When I first learned about this seminar and the movie "WHOLE", I was very excited to see what would come of it, as I had grown up in Japan as a person of mixed roots, one thing I hadn't seen was a non-documentary type film about people like me. To give a little about myself. I am a Japanese and American nationalist, born in Tokyo and moved to a small town called Odawara during my elementary years, and finally moved to Switzerland in 2021, where I currently reside. As much as I can recall, I remember being taken back by the sheer differences of living as a person of mixed roots, in Tokyo versus Odawara. Only a 30 minute difference by a Shinkansen, but a completely different world in comparison. While living in Tokyo I attended a Japanese kindergarten, with other mixed roots children, and as a family, we had multiple contacts and close friends with other families who were from other countries. While in Odawara, I always used to think I was the only kid with mixed roots in the whole town. Either way in both places I've experienced and seen many different forms of racism across my life, which was another reason for me to watch this seminar and film.
For those of you who haven't watched the film "Whole" I highly recommend you do so. As someone who has spent an embarrassing number of hours lying in bed and going through countless movies and tv shows in her life, I must say, this one really stuck out. To give a quick review, I know it's a cliche but my most important comment I have to make of this film is that I felt happy and heard. As much as many people try to "understand" what it's like to be seen and treated a certain way, in reality you will never fully understand any situation unless you have experienced it first-hand. As briefly mentioned earlier, most representation I would see of people with mixed roots (such as myself ), would either be in the form of a documentary or a glorified tv sensation. Models or athletes would be a very common example. Personally speaking, I feel the Japanese film scene has had a spot that needed to be filled by a movie like this.
While growing up, I often felt isolated and overlooked, just to name a few, because of my American nationality. Most microaggressions I faced in my school years were more fascination, and to put it bluntly, being treated like a museum exhibition. Often being asked to recite something in English or being handed a text in English and being asked to read it aloud for the sheer uncommonness of it.
The movie explores the journey of becoming "whole", of two (in many ways) very similar characters of mixed roots. At first, I was rather confused by the title, and couldn't properly find a grasp for the naming behind the movie, but my interpretation would be this. Being a person with mixed roots, they are most commonly labelled as "half", and personally I've had people use multiple different names to refer to my mixed roots. My most memorable labels were, "mixed juice" or simply being called "half" rather than my name, and often had my American last name badmouthed.
Having the title be "WHOLE", seemed more like putting pride into having multiple roots, nationalities and cultures, and I felt that made this film stand out from other films and documentaries that only shared a one-sided view of how people with mixed roots are treated. I remember having watched a documentary that interviewed people with mixed roots and their experiences with living in Japan. I believe I felt rather put on the spot when I saw the film. Since the movie only featured people with very similar experiences, I felt the experiences that I have had and my internal conflicts that arose due to them seemed to be invalidated by the documentary. On the contrary, when I finished watching "WHOLE" I felt a strong sense of familiarity with the two characters. I would say, my tangible experiences throughout my life and how I felt about them were more similar to the character Haruki, but having a fictional film so vividly and in my opinion accurately poetry the way people with mixed roots are treated and their conflicts with them, were astonishing.
The movie shows both Haruki and Makoto, facing similar types of microaggression but having two different reactions to them. This, I found particularly hooking. Both characters seem to have trouble with their self-identity, for Haruki the sense of confusion as to which of his culture to embrace, and for Makato the word denial comes to mind. In reality, I think people should be able to pursue both or whatever part of their roots and culture they choose to identify with. But the issue being, as Professor Chen commented, there are many different types of people with mixed roots. Some being more seemingly "half" and others less. For myself, most people I've met either assumed from the beginning that I had other roots than Japan and would be asked "are you half?" or people who wouldn't question my ethnicity at first, and later on in some form or another would end up asking or commenting on something that would push the stereotypical idea of being "half" or "gaijin" on myself.
One scene in the movie that particularly stirred up some emotion for me was when Haruki and Makoto first met in the restaurant. Both very quickly being identified as "gaijin". Personally, I take pride in both my Japanese and American roots and found the two character's responses to the "gaijin" comment quite enticing. One fully embracing their Japanese roots, and the other seeming more conflicted by which or both roots to pursue. This scene also made me curious as to what Mr Kawazoe's personal experience with microaggression was, in his younger years. But either way, I found this scene to be a perfect way to highlight a very common remark, made towards people with multiple backgrounds and how they are perceived.
In addition to the above, another aspect of the movie that struck out was both Haruki's and Makoto's approach to racially sensitive comments, and forms of microaggression. My surface-level interpretation would be that Haruki feels the need to react to every comment he receives. While Makoto seems to be more accepting of reality, except for the scene in the restaurant. The way both characters were depicted in the sense of how they perceive microaggression was particularly interesting to me. For me, up until my middle years of junior high school, I would classify myself to be more similar to Haruki's character. I would always counter any comment that was made to me, whether it came from students, teachers or even adults I'd met. An example I would like to bring up would be my job. I had gotten a job in a tourist-based riding club, right around the time when Covid-19 first struck. The work mostly consisted of having conversations with the customers during their riding course. I quickly understood that even without me providing any prior facts about myself, most customers would always comment, "oh your 'half' right?", and label me as a "gaijin". What mostly shocked me about working there was how the staff had also commented to the customers about my mixed roots and on occasion had me say aloud some sentences, again, simply for the uncommonness of it. Over time I realized that even with every comment I would make to people who were racially insensitive, that it would never change and by my last year of junior high school I would find my behavior towards microaggression more similar to Makoto's.
All in all, my final thoughts of the movie when it ended were simply that I wished it was a full movie over two hours.
For the seminar, Professor Takahashi's comment on needing the school environment to properly educate children from a young age to be aware and accepting of other people's culture and ethnicity, I would say in particular stood out the most. Yes, the teachers must be educated and prepared to teach students on this topic. However, the reality is that children's first source of any information is their parents. Not only were a lot of my majority of microaggressions from my teachers, but also my peer students' parents. Often getting comments such as, "I wished I had a 'half' child like you, they're always so cute".
The question of how to begin improving conditions for people with mixed roots, is rather an impossible task. Although the idea of having teachers and parents be more educated so their children can learn from them is a start, it is still a complicated topic. As briefly mentioned during the seminar, the concept of humankind being the same is one thing, yet recently I've noticed more and more people avoiding the topic of my mixed roots and other cultures completely in order to try and not make a racial comment. As also mentioned in the Q&A, some people seem to almost ignore a person's mixed roots or their non-Japanese culture entirely so as to not offend them. Personally speaking, I find that it's not about being aware of other ethnicities and cultures because we are all human, but rather acknowledging, learning, and taking an interest in what makes a person unique. And in this case their mixed roots culture.
To begin concluding, above all else I am happy to see this topic being brought up in a movie but also in a seminar. Even with the importance of this topic, I find it most often ignored and given less attention than it deserves. Not only is dealing with microaggression difficult on its own, but I see for many, it also leads to somewhat of an identity crisis. I found that this seminar was an excellent opportunity to see other people's views and their different experiences of being in Japan. As a comment to Mr Kawazoe, it was truly fantastic to be able to see a lot of my life (in terms of having mixed roots) in a fictional film, and really allowed me to feel understood. Now living in Switzerland I feel has given me a new perspective. I am certain that if I had still lived in Japan, this film would have had a significant effect on how I perceive myself. Although the neverending task of confronting the racial issues that too many face in Japan, it is a step forward in the right direction. I hope, in the future, there will be more and more opportunities to discuss and address this issue, with anybody but also more people my own age. The importance of the impact of any aggression does differ from age groups. Finally, to even begin solving this or any other issue, it begins with communication. Working to listen to other perspectives. So I hope there will be another seminar on this topic in the near future.