But it’s the NJ who got it particularly bad, since the worst critics were from within their own ranks. The word “fly-jin,” remember, was coined by a foreigner, so this meanness isn’t just a byproduct of systematic exclusion from society. This is sociopathy within the excluded people themselves — eating their own, egging on domestic bullies, somehow proving themselves as “more dedicated than thou” to Japan. What did these self-loathers ultimately succeed in doing? Making NJ, including themselves, look bad.

Debito full editorial can be found here, Better to be branded a ‘flyjin’ than a man of the ‘sheeple’, and I would encourage people to read it. I initially commented on Debito’s Facebook wall, then modified my comments slightly and posted them at his blog this morning. Here is what I said:

The flyjin meme goes a bit like this (at least let me present it in what might be its strongest yet stated version):

Foreigners have a hard time in Japan. We’re called gaijin and we’re treated like outsiders. We try to make inroads, but it’s a lot of hard work. Now up and comes this big earthquake, and this fairly minor nuclear accident, then suddenly, a bunch of dumb foreigners are panicking and running out of Japan. Now, we’ll all look bad. Their behavior will reflect on all of us. It will now be all that much harder to gain acceptance in Japanese society. How I hate those stupid flyjin. Not only do they run away like cowards making gaijin look bad, but how about all those who needed help? How about instead of buying a plane ticket, sending that $1000++ to real victims of the earthquake? How about showing Japanese we really do care, by trying to go out there and help the people of Japan? We need to show we belong and demonstrate our commitment to this country! Not runaway like cowards in Japan’s time of need.

That’s how I read it anyway. That’s the attitude I feel I came across in the blogosphere. I don’t know how prevalent it really has been. I regard it as wrong for two primary reasons. First, each individual should be judged as an individual. Second, you help people to help people, period.

Now many have made comments that things were actually really safe, and stated that this is a big part of the flyjin issue.

I would like to remind everyone that had the worst case assessment by the US government proven true, and winds had turned to Tokyo all people would have seen very substantial fallout. The time to leave is before such a situation manifests itself, not after.

For the most part, our evaluation of risk is fairly subjective. We each have to come up with our own opinion, and then act on it. How often do two people agree on stuff like this? Rarely.

The best argument for tolerance is human fallibility. We each could be wrong, so we’ve always got to be tolerant of differing opinions. So this idea that actions have to line up in some manner strikes me as misguided. There is room for each of us to respond differently.

Another point is that we are each individually responsible for ourselves and our loved ones, so we each have to act accordingly, and we should each respect one another’s individual decisions even when we disagree.

Now in regards to the argument people are just having a little fun by gently giving their coworkers a hard time.

It’s just a little hazing. C’mon. A little bullying is good for the soul. Right? How many times has this been used to defend what Yoshio Sugimoto calls “friendly authoritarianism?” To the extent that some people practice and preach a kind of collectivist ethic in Japan, this is a defense of it. I’d like to encourage everyone to read Yoshio Sugimoto’s chapter on this in his _An Introduction to Japanese Society_ if you haven’t already. It’s really discouraging to hear people arguing in this manner.

In any event, I do think it likely that some individuals probably were extremely irresponsible in the manner in which they left their jobs. But matters like this need to be handled by the relevant person’s superiors at the relevant company or school or government institution.

Finally, while taking the risk of getting off topic, in regard to the issue of Japanese media providing enough or not enough information on what is happening at the troubled nuclear power plants.

Watch this video:

http://youtu.be/kO0flpwmjJI

If you’d like a partial translation of the above video, follow this link.

Note the pro-nuclear supporter, who was on the program to argue the pro-nuclear stance starts saying things like, “I think the rods are completely melted. TEPCO is messing around with the turbines, that’s a complete joke.” The DPJ politician jumps in and starts saying, we don’t know and so it’s irresponsible to speculate. He gets upset at the pro-nuclear guy for offering his frank opinion based on his years of experience.

It’s not collusion per se, it’s something institutional — but yeah, something is seriously wrong. The other day people were complaining about yellow dust. How did everyone know it was so bad yesterday? Well, on TV everyone saw it, weather maps showed big plumes of yellow dust coming off of China covering Japan.

Well, when was the last time you saw reports about Fukushima Daiichi fallout on national TV, in particular, during the standard weather reports?

That’s dysfunctional. I mean forget the yellow dust, how about giving us some fallout projections for once!

Above is what I posted on Facebook, I would add, I think Debito catches the real problem in the second to last paragraph of his editorial. People feel like guests in Japan, so they can’t act sensibly, they have to act in a way that ingratiates themselves. Yes, there are a lot of those who stayed for genuinely good reasons. No one should ignore their contributions. They should be praised. But there are some of those who stayed and then subsequently turned around and mocked those who left. I suspect they did this because they actively embrace what Debito aptly calls the guest mentality. The main problem they have with those who left, is they were acting like poor guests.