I read Debito Arudou's July 17 Zeit Gist article, "Schools single out foreign roots," with compassion for the teen daughter of immigrants who suffers from the inanities of what appears to be a narrow-minded bullying high school teacher in Shizuoka. There was no mention, though, of her parents' actions or their conversations with her. Children's problems often can be laid at the feet of parents who have their own needs and fears.

There are exceptions, but as far as I've seen in Tokyo, public high schools don't have dress codes any stricter than their average Western equivalent. Many private schools in every country, including Japan, are quite severe on rule conformity. Yet the type of conformity that puts the heaviest demands on teenagers anywhere never comes from school rules, but rather from peer codes. Teens in all Western countries commonly go through rites of passage including varying degrees of identity crises. The need to conform and for peer acceptance is just as strong in the United States, Germany, Denmark or Brazil as it is in Japan.

I suggest that parents of different ethnic origins who find their kids here dyeing their hair black have some deep conversations with their adolescent before disallowing it and flying off to the school. The student's case mentioned in the article is valid, but hers is not the only side of the issue.

My oldest boy is in a private Japanese high school up against the same rules, but maybe he's lucky. Even though his mom's Japanese and I'm of European stock, he has curly brown hair with no apparent Japanese features. The school accepted his natural color. And so did he.

But since he was born here and identifies himself as a 15-year-old Japanese (looking from the inside out), I feel that we've only heard the first shoe drop! If he changes his mind and his hair color, we'll be talking about it, but as a foreign immigrant in Japan, I can't force my identity issues onto my kid's already complex life.

gordon jolley