. I often find a severe lack of sensitivity with the Japanese when it comes to matters of race/nationality/ethnic origin or whatever you want to call it. It is where the islander mentality really shines through. Japanese society as a whole is not brought up to “listen to their own words” and question these things they say themselves on this topic. (For example during our recent move, we encountered different procedures for Japanese and foreigners (implying being less trustworthy, of course). There was no sign that this was questionable in any way, elsewhere it would trigger discrimination complaints).
Of course we are from a different (multi-) cultural background, having been exposed to PC and all that too (for what it’s worth, but there’s no denying it hasn’t left something in the back of our heads… which maybe was the purpose at the first place, although it went wrong along the line). And it doesn’t automatically mean that people in our respective home countries are perfect in that respect, even though I think there is still a lot more sensitivity towards foreign cultures in, say, Europe nowadays than in Japan. In some places you have to be very exotic to raise anyone’s eyebrow.
But there’s no denying that living between the cultures makes you more sensitive to those things.
How portune I should stop by for my helping of Easterwood tonight. I just read an ad in the Kansai Timeout for a “half” kids modeling agency! The name? Creamy Models. You could be sitting on a goldmine! By the looks of that wee smasher, I’d say you’re head and shoulders above most in the cuteness sweepstakes!
Interesting topic. My wife is black and I’m white, so I know this is an issue we’ll face when we decide to have children, which will probably be in the next couple of years.
I know very little about Japanese culture, so I can comment only from a general perspective. It seems to me to be a backhanded compliment, made so that the person saying it can comment on how the child is “half” or mixed. It also seems to devalue the child’s status as a human and put them in some other category- whatever the case it focuses on them less as an individual, which I don’t like.
good topic, I read your site pretty often and love the photos.
I’m a ”half”, too; a half black, half white brazilian girl, and I understand your feelings about your son’s situation. But I don’t like to think about me as a ”half”. I prefer to say I’m a perfect alliance of love between two worlds. Maybe I’m just arrogant, but I’m very proud of my parent’s love, and I think Kaika someday will feel the same about you and Naoko-san!
He must be ready to hear good and bad words about him. Some people will say he is beautiful because he is different and some people will say he is nasty (yes, some people loves to be cruel also with children). And some people will say he is beautiful without any ethnical prejudice, because it’s true, Kaika is such a beautiful boy!
He must be strong, maybe more than a ”pure” child, he must be able to understand that he is not a half, but a very special child made with love and courage. He is not better than the other children and he is not worst than them, even if some people fight to make he feels about himself like this. He will live this kind of situation in every place he goes, because… well, maybe the world is not ready to us!:) I think you and Naoko-san are able to make him understand that he is not a division, but an addition, as you well said.
He is an exercise of love.
So, Kurt and Naoko, congratulations for your bravery, for your love and for your pretty pretty baby!
Kurt,
I really like this post. This is an issue that Rieko and I have talked about a lot as well. It’s refreshing to see that others are opposed to profiting from internalized racism in Japan. The idea of “half” is a complicated subject, and I agree with your analysis that it refers mainly to half Caucasian and half Japanese.
My wife is due in September, and just now beginning to show. Already, the complement that we receive first from everyone is how cute our child will be because they are half. It’s awkward because though I really hate that comment for the same reasons Kurt mentions above, these are friends saying this, so I don’t stop them or tell them why I find it offensive. Maybe I’ll get the courage up to do that soon.
How do other people respond when people give racial complements to their children? This could also be applied to white children living in Japan, as the internalized racism that seems so common here also elevates caucasian children unduly as well.
My half-Caucasian, half-Japanese daughter lived in Japan from the time she was 1 until she was 8 and her ethnicity was always an issue there. She was made aware of it everyday. We moved back to New Hampshire a year ago and it’s not an issue here at all. Her friends, classmates and teachers do not define her by her ethnicity or nationality. They admire her bilingual ability, but no one says she’s cuter or any different from anyone else because of her racial makeup.
A lot of people in Japan say “haafu” are lucky, but I think she’s luckier to be here where it doesn’t make a difference to anyone where her parents are from.
I’m a white guy married to a Japanese woman here in Japan, and we are expecting a baby in August. We get the “halfs are so cute” thing all the time. (By the way, one of my friends here is black and has kids with his Japanese wife, and his black/Japanese kids are referred to as “half”, which goes against what Kurt hypothesizes.)
Sure, it kind of bugs me, but lots of things about Japan kind of bug me.
But, I don’t think it’s offensive per se. Maybe we Americans are oversensitive when it comes to race, and are likely to blow things way out of proportion when it really does mean nothing?
It doesn’t really bug me.
When Megumi was working in Ebisu, mums with western kids and ‘half’ kids often came in. The staff at the shop generally looked after the children while Mum shopped. Once, Megumi said ‘half kids are so cute’ or something similar. The Western father almost bit her head off, with the ‘he’s not a half, he’s a double’ line. Which is unfair, really. Japanese using the word ‘half’ are just using the tools at their disposable, their language, to describe the situation. I don’t think we should get so caught up in the semantics.
Secondly, what’s all this ‘double’ crap? As Kurt noted, in many parts of the US,(and the world) mixed-race children are perfectly normal. They are not twice as good as other kids, they are not half as good as other kids, they are the same, just with different, mixed DNA.
Which leads me to my final point. The ‘half kids are so cute’ line may, in the majority of cases, be true (controversial!). However, it’s not very fair on other children of Japanese parents. Their kids are cute, too. For people in the neighbourhood to loudly proclaim ‘half kids are cute’ seems a little rude to other parents, to me. Just as being told at the office ‘you have put on weight’ seems rude and insensitive to me. We went out once with friends whose baby is just a couple of weeks younger than Rosie. I felt embarrassed about the amount of attention Rosie got, while our friends’ child, who is also an adorable little girl, went unnoticed.
(that was rather long, Kurt, but you did ask!)
Well, it looks like someone can be offended no matter what is said. Maybe this is all moot.
When my son was born, and brought to my hospital bed, tags were checked…
I laughed at their uncertainty and said bring that baby over here! I pretty much knew it would be different from then. People would ask me on the streets of America as I pushed my son’s stroller if I was a “nanny” for a “Chinese” family.
I am a caucasion blond with a Japanese husband, and our son is also a “half”.
When my boy was in primary school, in Japan, one or two kids would razz him about his “accent”, and because he spoke English.
But I told him not to worry, some day these same kids will ask you for help learning it.
It has come to pass.
And his Japanese no longer has an “accent”.
I think people make comments meaning well, but lack tact.
C’est la vie. Your love and support as parents is the thing that makes it all unimportant, in that I agree with Camila.
Good luck to you both!
Many Japanese consider caucasian features to be the standard of beauty so obviously they would find “half” children more attractive. My mother received many compliments on how adorable my sister and I were. However, she received just as many sneers and vulgar comments because we were half black.
These children are special, I don’t care what anyone says. If they seem more beautiful it may be because of the hope and potential they carry for the future and evolution of our carbon based bipedal species. *Big Smile*
They may well be the unifiers that bring the human race and races together. They carry the best of 2 ethnicities and are, or will be, proficient at creating something completely new. This goes for all biracial children, white, black, red, yellow and everything in between.
I call them the rainbow children. I have two and I love their outlook on life, how they interact with others and how they identify theirselves in this world. Each different, each with a foot in two worlds and bringing those two worlds together so skillfully.
Your child will fare well, not to worry. Just say thank you and let the comments go. Then enjoy every minute of their precious little lifes.
I also am the father of a “half” daughter. She is only 2 months old, so we have not been out in public much, but I have already heard the half label. My instant reaction was that the term was pejorative, whatever the intention behind it. It implies incompleteness and inferiority. I instantly jumped on the “double” bandwagon as an antidote. I realize now that this term implies that “single” children are inferior, and will abstain from using it.
My wife, who is Japanese, educated me that the meaning of “half” in the Japanese sense is positive, and that it was my American sensitivity to racial issues which was coloring my perception (pun intended).
Perhaps that is true.
What is certain is that if we raise her here, she will always stand out, and that will be part of her consciousness, and my gut reaction is that I wish it weren’t.
Oddly enough my daughter is the only kid in our circle of friends who’s not exactly mixed-race. She’s a dual citizen, Australian and American, but she’s the whitest of the white compared to her friends, who are Irish-American, Filipino-Jewish-American, Taiwanese-Jewish-American, Australo-Russian and so forth. No, wait, I tell a lie, one of her friends is as white as she is, but he has two mommies.
I feel a bit chagrined for my girl that she doesn’t have the same kind of complex cultural heritage her friends do. What she does have is the cocoon of white hetero-privilege. I hope she’s always conscious of that and of the bias it will bring to her perceptions.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that ethnicity is always an issue, whether you’re “half”, “single” or “double”. Kaika will confront it directly in well-meaning comments about how cute he is. My daughter will confront it indirectly – probably in well-meaning comments about how cute she is. Kaika will always be reminded about his racial heritage. For my daughter, the temptation will be to forget about hers. But if she does, she’ll blind herself to the experience of most of the rest of the world. And she would be very much the poorer for that.
I’m passing along an explanation from a friend of mine. It basically pigeonholes an interracial kid. It’s like saying “all blondes are dumb.” Even a so-called positive stereotype can be hurtful. What if you don’t happen to conform to it?
On a complete tangent, as a person of Asian descent born and raised in the U.S., I hate it when white people come up to me and ask “So… where are you from?”
This is an interesting, complicated and always sensitive issue and one I don’t pretend to be able to fully explain.
My other half and I were discussing it last night (she’s half English, half Jamaican). There is a common and mostly accepted phrase in England regarding half black, half white babies, very similar to the one you heard in Japan. She encountered this phrase many times as a child and remembers considering it mostly as a compliment. She equated it to other phrases such as ‘Aren’t blonde haired, blue eyed Dutch kids cute’.
I think the reason it perturbs you more is perhaps for a number of reasons. Firstly, the phrase ‘half’ can be mis-interpreted as implying less than a whole. Secondly Japanese culture is infamous for some of its multicultural failings, perhaps this is just the final nail in the coffin for you? Lastly, I think American culture is naturally over sensitive and sometimes misguidedly colour-blind regarding many race issues (for reasons i wont explore here).
You say ‘Why link link the child’s cuteness to the child’s ethnicity?’. I can understand that perhaps an un-qualified compliment would be preferable, but biologically Kaika’s cuteness looks will always come from your and Naoko’s mix of genes. Just as my childhood blonde hair and blue eyes came from my Dutch ancestors. You should be proud of Kaika’s ethnicity and looks, rather than become rankled when they are picked upon.
I am a 37 year old female with a Japanese dad and a blond green eyed mother. You all talk about these children and how cute they are but take it from me, I am an adult who has been on the ride through it. You can all guess at how these kids will feel but I can tell you from experience. I have been asked about 300 times in my life “what am I.” As a female I surely got a lot of attention from men, however when it came down to marriage, the white girls always won out. I always figured that white men that went out with me was experimenting with what it was like to be with an half/half or were just too dorky to get anyone else. The really quality men that I always liked certainly put me at the bottom of the list. It was always my cute blond friend who got picked first and I constantly had to take the back seat. I also had a lot of people want to beat me up growing up because they didn’t like my confident outgoing personality being Asian. It’s like they assumed that I had to be shy and reserved as most Asian women are. I have done a lot of research on half/half and they have alot of mental problems, in my belief because of the uncommon mixing of dna. Many of the adult half/half females I have spoken to have mental problems and are very outspoken, manic depressives, and are very sensitive emotionally. I believe depression and cleft lip and palete also run high in this mix. I don’t mean to be so negative but growing up anything Asian in California is hard enough just being “cute” isn’t good enough. I also don’t believe that we are actually “cute” either. It’s just people “staring” at a different species and they don’t know what to say so they just politely say they are cute. Why aren’t they all over the televisions like all the half black and half white people these days if they are so “cute”? All I have seen is a few newscasters. I always wonder that if I lived in Japan and was half/half I would have been seen in a more glorious light and would had a better quality of life.