An Italian restaurant and bar in Tokyo is in the news for its blatantly discriminatory window sign. It’s received both support and condemnation for it. But is the bar’s behavior illegal under Japanese law?
Both kimchi and racism are on the menu
Tokyo’s Shinjuku is one of the city’s most diverse locations, with a foreigner population of around 13%. (Foreign residents comprise only around 2% of Japan’s populace.)
Okubo, within Shinjuku, is even more diverse. Known as the city’s Korean Town, it’s host to a number of resident Koreans and shops that cater to Japan’s “Korean Boom.” The area also hosts the so-called “Islam Yokocho,” a home to shops selling Halal food.
That all makes the actions of Okubo Bar (大久保バル), located nearby in Hyakunincho, even more surprising. The Italian bar and restaurant made waves recently with a hand-written message on its window that read: “Although diversity and tolerance may be fashionable, we refuse to serve Chinese and Koreans as it’s unpleasant and saps our will to work.”
The store’s declaration is shocking, given its location. A Taiwanese Daoist temple stands close to the restaurant. It’s surrounded by other stores with signs in Korean. The restaurant itself serves kimchi!
In other words, it’s an area teeming with foreign visitors and residents. An odd place to say you plan to eject people based on their race.
Strong support – and strong denunciations
The bar’s account hasn’t posted to Twitter since July 14th. However, a firestorm of controversy has erupted in its absence.
Sadly, the bar has many supporters. The tweet currently sits at 360,000 likes, with many people defending the restaurant’s “right” to refuse service on the basis of nationality. Some of those say that, while they disagree with discrimination, they also think it’s the bar owner’s prerogative to run their business how they see fit.
Others haven’t been so generous, blasting the message as pure racism. Many noted the irony of an Italian restaurant near Korean Town being explicitly racist against Koreans. More expressed anger at the “cutesiness” of the message, which was accompanied with a smiley face and a musical note.
Other users openly questioned how the restaurant plans to enforce this policy. One X user said they’d get a group of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean friends together and see if the owner can correctly guess who’s who.
Meanwhile, some Chinese users remarked sardonically that, if Japan doesn’t like serving Chinese customers, then it should stop using kanji, the ideographic writing system that Japan originally adopted from China.
Tensions as tourism, diversity grow
The sign is the latest signal that, as Japan enjoys both record tourism numbers and record immigration to the country, some native Japanese are bristling at the thought of accommodating the new arrivals.
From a tourism perspective, restaurants and other shops have wrestled with how to serve travelers from diverse locations, including Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the United States. Some have decided not to bother, insisting that they’ll only serve customers who can speak English.
The main reason for refusing service in non-Japanese languages is usually expense. Keeping restaurants staffed with people who can speak English in Japan is tough. That’s especially true these days, as Japan continues to wrestle with a labor crisis that sees it increasingly relying on foreign workers.
However, other stores say they refuse service to foreigners because they “don’t fit the store’s atmosphere” or “drive away Japanese customers.” In those cases, store owner’s objections seem to be based more in racism or xenophobia than any economic concern.
On the flip side, tales of misbehaved tourists are legion. From tourists punching out women in Roppongi to Chinese YouTubers urinating on national landmarks, it seems a week doesn’t go by without a story of a Tourist Behaving Badly.
Korean, Chinese people the primary targets of racism in Japan
However, life isn’t easy for foreign residents of Japan, either. Surveys show a lingering reluctance to accept them, particularly among Japan’s elderly. Many foreigners also report facing outright discrimination in areas such as housing.
That discrimination usually hits Korean and Chinese residents the hardest. The lingering historical bad blood between the three countries means that, while some Japanese will begrudgingly accept foreigners in their midst, some draw the line at serving Korean and Chinese customers.
But is it illegal?
The owner is refusing to give interviews to the press. According to regular customers, they’ve expressed that they have no intention of taking the sign down.
In an interview with Bengoshi JP News, lawyer Sugiyama Daisuke says that this is, indeed, illegal – and could get the restaurant in real trouble.
Sugiyama cites a case I discussed in my previous article of a jewelry store that refused service to Brazilians. A Shizuoka court in 1999 found that this violated the law and that the store owed damages to the people it had refused. Sugiyama says this and other cases violate the 14th Amendment of Japan’s Constitution, which ensures equal treatment of all residents. It also violates Japan’s commitment to the multiple anti-discrimination conventions to which it is a signatory.
The store, Suigyama says, is well within its rights to refuse service to specific customers who cause problems. However, it would need to show proof if challenged in court that its actions were based on race or nationality and not an objective offense, such as shoplifting, harassment of staff, or violent behavior.
All this said, the restaurant will only face repercussions if someone sues them in court. On the other hand, their blatant sign is begging someone to do exactly that.
“Get mad” at racism abroad too
Some commenters on X said that they were fine with being racist towards Chinese and Korean people. In fact, some of them said it would be fine with them if restaurants in other countries refused service to Japanese travelers.
Sugiyama dismisses this talk, saying he thinks Japan should set a positive example for the world. “You should get mad” at racism abroad, he insists.
“The reason we can declare that this is illegal in Japan is because foreigners took these cases to court. That’s how this standard for Japan was created. Rather than hurl slurs at foreigners who discriminate against Japanese people, we should educate them and show them how it’s properly done.”
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Sources
「中国人、韓国人お断りします♪」物議をかもす東京・大久保のバル店主を直撃 常連客には「俺が被害者」. LiveDoor News
「韓国人・中国人おことわり」大久保・飲食店の“差別的”SNS投稿が物議 弁護士が指摘する明確な“違法性”とは？Bengoshi JP News
