Aung Lin-Week 8-Blog 8

I will write this week’s blog on Tsuda’s article “When Minorities Migrate.” I love this article because it talked about how Japanese in Brazil are migrating back to Japan to make more money and they are proud to be Brazilian Japanese and showed that in many ways in Japan. I was shocked that factory workers in Japan make whole a lot more money than well-educated people in Brazil. The Japanese that migrated back to Japan did the right thing. People in Brazil would call these Japanese “japones.” Japones is a derogatory term for Brazilian Japanese. No matter how culturally Brazilian they may become, they will forever be call japones because of their physical appearance. Many Brazilian Japanese in Japan wears Brazilian clothes when they go out in public to show their cultural difference. Brazilian Japanese are much more interested in learning about Japanese culture and language compared to Japanese Americans. In a way “japones” can be a big compliment. There's a similar story that happened in class this week. We watched "Oh Saigon" and in the film Vietnamese family that escaped during the Vietnam War went back to Vietnam to visit their old family members one last time. But "Oh Saigon" is about family problems and has nothing to do with work and Tsuda's article is about moving back to home country for business not because of family problems like "Oh Siagon." 

Question:

In this article, it talked about how Japanese men don’t like facial hair. Brazilian showed his goatee as the symbol of Brazilian identity. Why does Japanese men don’t like facial hair? What is the meaning behind growing facial hair in Japanese?

Work Cited

Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda. “When Minorities Migrate: The Racialization of the Japanese Brazilians in

Brazil and Japan.” 2007. Asian Diasporas. California: Stanford University Press.

Factory workers in Japan making 5 to 10 times more money compared to educated people in Brazil