Japanese Outlook on other races

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gwendy85

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Hi!

I was wondering if anyone here is an expert on the Japanese culture. I know it's been a while since I posted here. To the few who remember, I'm writing a novel set in the 1940s, with a male Japanese lead. As time went on, I dug further into character development and decided to have his mother as half-Japanese...a reason why she and her mother were ostracized and forced to move out of their town in Hokkaido to start a new life in Yakushima.

This stemmed from something I read about, if you were only part Japanese, you're still considered a foreigner (remember, this was the 1940s). I'm thinking the half-Japanese mother to be either part Russian or part Chinese, maybe even Korean (I have to research more on this though, 1905 something). The son (1/4 foreign blood) knows about his foreign ancestry but was forced to hide it, causing him shame as he grew up, and with tensions running high against other countries during that time. It's one of the reasons why he was compelled to join in the war effort, to prove how true of a Japanese he was (prove it more to himself since it's a secret that he's part foreign).

All I'm asking is, would these situations, attitudes and traits be accurate for people of that time? Appreciate the input
 

Tiger

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Sounds about right. They might do better in a big city than a small village. Your joining the the war effort to prove yourself works especially well. That's why so many Japanese Americans volunteered for the US Army.
 

JoNightshade

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I would make your character part non-Asian as opposed to part Chinese or part Korean. That way he might look a little different, or at least be paranoid about a perceived difference whether it was there or not. Being part Korean or Chinese would be pretty easy to cover up on a day to day basis.

On the whole it sounds reasonable to me, however.
 

gwendy85

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Yes, I've decided to make him part Russian, and he's somewhat paranoid of being found out. Yeah, Russian, just to add to the tension of the Russo-Japanese war, but I dunno if Russians were even able to enter Japan, (specifically Hokkaido) sometime in the early 1900s, before 1905. Because I was thinking this Russian married a Japanese woman, had a child with her, but at the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war, was killed by local extremists, which also forces his wife and daughter to leave Hokkaido towards Yakushima. The daughter's foreign blood is also kept secret.

My character's mother, the half-Russian, is very beautiful, but there are obvious traces of her lineage, so she doesn't get out often. Her son, my character, his features are somewhat diluted, though there are slight traces of his Russian blood. He's tall for a Japanese (5'8") and quite handsome, and I'm thinking of having his eyes in a different color. Perhaps gray or light brown? Are Asian eye colors more likely to come out in off spring? ANy suggestions?
 

reenkam

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I don't know much about race in 1940s Japan, but I did just take a class in Japanese history and we talked a lot about race in modern Japan. Being half-Japanese is still considered something...well, bad. Being part korean is still a bad thing. Even people living in Japan for the 3rd or 4th generation are looked down upon if they're part Korean. Since this is all true today, I'd think it'd e completely true, if not even worse, in the 40s.

I know that even now, if little kids find out that you're foreign there's a word they call you...though I can't seem to remember the word. It means foreigner, I'm assuming. Half-Japanese are haffu, I believe.

So, IMO, I think that what you've said sounds good, since much of it is still true today. And the thoughts and feelings aren't knew, so they had to be around in the 40s, too.
 

askeladd

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I know that even now, if little kids find out that you're foreign there's a word they call you...though I can't seem to remember the word. It means foreigner, I'm assuming.

Probably gajin - there's some discussion about using gajin instead of the normal word for foreigner, gaikokujin.

For contemporary perspectives (or at least foreigners' impressions on Japanese perspectives) on non-Japanese/non-Asians, read here.
 
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ideagirl

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Yeah Gwendy, that sounds about right. No need for her to be half-non Asian; to this day Koreans have problems being accepted in Japanese society, so it's certainly plausible for that to be the case back then.

However, you are going to want to think a little on how exactly his mother ended up being half-foreign; there have never been many foreigners in Japan, compared to the number of foreigners in any western country you might name, and there have been only very, very, very few immigrants. And basically NONE in Hokkaido back then. If your main character is an adult in the 40s, then I assume he must've been born in the early 20s, so that's the period you're going to want to look into as far as figuring out what foreigners were there and why. Remember it was only in, what, 1858 that Japan opened to the outside world; there were no foreigners at all, absolutely zero, until then (Japan closed itself off to the outside world in the 1600s or so). So we're talking not even seventy years after the first foreigners set foot in Japan, your character's mom is marrying or at least sleeping with a foreigner...! So in other words, how did his mom's parents get together, and how did his mom's dad (most likely the foreigner would be a man) get to Japan in the first place, and particularly, what the heck was he doing in Hokkaido? Hokkaido's a little remote even these days, so back then...!!
 

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Japan is a homogeneous country. People who are different tend to stand out.

Gaijin is the word I think you are looking for. It means, "foreigner." It is not an inherently racist term--although I do sometimes get a pain when it is used outside Japan.

Being half-foreign is not necessarily a bad thing anymore. Half-caucasian is seen as more beautiful than not, these days... Half anything else; not so beautiful. There are going to be jerks in any country who don't believe that anyone should be half-anything.

Japan is no more the same as it was 40 years ago, than the US is the same.
 

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My (Cdn) husband is half Japanese and half Swedish. He lived and worked in Japan for a year in the 80's, and was rather tickled to find out that he was considered quite exotic there- especially by the ladies - many thought he was a movie star.

Here he is often mistaken for other ethnic groups - East Indian, Middle Eastern, Cdn Aboriginal. He looks very much like the pictures of his Japanese grandfather to me though, and our son (who is only 1/4 Japanese) looks very much like him as well.

As for your WIP, re eye colour. My husbands siblings all have brown eyes, 2 of his sisters are very much of his colouring - dark almost black hair, very dark brown eyes, and Asian skin tone (he is very dark in the summer), while one of his sisters is fairer. She had the most beautiful red (yes red!) hair in her teens - a bright auburn but it's more of a dark auburn now. She has lighter skin tone (and some freckles) and her eyes while still brown, are more of a caramel colour.

So imo while it is realistic for your character to have a different colouring, genetics and probability being what they are, you don't want to stray too far off what is believable.
 

auntybug

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Watakushi wa nihongo o hanasu kotoga dekimasu.

:D I took Janapese for 3 years in HS - that's about all yu'll get outta me!

I loved the class because the teacher did a lot of culture as well - not just learning the words.

She depicted Japanese people as very humble. Say if you were a new neighbor, they took a cake over to welcome you and would say something like "I am sorry this cake is not very good but please accept it" unlike here in the US - "you are not gonna believe how friggin' great my cake reciepe is!"

I still have my books....somehere. I can try looking up other references if things like that may be useful.

I grew up in Hawaii - everyone was 1/2 something or another and accepted by everyone. The 40's may be different though.....

I won't charge you the 2¢ :D
 

gwendy85

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Hello guys!

Thank you so much! All your replies have been truly helpful! And yeah, I suppose it is still true today, and there goes my dream of going back to my roots. Might not be accepted.

Just a tidbit, I can see one of the parallels between the Japanese and Filipinos. In my country, mixed bloods are considered very exotic. Combination of races are also celebrated, not shunned. We call people like that (I'm one of them) Mestiza (girl) or Mestizo (boy), both of which is synonymous to 'beautiful'.

And I think the bad word for mixed blood is Ainoko. COrrect me if I'm wrong.

AS for how the Russian grandfather got to Japan, I'm thinking him as a simple trader, or perhaps a missionary, got to Hokkaido, married a woman there, and in 1905, got killed by extremists. His daughter's the half-blood, and so this daughter's son, my character, is 1/4 Russian.

You think that's a plausible story? I may need it to be missionary since the mother (the half-blood) is Christian, specifically Catholic.

Thanks for the two cents you guys!
 

JoNightshade

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I think a missionary is very plausible. There weren't very MANY of them, but missionaries tend to be the people who sneak anyway, even when nobody else is allowed. :)
 

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Gwendy...

Koreans who were brought as slave labour into Japan during the last two centuries have only just been allowed to vote, and there was much opposition to letting them have it! Trying to become a Japanese citizen, if you are not Japanese, is nearly impossible. A Brazilian Japanese man - living and working in Japan for 20 years with a Japanese wife and coming from the Brazilian-Japanese community in Brazil - has just been refused a job in local govt in my area because he is not Japanese! This is an entrenched attitude still today.

In the 1930s and 40s there was a strong propaganda programme from the Japanese govt which ridiculed and belittled foreigners as ignorant peasants, without the cultural and mental abilities of the Japanese. This goes back to the 1stWW settlement treaties where Japan, who had fought with the allies, was refused certain requests, one of which was their objection to being referred to as the Yellow Peril. The requests were ignored. The racism against Asians, particularly from the Americans who feared mass immigration from Asia, in the Western world was appalling. Your part Japanese characters would really have to hide or suffer. There was a huge Japanese bureaucracy (still is!) which kept documentation on all people. It was almost impossible to hide in Japan.

The propaganda from the army and some of the govt grew because Japan was building up to war and so the Japanese were taught that they were unique, special and therefore above other nations and peoples. The world was denying them their rights so they would take what was rightfully theirs! (Sigh!)

I suggest you read SWORD AND BLOSSOM by Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams; Penguin Books, May 2007; US$15.00; pb; if you want some good background details as to how a Japanese woman and her half English son suffered from 1900 - 1944

Hokkaido, I wish I had an atlas. I've gone bush, on holiday in wilderness Canada right now, away from all books and reliable references. There is a group of islands beyond Hokkaido, nearer Russia, which were Russian and seized by the Japanese early in the 20thC. There were Russian fishing boats landing unofficially too so you could have a liaison that way. I wouldn't go with Christian missionaries. The Japanese govt did not encourage and actively discouraged them. They were not Russian Orthodox Christians anyway but usually Catholic or Protestant from Europe.

Certainly your part Japanese could have lighter hair, be taller and have lighter eyes. I would go with the light brown eyes though.
I believe that is genetically correct, but I can't check for you right now.

The prejudice your characters would meet might not result in nasty spiteful behaviour as you think people in your home town would behave. The attitude would be that your MCs were not Japanese and therefore not human, rather like the old American attitude to American negros. Some Japanese would be polite and pitying, others would react as they would to a stray dog who might be carrying rabies, watch you carefully for signs of the outbreak. And of course there would be episodes of plain viciousness and spite engendered by fear.
 
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gwendy85

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Koreans who were brought as slave labour into Japan during the last two centuries have only just been allowed to vote, and there was much opposition to letting them have it! Trying to become a Japanese citizen, if you are not Japanese, is nearly impossible. A Brazilian Japanese man - living and working in Japan for 20 years with a Japanese wife and coming from the Brazilian-Japanese community in Brazil - has just been refused a job in local govt in my area because he is not Japanese! This is an entrenched attitude still today.

In the 1930s and 40s there was a strong propaganda programme from the Japanese govt which ridiculed and belittled foreigners as ignorant peasants, without the cultural and mental abilities of the Japanese. This goes back to the 1stWW settlement treaties where Japan, who had fought with the allies, was refused certain requests, one of which was their objection to being referred to as the Yellow Peril. The requests were ignored. The racism against Asians, particularly from the Americans who feared mass immigration from Asia, in the Western world was appalling. Your part Japanese characters would really have to hide or suffer. There was a huge Japanese bureaucracy (still is!) which kept documentation on all people. It was almost impossible to hide in Japan.

The propaganda from the army and some of the govt grew because Japan was building up to war and so the Japanese were taught that they were unique, special and therefore above other nations and peoples. The world was denying them their rights so they would take what was rightfully theirs! (Sigh!)

I suggest you read SWORD AND BLOSSOM by Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams; Penguin Books, May 2007; US$15.00; pb; if you want some good background details as to how a Japanese woman and her half English son suffered from 1900 - 1944

Hokkaido, I wish I had an atlas. I've gone bush, on holiday in wilderness Canada right now, away from all books and reliable references. There is a group of islands beyond Hokkaido, nearer Russia, which were Russian and seized by the Japanese early in the 20thC. There were Russian fishing boats landing unofficially too so you could have a liaison that way. I wouldn't go with Christian missionaries. The Japanese govt did not encourage and actively discouraged them. They were not Russian Orthodox Christians anyway but usually Catholic or Protestant from Europe.

Certainly your part Japanese could have lighter hair, be taller and have lighter eyes. I would go with the light brown eyes though.
I believe that is genetically correct, but I can't check for you right now.

The prejudice your characters would meet might not result in nasty spiteful behaviour as you think people in your home town would behave. The attitude would be that your MCs were not Japanese and therefore not human, rather like the old American attitude to American negros. Some Japanese would be polite and pitying, others would react as they would to a stray dog who might be carrying rabies, watch you carefully for signs of the outbreak. And of course there would be episodes of plain viciousness and spite engendered by fear.


This has been most enlightening! Thank you, pdr. But I think I'll really go with the Russian missionary, because I just remembered his daughter, (my character's mother) is Catholic. This will come in very handy in the later parts of my story.

I've long since made my character out to be taller than most Japanese, with light brown eyes, and a noticeably longer nose, though most people around him would just assume he was born handsome. My MC knows he's part Russian, but had been forced to keep it a secret all his life. And with people around him talking ill of foreigners, he feels dirty, and longs to prove himself a true Japanese by joining in the war. I think this one will also make for great internal conflict once he's faced with the true horrors of war, when races clash and humans kill one another. Should race come before being a human?

Haha, I'm being so passionate. I'm so happy for all the input you guys have for me, thank you. But do you think the Russian missionary angle would be more plausible? Because this Russian would've entered Japan in secret of course...

Thanks again
 

janetbellinger

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sounds right to me. One of my novels was set in Japan, and the main male character was under intense pressure not to marry a non-Japanese woman. I don't know how true that is today, even after working closely with a Japanese family for over two years.
 

pdr

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Yes, well...

the main male character was under intense pressure not to marry a non-Japanese woman. I don't know how true that is today,

Five years ago we had a young Korean man (24) as a home stay, he was learning English by doing a three month course at the language school. A delightful Japanese young woman (19) was one of his fellow students. They clicked and it was a charming romance, until she telephoned her family two and a half months later to say she was engaged to him. Her father arrived the following day, stormed the language school, berated them for allowing his daughter to become friendly with a Korean, then snatched his daughter back to Japan.

Gwendy, I don't know about your Russian missionary. Speaking without doing any research in my books, I don't think it will work. It's not believable. You have to remember that the Communist Russian Revolution took place in 1917 and religion was banned. So no church and no missionaries post 1917.
Before that the national Russian religion was Russian Orthodox Christianity, a cousin to the Greek Orthodox Christianity, neither of these are Catholicism or any form of Protestant Christianity. As I understand it ( and I could well be wrong without my books) the Russian Orthodox Church did not send out missionaries as pre-Communist Russia was a feudal state and the priests had their hands full helping the peasants survive their virtually slave existence. Also the Russians and Japanese had been at war in the early years of the 20thC and I can't see a Russian going to Japan then. It would be suicide.

Please note too that if your missionary is Russian he would not be Catholic and his daughter could not be Catholic either.

Also remember that Shinto is the Japanese National religion and until very recently the Japanese gov was most protective of their religion. Missionaries were not welcomed or encouraged.

If you really want to do it please please research thoroughly to find a way to make it possible for your readers to accept it. You need to know all about the Russian and Japanese political problems and about how many Catholics there might have been in Russia prior to 1917.
 
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Puma

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Hi Gwendy - In your time period, Indo-China had Catholic population from the French influence there (French Indo China). So, could your mix be from Vietnam, Cambodia, Siam, Laos ... or even French? Puma
 

ideagirl

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AS for how the Russian grandfather got to Japan, I'm thinking him as a simple trader, or perhaps a missionary, got to Hokkaido, married a woman there, and in 1905, got killed by extremists. His daughter's the half-blood, and so this daughter's son, my character, is 1/4 Russian. You think that's a plausible story? I may need it to be missionary since the mother (the half-blood) is Christian, specifically Catholic.

That strikes me as quite odd, for a bunch of reasons:
(1) Russian Christians aren't Catholic but Orthodox, and I've never heard of an Orthodox missionary;
(2) The concept of a Catholic missionary marrying a local woman strikes me as highly unlikely (Catholic missionaries are almost always priests, or priests in training/future priests);
(3) Back then, 99% if not 100% of the Catholic missionaries in Japan were French (i.e. not Russian--though of course, France has long had a large immigrant population, including Russians, so that character could be ethically Russian or half-Russian, but raised in France and thus French in language/culture/religion);
(4) even today only 1% of the Japanese population is Christian (and that number probably includes Christian westerners who've married Japanese people and moved to Japan), so why a missionary would go to the trouble of going to Hokkaido when there were millions of non-Christians right there in Tokyo, I don't know (here's a website summarizing some Evangelical group's early-20th century missionizing in Japan--note the cities mentioned: Tokyo, Osaka etc. http://www.bible101.org/japanmissions/page06.htm);
(5) Japan was historically EXTREMELY hostile to missionaries (as in, they killed them) and that hostility would be a major obstacle for your western character (why on earth would that woman's family let her marry him? And yes, they would need to LET her--back then there's no way a Japanese woman could've gotten married against the will of her family, it was literally not a legal possibility).

Out of curiosity, why does the grandmother need to be Catholic? By the way, check out the "hidden Christians" thing in the "Christianity" section here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Japan
I can't vouch for the accuracy of Wikipedia, but at least this might give you some directions in which to continue your research.

I wonder, would it be possible for your story for the grandfather to be a French-Russian Catholic missionary in Osaka or Tokyo, not a priest but a novitiate or whatever it is that they call men who are training to be priests but haven't yet taken their vows? Say, he grew disillusioned with missionary work (maybe he was fascinated by Japanese culture, maybe he chafed at the restrictions imposed on Catholic missionaries [no sex etc.], maybe he was never burning with religious faith but just came from a family where the younger sons became priests or missionaries?), and maybe he got kicked out of the mission (e.g. for having sex with a local woman?) before taking his vows of priesthood, and then went on a sort of "finding himself" journey on foot through Japan? So that's how he ends up in Hokkaido, where he meets this woman whose family is one of those "hidden Christian" families described on the Wikipedia page--so, they practice this weird amalgam of 17th-century Catholicism and local beliefs, and they like him because he's Catholic, so that's why her dad lets her marry him?

If you're into that idea, I strongly recommend a book called "The Road to Sata," which is the memoir of a western man who walked the entire length of Japan. It's set much more recently than your book--I think it was the seventies--but it would still give you a TON of insights that no other book could give you. Lots of anecdotes, descriptions of the views from certain places, people's attitudes and customs and so on.
 
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ideagirl

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Certainly your part Japanese could have lighter hair, be taller and have lighter eyes. I would go with the light brown eyes though. I believe that is genetically correct, but I can't check for you right now.

Let me second that: taller, lighter hair and eyes, but still not "light." I have a half-Chinese half-German friend; her skin is incredibly pale, white-white, but her eyes are very dark brown and her hair's dark brown. (She's BEAUTIFUL). And as other posters have noted, there's a wide range of possibilities for half-European half-Japanese people, but the hair is never going to be lighter than reddish-brown, and the eyes are never going to be lighter than light brown, unless there's some bizarre genetic quirk/mutation or the Japanese parent has a non-Asian ancestor somewhere back in the family tree.

As for height, remember we're talking the early 20th century, when six feet was pretty gigantic even here in the west. Height has a lot to do with nutrition and medical care--go to Japan these days and you'll see proof of that in the number of 5'10"-6'2" young Japanese guys walking around. The old women are all miniscule, the old men very small (like 5'2")--they're the ones who grew up with old-fashioned nutritional deprivation and old-fashioned medical care. Europeans were smaller back then too (the famous French singer Edith Piaf, who was born in 1915 and grew up a street urchin without enough food, was 4'8"). So what I'm saying is, the missionary grandfather was probably "tall" by early-20th century Japanese standards, not by modern standards. He could be 5'7" and still tower over the locals.
 

ideagirl

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sounds right to me. One of my novels was set in Japan, and the main male character was under intense pressure not to marry a non-Japanese woman. I don't know how true that is today, even after working closely with a Japanese family for over two years.

It's still true. I went out with a Japanese guy in high school--his father had been transferred here for work--and his parents were SO not into his dating a non-Japanese girl. I mean for god's sake I was 14 years old, it wasn't like we were going to get married! But still, they definitely disapproved. They didn't want me leading him down the path of western culture.
 

ideagirl

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But do you think the Russian missionary angle would be more plausible? Because this Russian would've entered Japan in secret of course...

Haha, good luck crossing at least 400 miles of open ocean (the closest land to Japan is something like 400 miles away) and sneaking onto a racially homogenous island without anyone seeing your boat or noticing the foreigner getting off it. :) Sorry, that just strikes me as wildly implausible. There were missionaries in Japan in the early 20th century, very few of them but there were some, and they were tolerated by the local government, so if you need him to be a missionary, just have him get sent to Japan for missionary work. And if you need him to be Russian but Catholic and a missionary, go with the "one or both of his parents were French people of Russian origin" angle. There were HUGE waves of immigration from Eastern Europe into France in the 19th century, so that's totally plausible.
 

gwendy85

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Hmmm.....these are all very interesting posts, and really got me thinking. Thanks.


So now, I think I'll go with French missionary. After Japan opens its doors to the world after the Tokugawa era (tokugawa was the period wherein christians were persecuted. i should know, since it was in this period that a filipino missionary, now a saint, came to Japan, tortured into changing his beliefs, but never did, to the very end of his life.). This missionary hasn't taken his vows yet, but when he came to Japan, everything changes. He marries one of the women he had converted, had a daughter with her, before he was killed in 1905. He came to Japan in 1900. Why he was allowed to marry this Japanese woman, I won't need to explain it.

Actually, this missionary's back story isn't that important. I will only be giving fleeting reference on how he was a foreign missionary in Japan, had a family, and was killed. It's his grandson who is my MC, and therefore the focus of the story. The foreign blood in his veins will make for good internal conflict, and maybe some external conflict later, if I decide to have this secret compromised.

Thanks for the big help, guys! So....you think it's more plausible now? Hehe. Actually, I would've gone for British missionary, since my MC knows a bit of English, but I guess French would be more plausible, eh?
 

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Sounds good.

He came to Japan in 1900. Why he was allowed to marry this Japanese woman, I won't need to explain it.

You could mention that she's one of the younger daughters in a large family, because back then that would've made her kind of "disposable."

Actually, I would've gone for British missionary, since my MC knows a bit of English, but I guess French would be more plausible, eh?

Let's not even get into the total implausibility of a British Catholic missionary back then! :)
 

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"it was in this period that a filipino missionary, now a saint, came to Japan, tortured into changing his beliefs "
Instead of trying to force-fit a Russian missionary, why not a filipino missionary? You have evidence of him, and presumably more details available as to where and how and so forth. I'll bet someone of filipino descent would look different enough to be suspected by the Japanese population, without being obviously foreign (and thus unable to hide) or, if you wanted a more distinctive look, filipino of spanish descent? At least you wouldn't need an elaborate justification for Catholicism.
 

gwendy85

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"it was in this period that a filipino missionary, now a saint, came to Japan, tortured into changing his beliefs "
Instead of trying to force-fit a Russian missionary, why not a filipino missionary? You have evidence of him, and presumably more details available as to where and how and so forth. I'll bet someone of filipino descent would look different enough to be suspected by the Japanese population, without being obviously foreign (and thus unable to hide) or, if you wanted a more distinctive look, filipino of spanish descent? At least you wouldn't need an elaborate justification for Catholicism.


Well, I would, but San Lorenzo Ruiz (that's the saint) died in the 1800s, Tokugawa era.

I think I'm going with French.

Thanks you guys :D
 
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