Kirk here. As is apparent from my recent posts on this page, I’ve been thinking about the city council issue a lot lately. In off line conversations I’ve had, the idea has come up that part (but, of course, certainly not all) of the hostility shown to Yuka Ogata by her colleagues in the city council may stem from her experience outside of Japan. If you check out her Wikipedia page, you can see that she has studied at George Mason University in the U.S. and then “was an officer in the Yemen office of UNDP.”
Most of the internationally-minded readers of this page probably see her foreign experience and ability to use English as something that is positive and admirable. However, it seems that such an assessment is not universal. In fact, there’s even a derogatory word in Japanese for people who have been abroad and flaunt that experience: Kaigai kabure (or “gaikoku kabure”).
Now, I’m not saying that Ms. Ogata has flaunted her foreign experience. But it has been suggested to me that the very fact that she has spent a considerable chunk of time outside of the country may have heightened feelings of antipathy for her.
It’s not hard to find evidence of a general dislike of so-called “gaikoku kabure” types. There are many, many web pages and YouTube videos about the topic. For example,
https://girlschannel.net/topics/1447573/ https://girlschannel.net/topics/1215773/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jb7JhDJhXI
I’d be curious to know if Japanese readers of this page agree with the idea that Ms. Ogata’s experience abroad may be making some of her colleagues just that much more hostile to her. Thanks in advance.
https://culture-talk.com/2018/02/12/【留学あるある】海外かぶれした日本人の特徴５/
