If those places were kicking him out, it’s probably because they were very shady. Criminal gangs hangouts, scammer hangouts, sex worker meetup places.

There is your occasional nutjob small business owner that also kicks foreigners out, but that’s actually quite rare.

But this is the racism that Western people suffer. Chinese people, especially mainlanders, are targetted quite badly.

Hah, I should mention, I'm a westerner, but I'm ethnically Chinese. I look Chinese but I can't read or speak Chinese. This type of targeting is def an important factor against not going to japan.

Yeah… I heard a lot of either revolting or heartbreaking stories. But also some great and uplifting ones.

I will not lie - the moment that you are perceived as Chinese, a lot of people can become assholes. Unfortunately, there is way too much nationalistic propaganda around.

But it’s also a place full of amazing people too. People who will appreciate you for what you are. I wouldn’t write off the whole country. But you do have to develop a thicker skin, unfortunately.

I think you can satisfy my curiosity. I'm brazilian but as far as I know all my relatives up to my great-grandparents were japanese so I look no different from them. However I don't have a lot of interest in japanese culture and know just a handful of words my mother taught me like abunai. How would I be treated over there? I imagine it would be worse than a foreigner since it's expected that I know some things.

I guess that's true. It wasn't really kicked out (just edited it to clarify) but rather not being allowed in - It's probably also important to note that most of these places, except one, were what you would call nighttime establishments a bit on the shadier side. So we're not talking about restaurants or anything like that.

Somewhere like the Golden Gai, I'd absolutely expect that a Westerner would be waved away from some places. Some may even have signs up although I don't specifically remember.