My Japanese supervisor and I set out to select a new apartment for my African-American colleague who would soon be moving here to be my co-attorney in the office.
We looked at several places and made arrangements through a realtor to rent an apartment.
The deal was closed near the end of a week; however, my supervisor remembered that he forgot to tell the realtor that the new occupant was dark-skinned. Since I, a Caucasian, met the realtor, my supervisor thought she would assume the new tenant would also be Caucasian. The realtor phoned the building owner on Friday and he approved of the new tenant. Unfortunately on Monday morning, the realtor phoned my supervisor to say that the owner's family had rejected this new tenant because he might "scare" his Japanese neighbors.
My supervisor later told me: "it is one thing to be a foreigner in Japan, it is another thing to be a black foreigner."
Eventually, helped by my building manager, our colleague moved into my apartment and I found a new place. -- Mark in Nagoya
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