I'm of mixed minds. I really miss the days when it was possible to be welcomed pretty much anywhere as a foreigner and have almost universal expectations of high quality, scam-free experiences, but those days are pretty much gone now. Foreigners are lining up for mediocre tourist traps because of something they saw on TikTok or Instagram, and there are business people who are willing to take advantage of that fact.

It's also really difficult to serve your local clientele when tourists "discover" your establishment. I have a friend with a restaurant that has become known amongst foreign tourists, and it's nearly impossible for the locals in the neighborhood to visit now. I was talking about it with him a month or so back, and while he seemed happy to have the money -- and therefore unwilling to change the situation -- he also interacted with the tourists in a completely different way. He had a back-channel reservation mechanism for locals and people he knows, but it still requires advance planning for a place that used to be a casual, walk-in experience.

you can still have that. I'm a fulltime traveller. the key is to stay in a place longer. I usually stay in a country for at least a month. that gives you time to meet and actually get to know locals. thats how you get invited to the really cool spots and get a view the daytripppers and resort goers don't get.

... if you're a full-time traveler that can afford to stay for months at a time. For the rest (the vast majority) of us, the GP comment is what we get.

It also helps if you rent a car so you can get to places that aren't accessible to most tourists unless they put in a lot of effort

That said, even for short-term tourists, Japan used to be kind of a miracle in terms of the quality and service you would get for the money. I know it sounds like hipster whining, but that time is in the past.

[1] My snobby hot-take is that if you can't travel this way you shouldn't do recreational international travel at all, unless it's to go to a luxury hotel and sit on a beach or something packaged like that. But I realize that this will not be a popular opinion.

Anyway, I disagree with you: Japan is still a miracle in terms of the quality and service you get for the money. I saw this many times over.

Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.

The article mentions Yamaguchi, Toyama, Morioka, etc., and I definitely agree -- there are tons of places off the tourist beaten-track, and any of them is worth a visit.

On my recent trip I was in Kobe, which unlike Yamaguchi etc. I expect the average HN reader has heard of. But even there, there was little trace of overtourism.

Alex Kerr lamented all the way back in 1993 (in his book Lost Japan) that Kyoto had essentially lost its soul. And if you go to the areas most commonly seen on Instagram and TikTok, that's probably partially true. But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you!

I assume you mean "relative to other places" here, and in that sense, I agree. Japan is not yet entirely Epcot Center.

> Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.

Right, exactly. Except that I'm seeing this spread like cancer -- which it always does. Sort of like gentrification, the "authenticity seeking tourist" leaves Senso-ji a few blocks, and then before too long Kappabashi is no longer a functioning street of restaurant supply stores (instead becoming a dead zone of "japanese knife" and matcha retailers), and so on.

> But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you

Yeah, I lived in Kyoto a decade ago, and I say that to my Japanese friends, too. The thing is, even vs. 2-3 years ago, the number of those authentic places is dramatically fewer. People have been complaining about tourism in Kyoto forever, but they're also not wrong.

1) There is a whole spectrum of alternatives between "do not go" and "go take selfies in the same TikTok dead zones as everyone else, while drinking overpriced matcha boba tea and eating potato spiral on a stick from a Mario kart." Perhaps do something else?

2) "Japanese tourists" haven't been going much of anywhere with the yen near all-time lows to western currencies. Setting that aside, it's been a few decades since the stereotype you're invoking was anything close to real.

Why not visit Japan and do sightseeing? Or do you think that's automatically equivalent to Mario Kart tours?

Or like someone else argued (not you, I'm not laying this particular burden on you, just mentioning it because the sentiment is similar) "it's clear cut that it's unethical to do tourism in Barcelona". What!? Well, excuse me if I cannot live in Barcelona permanently or spend 6 months there getting to know the locals, does it mean I should just see Barcelona in the movies? Or maybe just go to Disneyland, since apparently it's all the same thing.

Re: the stereotype, it's true I don't know about Japanese tourists in the last couple of years (let's say post COVID), but if that's because of the yen blah blah then that's no defense of the stereotypical Japanese tourist -- it has nothing to do with ethics if it's just that they cannot afford it anymore. And anyway, the obnoxious Japanese tourist exist(ed) and it was common in my country, so why give them a free pass just because this article mentions the kind of tourism that bothers them?

In any case: tourism isn't necessarily evil. You can simply not be the loud careless tourist who trashes everything, is not respectful and complains about everything. A lot of us cannot spend 3 months doing volunteer work or whatever, we just want to see the world and enjoy its wonders in the 2-week or so vacation we get once a year, and planning for the whole family, not just for a single person in their 20s with no attachments and who can backpack the world for a year or whatever.

And what for those who haven't seen Tokyo, Kyoto, etc with their own eyes. Should they NOT visit then? Why not?

When I went last year, two of the random places I went because they got featured in some anime were some of the most authentic-feeling experiences I had.

One was a small town on the east coast near a beach; a lot of it felt like a ghost town (I barely saw any locals, let alone tourists). I was able to go and respectfully visit a really nice shrine while being able to keep my distance enough that I knew I wasn't bothering anyone. I also found a cool aquarium I didn't know was there, and I'm pretty sure I was the only foreigner I saw/heard while visiting it.

The other was a less-deserted but still small area outside of a less popular city. There was an island I wanted to go onto that I couldn't, but I improvised and found a beautiful hike to a summit overlooking it instead. While I was walking up, I had at least two elderly folks say hello to me in Japanese, and a pair of young children walking with their mom say hello in English (way more unprompted interaction than I got just walking around in any of the cities, aside from employees advertising things).

So just because a place was featured in an anime doesn't mean it's necessarily a tourist trap. Just don't go in expecting the place to be entirely defined by that (and it also helps if it's been at least a few years since said anime was popular).

Extremely true. I just got back from Japan and I was very pleased by how little effort it took to get off the tourist trail, even in Kyoto. Of course some popular attractions are still worth seeing and for those, visiting around opening is usually enough to avoid the worst of the crowds. (If you're flying in from the US there's a good chance jet lag has you up at 5am anyway, so this is an effective strategy even for non-morning people.)

I also went to places like Beppu or Kagoshima where I barely saw any tourists.

It was really pleasant. I keep trying to move farther off the beaten path on each trip.

Honestly travel in general is not very interesting to me. It's expensive, inconvenient, commoditized, cliche. But especially that sort of travel.

I can see taking a break to go somewhere warm if you live in a place with long gloomy winters. Or going somewhere to visit family, or to do something that just isn't available where you live (skiing or fishing trip or something like that). But going somewhere to just look around? Not attractive to me.

You can set out to discover cool stuff on your own. Walk around a non-touristy neighborhood until you see a restaurant full of locals dining and eat there.

Just hanging out in a walkable city for a few days is nice change from driving everywhere in the suburbs. I couldn't live in a city though.

> But going somewhere to just look around? Not attractive to me

What is there in life but looking around, learning new things and experiencing new stuff?

That's a bad take, because it means if you're not rich or a hippie backpacker without attachments, you cannot do international travel.

What's worse, many of these issues affect local tourism within your own country as well (ruining places for the locals, lots of tourist traps sprouting, etc).

So effectively the advice becomes "stay at home, don't vacation, or if you do vacation stay at some prepackaged place".

Which I frankly disagree with.

I didn't expect it to be a popular take, but I feel like the "sightseeing travel" model is varying degrees of bankrupt, and I'm not apologizing for my opinion.

Having lived in a number of tourist hotspots in my life, I've come to the conclusion that almost nothing one encounters in a tourist setting is authentic. Therefore, you're engaging in very expensive cosplay, erected entirely for your benefit, and almost always at the expense of the culture of the place you are visiting. However fun it may be for you or I, it's still just Disneyland. And while Disneyland may be of net economic benefit to the local people who live near Disneyland, let's not get hoity-toity about it and pretend that we're discovering deep truths of the universe by going to Angkor Wat and snapping a photo.

You don't have to do a "prepackaged vacation", but do something more substantial than moving around constantly and looking at stuff through a camera -- volunteer, take a course, attend a conference, teach English...whatever! Just go there for a reason other than "being a tourist".

> You don't have to do a "prepackaged vacation", but do something more substantial than moving around constantly and looking at stuff through a camera -- volunteer, take a course, attend a conference, teach English...whatever! Just go there for a reason other than "being a tourist".

The hell? We're discussing vacationing, not volunteer work. Teaching English? It's not my native language, why would I? I already have a job where I live, and I responsibilities here. Volunteer work? My country needs it way more than wealthy Japan, why would I go there?

What's wrong with tourism, seeing Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto? I don't get more than 2 weeks vacation where I work, I should use them to volunteer according to you?

I swear, the first world entitlement in some of these comments... like yours...

> What's wrong with tourism, seeing Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto?

I just spent several paragraphs answering that question. TL;DR: a few days/weeks of lightweight entertainment for you does real damage to the places you visit. The ethical traveler should strive for something better than photos.

> I don't get more than 2 weeks vacation where I work, I should use them to volunteer according to you?

I am saying that my opinion is that "tourism" is more-or-less ethically bankrupt. You don't have to do anything in response, and in any case, I was pretty explicit that volunteering was only one of many possible alternatives -- but you knew this, because you quoted me saying it.

It's not a high bar. Visiting friends or doing a specific activity (rock climbing! diving! fishing! sports! cooking! meditation retreat! make art! take a class! gain a skill!) would be a perfectly ethical reason to travel somewhere, in my humble opinion. Almost anything is better than piling into to the same few tourist sites and taking the same few photos that everyone else takes. And you'll have more fun, too.

> I swear, the first world entitlement in some of these comments

Having the luxury to travel is a "first-world entitlement." It isn't entitlement to say that you should strive to be more thoughtful about the costs.

That's a bizarre take. Beyond bad, just plain weird.

> It's not a high bar. Visiting friends or doing a specific activity (rock climbing! diving! fishing! sports! cooking! meditation retreat! make art! take a class! gain a skill!) would be a perfectly ethical reason to travel somewhere, in my humble opinion

That's an extremely high bar for most of us, and that you don't see it is hilarious.

Nothing is more artificial and touristy than a "retreat" or going someplace to scuba dive, but somehow you're placing these arbitrary definitions on what is more or less ethical.

All of those "ethical" activities are extremely artificial and damaging, it's absurd thinking going abroad to do "art" or "rock climbing" is more authentic and not artificial and damaging. Unless you know someone local who can take you somewhere non commercial (which is an extremely high bar, unless you have friends all over the world) all those activities are as much Disneyland as taking photos of the Eiffel tower, I'm sorry to tell you.

Visiting friends doesn't mean you won't go sightseeing, what does one thing have to do with the other? And what if you don't have friends all over the world?

> Having the luxury to travel is a "first-world entitlement." It isn't entitlement to say that you should strive to be more thoughtful about the costs.

What you're saying amounts to gatekeeping, which is even more entitled. "If you cannot travel like the entitled few can, in the extremely narrow way I deem ethical, then don't travel at all."

Also, I don't know if you understand everything you say applies to doing tourism within your own country as well. So your advice effectively becomes "do rock climbing (and hope your children and spouse want to do that) or stay at home". Your world shrinks because you cannot do "ethical tourism" according to some absurd definition.

Yuck.

But since I didn't explain it explicitly, the principle is that while all travel is damaging, you can thoughtfully pick activities which:

1) Will help offset that damage (e.g. volunteering)

2) Require that you be in a place (e.g. seeing family / friends), or

3) Otherwise spread out your impact and/or engage with locals on a more authentic level -- even the horrible, very bad, "extremely artificial and damaging" yoga retreat (lol, come on) will put you in a small minority of travelers, many of whom will be locals themselves.

Despite your repeated mischaracterizations of my argument, it doesn't have to be expensive, and perfect is not the enemy of the good. It doesn't take much more than creativity and effort to do better with your travel.

Your "yoga retreat" is the worst of the Eat Pray Love kind of tourism, I cannot believe what I'm reading. It's artificial as fuck, please don't suggest it ever again.

I also do not want to visit friends and family, that's a different activity entirely!

You mischaracterize all sightseeing tourism as "damaging" and the equivalent of TikTok and Mario Kart tours, yet complain that I am mischaracterizing you.

Wow. The sense of entitled gatekeeping I'm getting from you is off the charts.

I have to follow your very strict and arbitrary standards -- you, who by your own admission have lived in "several tourist hotspots" (making you a bigger part of the problem than me) -- because... somehow my visiting several interesting parts of the world where I know nobody is "damaging"?

Wow. That's rich.

At first, people want a taste of something different and authentic. But eventually the place sells out and stops being a real place and starts catering to the new entrants, pushing out the natives in the process.

Florence is a good example of this. Not long ago it was a real place where real people lived. Nowadays everyone there is a foreigner, including the workers and the people who own the businesses and Airbnbs. A tourist goes there and feels like they've gotten to know Italy, but really all they experienced was a theme park designed to take their money by catering to their expectations of what Italy is supposed to be like.

What I could do without is the sanctimonious attitude of "tourism is bad unless you do it exactly like I tell you to, which also happens to be a way that 90% of the middle class that can afford traveling cannot do, but hey, I can, and I've lived near many tourist hotspots anyway [sic], so I guess it sucks to be you!".

The backpacker that can go do volunteer work or rock climbing or living among the locals for 6 months is a tiny minority of those that can travel; saying it's the only valid way of traveling abroad is gatekeeping, plain and simple.

You can be a tourist and simply not be obnoxious, but apparently that's not enough for some people.

Therefore an alternative is needed, that lets us visit a place without destroying it and stealing it from the locals. I think that's what was being proposed.

but whats wrong with seeing different place's interpretation of disneyland? thats still fun and interesting. people do like Disneyland

Fuck that.

Just being there puts you in economic competition with the locals. You can spend more on everything than everyone else and that raises their costs too. Especially housing and food. Those fancy resorts take all the prime real estate and Airbnb means locals have to compete with the tourist rental prices.

And there is more and more people traveling all the time so some areas are just overloaded -- as in the article here.

Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average as a tourist, but the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.

In general we have the ability to expand the amount of available housing/hotels/etc. to meet increased demand. It’s not a zero sum game.

Although I don't think the commonly repeated story that Stinson visited on his honeymoon is true, he had gotten married in the previous century

As someone who lives in NYC and works with Broadway shows we thrive on tourists. Are there locals who live in Times Square or a few blocks off? Sure, it’s not all that annoying, and most folks like me live in an area that isn’t particularly crowded with tourists, if at all.

When I read stories like this, I never quite understand if it’s worse other places than NYC. Or if I’d go there and be unphased. That it’s just people from some empty suburb where lots have a 10 acre minimum that are bothered by this and write these stories.

Who cares if it was an actual honeymoon or another trip decades after he was married? He was key to sparing the city, and his personal experience with its rich history was a part of that. That's the interesting story, and nothing in this article refutes that.

This is a very bleak misanthropic view that isn't true. It's possible to be a force for good. To form a symbiosis where each side benefits from the other. If you see a native resident, do you think he is perfectly pure, content and happy? Or does he have his troubles and issues. How can you help him? Entertain? Teach? Trade?

Staying home is not the only alternative to participating in the most destructive acts of overtourism.

If self-denial is rewarding to you, that's your business. You don't decide with vague statements what's rewarding to others.

Are there no mountains to climb other than Everest? Is there no way to experience a mountain other than scaling the summit?

Why must considering how you impact your surroundings mean “self-denial”? Why can’t it mean choosing amongst abundant riches and savoring the very experience of choosing?

You don't need to go to the Gold Coast: the entire country is surrounded by water ("girt by sea" is in our national anthem), most of it has great beaches, and you're legally allowed to be on any of those beaches up to the high water mark! The 12 Apostles are cool, sort of, but they're surrounded by beautiful coastline and rainforest filled with waterfalls which a big chunk of international tourists drive through without stopping longer than a toilet and coffee break. The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House are neat and they aren't too busy, but they're also just a bridge and a big building. Uluru is big and impressive, but it's next to the far more interesting Bungle Bungles which get a tenth of the visitors each year, and the entire centre of Australia is scattered with gorges and craters and rock formations.

Go somewhere other than the top places! The best thing you can do for the locals struggling with house prices on the Gold Coast is to save your own money, skip the queues, and go literally anywhere else along the coast in NSW or QLD. Australia has the same population density as Idaho. We can absorb an effectively unlimited number of tourists as long as they ramp up slowly and spread themselves out. It's easy to be an ethical non-disruptive tourist if you just ignore tiktok and don't treat other countries like bingo cards.

And its not just tourists. ASML has completely destroyed the housing market in the Brainport region. They're planning to hire 20.000 more people, but with The Netherlands currently being in one of the most severe housing crises in the world, these expats just end up pushing everyone out of the local housing market because they can overbid on houses / rental properties so much.

ASML has woken up to this and is underwriting affordable housing developments, but only at a clip of 1500 per year. So yeah, the locals are not exactly happy, even if it is good for The Netherlands and EU as a whole.

Frankly, I expect the next decade or two to be about harsh protectionism. People are really, really tired of globalisation eating the world.

They won't because you couldn't get a majority of their populace to agree with you, which doesn't necessarily mean it's incorrect but does at least mean it's not simple.

That said, I visited Rome 20 years ago and a year ago, and what used to be fairly live city center is now one writhing mass of bodies.

I think this is definitely not true.

And I think oversaturation generally happens because most people don't think that, or think about it at all. They have a checklist of spots to hit, photos to take, things to eat, and they follow it. They'll put up with huge lines, crazy prices, etc. Overcharging isn't terrible for everyone local, of course, but the crowding certainly changes a place. Often not better for most locals.

If you're trying to be respectful I think that rules out following those huge crowds usually. Like, seeing the Mona Lisa is usually a shitty experience, but at least its in a controlled environment. Visiting a trendy vacation spot like Barcelona, on the other hand, is hitting the whole town and frankly ... maybe not that interesting or novel. There are other places out there, many not even that far away from the hotspots. Though you also need to rein in any instinct to show off any other finds or places online, let the local place you enjoyed become deluged.

This is what I said isn't true: "Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average"

I think most people don't think about being respectful much at all.

I think someone who does want to be respectful would be like "hey, locals say tourism is currently out of control in Barcelona, we'll pick somewhere else for now."

> the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.

And this article is about Japan, a freaking island where the government has a total control over how many people are getting in...

There are certainly places where it is clearer cut. Hawaii and Barcelona come to mind.

Do these locals ever go on vacation to other parts of the planet?

You can hire a full time tour guide using your wealth disparity. Providing a real job to someone with a real schedule and predictable income.

Stay at home? Do not take vacations? Never learn anything about the outside world that's not mediated by books or the internet?

Because I can tell you not even your own country (whatever that is) is spared from this. You cannot travel within your country without causing this, either.

How long ago was that? It was certainly true in fairly large portions of the world, but there are plenty of places where, for as long as I can remember, you could pretty much expect to be scammed regularly. In many cases those scams would be for trivial (to visitors from wealthy countries) amounts of money, but it nonetheless often seemed like a large fraction of local economies would be driven by scamming tourists.

I think that the real recent change is that the “beaten path” of touristy areas has gotten larger.

To be clear: "scamming" is still thankfully uncommon in Japan. Getting ripped off in the tourist-trap way is the new development.

I don't know when it started exactly, but I lived there around a decade ago and it was rare then. The prices around tourist spots would always be elevated and world heritage sites often had a line of crappy souvenir shops, but you didn't see the same kind of fake "wagyu" and the like that you see everywhere today.

I’m talking about a more pedestrian type of ripoff, which is simply to overcharge and underdeliver - think of $40 for tough meat, labeled “Kobe beef”, and you’ll get the idea. It’s always been around, but far more prevalent now.

So, much like every restaurant that becomes popular, anywhere in the world?

No, but thanks for the spot-on imitation of an entitled foreign visitor. The insinuation that somehow it's the local people's fault that they don't want their quaint neighborhood restaurants to become McDonald's is indeed part of the problem.

Many restaurants in Japan (my friend's included) are quite obviously one-man, standing-room only operations. They weren't designed or intended to accommodate big groups of people, pulling huge rolling suitcases, ordering off menu, getting offended when the proprietor doesn't offer vegan/gluten free/snowflake options, and tons of other nonsense that goes along with serving tourist hordes.

I realize that you can't un-make the baby, and that Japan's government asked for this, but a lot of locals are still upset about this kind of stuff and I have empathy. Tourism inevitably turns anything authentic into a high-volume, Epcot-center version of itself. That might be fine if you're visiting, but it sucks if you live there.

This seems a little unfair. I think the parent was talking more about restaurants in big cities.

In Tokyo, lines down the block are extremely common, and the lines are primarily Japanese people, not foreigners. Maybe there are Japanese tourists visiting Tokyo, maybe they are Tokyo locals. But it happens with or without foreign tourism.

I don't think I misinterpreted the response.

But the thing I worry about, having never been there, is that I might get some good recommendations for out-of-the-way spots where there would be few if any other tourists, and take the time to go find them, only to be denied entry because I’m a foreigner.

I also remain convinced most of the anti-foreigner tourism sentiment is anti-Chinese tourism sentiment. For westerners who can behave, it's still a great place to visit. (Though skipping Kyoto wouldn't be a bad idea.)

You can still blend in far more than most tourists do by a) watching the people around you, and b) being a little bit self-conscious.

It's absolutely astounding how much tourists stand out in Japan (or Paris, or London, or New York...), and it's mostly about their behavior and clothing. Ten minutes of internet research and a little bit of introspection would go a long way to solving both problems.

Demanding the locals to accommodate your lazyness is basically shouting "I'm entitled".

Clothing and makeup is a better giveaway than facial features or skin tone, but even that is becoming harder with K-pop creating a pan-Asian style to aspire to.

I don't think they're gone though? I just got back from a trip to Japan and I was very pleased to find these experiences were still the norm outside the most heavily touristed areas. Even in big cities. Have been to Colombia twice in the past two years and it was the same way.

I would like to think there is somewhere in the United States, maybe in the Midwest, or West Virginia, there has to be someplace where there are decent hard-working Americans, who are not trying to scam each other.

My family is from the "decent hard-working" part of mid-America and I am the only one without a felony so whenever one of my relatives dies, I get their guns. It used to be the crime of choice was check fraud but now it's simple burglary and drugs.

I as a non-gang, non-dealing, tall middle aged white dude am safer in Baltimore than I am at the local gas station full of tweakers in "real" America.

West Virginia has the highest, by a lot, percentage of people on social security disability because their state doesn't have good welfare benefits. All of the decent folk figured out how to scam the government out of disability payments by lying about back and stomach pain.

In Wyoming County West Virginia >33% of all adults aged 18-64 are on disability. These aren't broken down coal miners they are normal, healthy, unemployed people.

My county? 6%.

The only parts of America where people aren't trying to scam each other are uninhabited.

Nobody will try to charge you the tourist rate because there isn’t one. There may be scammers and shady merchants operating in town but you will not be their primary target.

I fell in love with that part of Texas and the people. My wife and I were married in Marathon which is in a ~75 mile radius of the towns i listed above

if you arent somewhere to mutually enjoy something, they're there to sell something

Most of the ticket vending machines do take cash, but if they wanted to eliminate tourists then that would be an easy change to make.

I do not understand why one would even look at tourist reviews for "authentic Japanese jalapeños" or whatever on Gmaps. But people do so what do I know.

I have no idea if it’s still there, but I thought it was a super clever way of doing things.

What's so hard to believe about that? Lots of places in the Netherlands don't accept cash (probably out of convenience).

I think I've encountered at most 1-2 restaurants in Japan that don't take cash, and none that don't at least accept credit cards.

Taxis, conbinis and restaurants all wanted cash.

Lots of ATMs (majority even) don't take western ATM cards, so you need to look out for JP/7-11/Citi? ones.

Delicate balance of keeping enough yen so you don't run out / have to go out of your way ATM hunting but also not head home with $100s in yen you don't need.

This is not uncommon in Japan, in general. Usually it's more of an anti-Yakuza/riffraff regulation than an anti-foreigner one. It just so happens to kill two birds with one stone, in some cases.

I know far too many non-Japanese-asian people who get held to the standards applied to Japanese people - not even over tattoos, but things like language, cultural understandings, etc. The aspect of this with white people is where the infamous "gaijin smash" came from.

With Japan and Korea (especially the latter) towards Americans, there's also a soft-unspoken rule (that sort of goes both ways) due to the relationship those countries have fostered towards each other. A Brit/German/Italian/etc who spends more than a short visit in Korea/speaks Korean will probably start being taken to the side for flouting cultural norms like age-deference, polite speech, etc to be informed of their cultural mores (usually phrased with an indication that they also come from a structured society, they should understand that this is the way it is); while this will rarely happen to the same group of Americans. In some cases it's the "dumb/naive American" effect, but it also has to do with the larger relationship between the two countries.

Less importantly but somewhat obvious: many Koreans are fairly competent in English and familiar with common American accents. They’ll know pretty quickly if you aren’t speaking with one.

Those have existed long before tourism to Japan became common. Those signs were there when the vast majority of foreigners in Japan were English teachers and soldiers. Many tabehodai (all-you-can-eat) and most nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) places had them.

I think this is for economic/profit reasons.

I am not a strong drinker at all but I can drink 4-5 [X] sour but my Japanese friends were already well intoxicated with 1 or 2 beers...

Every Asian I've met gets a red face from their first glass of wine. Of course I'm not saying that every Asian must be like that. However it's well known that they're not heavy drinkers (compared to, let's say, an average English, Nordic or Russian drinker).

If you tell a male [insert western country] university student on holiday that it's "all you can drink for $20" there's going to be bodies.

It's such a contrast to USA, where I doubt that such a thing would even be legal. And also the bit about no tattoos. That's lawsuit city.

Not trying to get into US politics on HN, but I think my point is clear when it comes to comparing this American situation to the views of non-ethnics in foreign cultures, which was the original OPs argument.

Aren't private businesses in the US allowed to deny access to their premises for any reasons? Seems like a weird thing to get sued over, I think in most places if you own the local, you get to decide who goes there, unless it's a place for government or similar.

I don't think there's any place in America that would be illegal to bar entry based on the presence of tattoos.

Edit: Actually wait

> since if your national origin is the US you're automatically a resident

This isn't true is it? If you're born in the US but you live (100% of the time) elsewhere, you're no longer a resident, are you?

Actually, you fully can discriminate for or against local or state residency. I think national residence would be harder, though to be fair you're absolutely able to not hire non-residents.

Frankly the biggest barrier might be that as actual residents would get mad if you asked for proof, and if you didn't test everyone it would likely be an open-and-shut racial (or maybe national origin if you tested on the basis of accent) case.

That sounds like a immigration/social hierarchy/importance rather than something that matters in discrimination contexts, what exactly you mean with "higher status"?

If a bar bans non-US residents, if a US-citizen+Spanish-residency tries to enter, then it shouldn't matter if they're US citizens or not, because the criteria is residency, not citizenship. Or is there like a priority/order for OK/not OK discrimination criteria?

No? "No Canadians" is ambiguous enough that it could mean citizenship, residency, country you were born in, country you identify most with and so on.

"Canadian Residents" isn't ambiguous (you either have residency or not), and also doesn't seem to be protected at all, only national origin is.

I can’t sidestep gender discrimination law by refusing to hire people with long hair, unless the job is something like “wig model” or “Jeff bezos impersonator” where being bald is a bona fide occupational qualification.

Definitely not. This kind of discrimination is explicitly prohibited by federal civil rights law (Civil Rights Act 1964). It protects people regardless of their national origin (in addition to their skin color).

This is why the signs are always phrased as "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone/any person".

As with most things though, this is just the minimum federal regulation and states will handle how far they take it differently. There are jurisdictions that wouldn't touch a "no tattoos" policy with a ten-foot pole at the risk of a lawsuit. While there are others that are more lax.

Worked great, never had any problems on St. Patricks day.

"You can go to any other bar in the city, just not this one."

A.k.a. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Miami ... take your pick.

Litigation, the great all-American pastime.

YMMV.

The sign itself is probably protected speech.

As for the policy, it is probably also legal here. Private businesses have broad rights to refuse individual customers without stating a reason.

Fabricating a legitimate business reason to deny service to a particular group of customers is usually trivial, as well. Proving it was fabricated for discriminatory reasons can be difficult.

>(a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.

Restaurants are considered public accommodation under 42 U.S. Code § 2000a (b)(2).

Could a business lie about why they're discriminating? Yes, but that wouldn't be possible with a sign saying "No foreigners" and eventually, someone will file a title II complaint.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000a

They don't have to state a reason. The entire foundation of the common law system is to have a court decide intent; not be technically bound by your words.

It would only take showing a continued behavior of denying people in a discriminatory manner (e.g. 10% of your visitors are foreigners, but 95% of the people barred entry are in that group) to fine/sanction/shut down the business.

Yes, I agree. It becomes more difficult to infer intent without a stated reason.

Practically speaking, I think most civil rights lawsuits that are decided in the plaintiff’s favor are very, very explicit cases of discrimination. Someone was called a slur, someone was refused service violently, someone had racist iconography scrawled on their property. Yes, fines and sanctions then. Well, sometimes.

The ones who are clever about it never get to that stage. They don’t put up a sign saying “no foreigners,” they put up a sign saying “we speak english here,” “proud to be an american,” and etc. Confederate flags, military paraphernalia, the usual soft threats against the other.

Foreigners in particular are going to find it very difficult to interact with our justice system. A civil rights case that goes to trial is going to take much longer than the typical tourist visa allows. It’s going to be prohibitively expensive for the typical tourist to procure the services of a skilled lawyer.

All one does is file a complaint with the Justice department (or a local states'). The Justice department is who investigates and sues.

These are going to be in places that are not heavily touristed even by other Americans. You're talking about places in the deep south; or in some survivalist community in Wyoming/Montana/etc. Not in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.

So there's no one to complain. If someone did, they would most certainly face some legislative action.

> Foreigners in particular are going to find it very difficult to interact with our justice system. A civil rights case that goes to trial is going to take much longer than the typical tourist visa allows. It’s going to be prohibitively expensive for the typical tourist to procure the services of a skilled lawyer.

There's two cases where foreigners would complain:

A) they are on a visa, in which case they have the capability and are available to do so (and tend to be a pretty outspoken group considering the trouble they went through to get the visa in the first place).

B) they are visiting friends/family, in which case the friends/family will complain due to discrimination their loved ones faced.

You're using extreme examples to prove it could happen, because you're being disingenuous (imo). No one is doubting it could happen, racist/exclusionist stuff happens all the time. The people in this thread are saying it's not a norm, and (more importantly) that it's not legal. It's quite easy to prove a trend of discrimination, especially if your bar is clad in known racist/nationalist-adjacent paraphernalia.

Or, in other words, just ask yourself this: there are racists and nationalists in LA, SF, Denver, NY, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, etc....so, if it's so easy to skirt the legislation, why do we not find these sorts of bars in places that people actually go to versus insular communities where people are unlikely to raise a fuss?

It is really hard to dispute the myth that “America” only consists of a few large cities, à la Death Stranding. Unfortunately, the whole country is not as enlightened as LA, SF, and NYC.

International tourism is also not limited to these cities. NPS alone attracts millions each year. Although, I understand the fees for foreign visitors is increasing soon.

That part is key. If they do state a reason, it could become a civil rights issue. The sign alone might not be enough to make a case, but it's a very good start.

That's nothing unusual in Japan, even Japanese people in Japan can't join a gym or get car insurance if they've got tattoos. They're serious about that stuff for a reason.

I just wore sleeves over them and although less comfortable than my normal gym attire it was fine.

I was denied access to an Onsen because I honestly forgot about the tattoo thing for a while but was able to find one that was tattoo friendly. They were not mean or anything they just informed me it was policy. Completely understandable given the history.

My tattoos are very noticeable though. Like you would never miss large forearm tattoos, so it's probably hard for them to overlook for them and let it slide even for a foreigner

eh? there's a stripping-down room in insurance offices?

do you have to submit nudes if you're buying insurance online?

Edit: The red text at the bottom says: この日本語が読める方は、 ご入店くださいませ = "if you can read this Japanese text, please come in"

Edit 2: just the original reddit post link then

However this is easily "beaten" by using circle to search -> translate on your smart phone.

Xenophobia, Japan: :)

1) most people wouldn’t bother to translate something with a fake translation right above it

2) why do people want to go places they aren’t welcome? It is good to let the locals have some things…

It's funny how everybody seems totally cool with this in Japan (or other Asian countries) but all hell breaks lose if somebody pulls that off in Europe. Actually this is just the news currently as a public swimming facility in Switzerland recently banned foreigners due to problems with visitors from France. The guests now seem super happy but it has been in he news already for a few days. In Germany you can even sue in such a case as we have anti-discrimination laws.

But plenty of places were super warm and friendly after the initial apprehension if you speak Japanese and read some kanji. Worth the effort!

I think this is a misconception spread by people who get mad about being laughed at by locals, including kids, and have insisted on being called gaikukojin (foreign-country person) instead over the last 20-30 years.

The reason I say so is that Japanese is full of abbreviated words like this; gaijins literal meaning is 'outside person' and the koku part is redundant. You see such abbreviations in the written language too. For example 友人 (yuujin) and 友達 (tomodachi) both mean 'friend' but as you can see the latter kanji is a lot more work to write as well to say.

The real reason (in my view) is that this word 外人 has the same pronunciation as 害人 and the same slang meaning, but 害 carries an implication of harm or injury. Japanese has a small number of sounds compared to other languages so homophony abounds and double meanings like this are very common, both for humorous effect or for making veiled negative comments.

Switching a character around is a normal Japanese way of dealing with meaning clashes. For example 和 (wa) means harmony, but also refers to Japan: 和食 (washoku) is Japanese food, 和服 (wafuku) is Japanese clothing etc. etc.. This word is ancient, going back ~1800 years to when Chinese & Korean explorers first had contact with Japan and called it the 'Kingdom of Wa'. However the Chinese used the character 倭 (also wa) which means distant, but can also mean dwarf (as in stature) or submissive. The Japanese used the same character for about 500 years but eventually decided they found the double meaning offensive and switched to 和. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_(name_of_Japan) is a great deep dive into this if you're interested in etymology.

I get why some people take umbrage at the use of words like gaijin, but to my mind if you don't like such things you don't really like the language, and if you make an issue out of it people will just find more subtle ways to express their negative (and possibly escalated) sentiments and might start to view you as 害虫.

And I also have the experience of people really appreciating it if you actually speak and read Japanese. Which makes sense, I can easily imagine it being a relief to find that you can just speak with someone normally instead of having to struggle with this absolutely bonkers weird language that one may be only vaguely familiar with.

I can imagine that people in, say, the United States wouldn't be very happy if I went around and only spoke Dutch.

100%. You don't even need to know that much. Even if you have to switch to English, showing respect by demonstrating some effort to learn the local language and culture goes a long way.

I think this depends on tone. It is a literal translation, but I don't think you have to call someone non-human for it to be rude.

> I can imagine that people in, say, the United States wouldn't be very happy if I went around and only spoke Dutch.

We do have a large amount of people (and an increasing number of businesses) who think it's fine to only speak Spanish.

What's the "fake menu" you have to order from before you unlock the real one? Or do you just have to swing by but aren't allowed to order anything? Compared to the others, it's hard to think of how this would necessarily help the business, aside from possibly disincentivizing people who are uncaring enough that their traffic would be bad but still care enough that they won't go there if they can't order something specific.

* store only for patrons, but welcome if you come with patron.

* anyone welcome but if you're only coming once (tourist etc), please don't (destroy the vibe).

For obvious reasons foreign tourist couldn't get this so many places just put up a "no foreigner" sign. You'll still see local foreigner sometimes hang around those places though

I did this living there from ~2009 - ~2016. Wasn't an issue in my visits afterwards either, at least up until the COVID years.

I will say that when I go back each year (1x/2x per) post COVID, I've seen more of them trying to be firm on it though - presumably due to the tourism influx.

It must be quite the character who has the discipline and drive to get a Michelin star and takes pleasure in putting giant roadblocks in front of traveling foodies. Reminds me of this elderly couple who despised kids and ran a successful toy store.

Eh, even some non "seedy" ones have it. It's common enough.