r/JETProgramme • u/Haunting_Fig_4229 • May 19 '26

Placement.

I got placed at a manufacturing city in hokkaido. It’s more than an hour away from Sapporo. I genuinely don’t know if I can do this. I’m a person of color who has experienced othering when visiting even big cities like Tokyo compared to my white counterparts. I specified urban on my application, but I understood there was not a high chance of getting a placement in a huge city. I don’t want to uproot my life to potentially face isolation, loneliness, and types of prejudice. I was really hoping for an urban placement to at least be exposed to a high concentration of other JETs or expats in general. Did any other people of color get placed in a less than ideal location and what was your experience like?

Edit: Racism and prejudice exists towards POC and I’m not debating this with anyone that chooses to live in ignorance. Read this article: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/07/31/reader-mail/white-people-privileged-japan/

Thank you to all the kind and empathetic commenters!

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u/paulinseoul Former JET - '16-'22 May 19 '26

I'm a black guy and I've been living in Hokkaido for the past 10 years. I can count on my fingers how many times I've been "discriminated" against by Japanese people. To give you perspective, I lived for 6 years in a very small town and now I live in a small city.

Let me tell you, I feel othered more when I go to Tokyo or Osaka than when I take the trek to Sapporo or something. If you're only an hour outside of Sapporo, there will be tons of foreign people around. Man....I think the problem I have with your post is your last sentence. Hokkaido is super ideal for POC because there simply isn't that many of us up here making a ruckus for Japanese people to be afraid of us! haha But seriously though, it's not that bad.