From the Mar 25 – Mar 31, 2004 issue

News

Japanese Like Me

European Americans Masquerade as Japanese Folk in Bizarro-World Issue

by Charles Mudede

Soy Source is a local Japanese-language newspaper that distributes 7,500 copies on the 10th and 25th of each month. Its readers are primarily Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans, and, with the sole exception of the president/publisher, Andrew Taylor, its staff is composed entirely of Japanese Americans. With its mix of color and black-and-white photos and graphics, the paper's design, like its substance, is very basic. It offers information about local events, recommends restaurants, mentions cool places to visit, and highlights clever things to buy. Soy Source also runs features about "doctors, dentists, lawyers, and such," explains Andrew Taylor in an e-mail. "But we have written about many subjects. One of the more notable [subjects] was a story on Japanese divorcées who, after divorcing, have chosen to stay in the U.S., and why they have so chosen."

This is not very stimulating material, regardless of your culture. So it is understandable that the many issues of Mr. Taylor's newspaper that featured stories about divorcées and dentists escaped my notice when I passed the stack of Soy Sources that sits at the bottom of the stairs to Fort St. George--the second coziest Japanese restaurant in the International District (ichiban is Maneki). It was not until I passed the stack of February 25 papers that I had cause to pause and, for the first time, pick up the paper. That issue's cover drew my full attention: It had images of white people dressed in traditional Japanese clothes, doing traditional Japanese things, like standing peacefully in a Japanese garden, or playing a koto in a tranquil living room. When I turned the page, the feature continued with more photos of white people engaging in other Japanese activities: A white woman extravagantly (no, dramatically) kneeling before a bowl of tea she has prepared; a white man serving sake to white guests at a dinner table; and the most amazing of all, a white monk surrounded by an array of Buddhist ornaments. The monk's face is dead serious, his feet are bare, and his hands form the temple of a prayer.

After the main feature, the issue has national and local stories, reviews of imported DVDs, advice columns, a column devoted to the Mariners, and another to community news. All of these features are in Japanese, just like all the stories illustrated with pictures of white people. If one hadn't a clue of what Japanese people look like, and if one had only this issue of Soy Source to go on, one might conclude that Japanese people--people who enjoy shino pottery, tea ceremonies, and kimonos--are white.

On the second page of the February 25 issue of Soy Source there's a tantalizing clue, a hint that all is not what it seems. On that page we find a picture of a young, fresh-faced white man with a chubby Asian boy sitting on his lap. The white man, according to a rough translation provided to me by a friend, is named Eric, he's a sake expert, and he's 28 years old. A bamboo wall can be seen behind the sake expert and the chubby Asian boy. In the context of this issue of Soy Source's parade of white faces, it is the Asian boy who looks out of place, a foreigner to the practices and culture of Japan. "What is he doing here, in this country of white people who like to drink sake, kowtow, and perform elaborate tea ceremonies?" someone who knew nothing of Japan might wonder.

Upon further investigation I learned that the all-white-faces issue of Soy Source is dedicated to local Americans who have mastered various Japanese arts or crafts. So perhaps it shouldn't strike one as odd that all the people pictured in Soy Source are white--until you remember that not all Americans are white. Then you have to wrestle with this question: Why don't African Americans or Mexican Americans or, apparently, Japanese Americans care to master ancient Japanese traditions? Even after wrestling with that issue, however, something still provokes a sense of uneasiness. The long and well-documented history of white appropriation, and the even sadder history of yellowface (Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's, for example), is disturbingly apparent when one is presented with a seemingly innocent photo of a robed white man who is contemplating all of eternity like a wise Japanese monk.

The following issue of Soy Source, March 10, restores order. Its feature concerns auto services (Ballard Collision), car dealers (Honda of Kirkland), and types of car insurance (Uninsured Motorist Property Damage) that Masako Hirano-Holcomb Agency provides. Most of the mechanics and dealers pictured are Asian and dressed in what people in their respective professions generally wear--power suits and overalls. For now, this Japanese paper, which is run by a white person, will resume escaping the attention of a black African who writes for a paper owned by white Americans.