help for Japanese-American student studying Russian

[Yoshimasa Tsuji]

Though a non-American Japanese myself, my observation may be
of some help.
  Generally speaking, being a Japanese in Russia is a potential danger
in many ways.
  1. If poorly dressed, you will be taken for a Vietnamese or a Chinese
     and will be roughly treated everywhere.
  2. In provicial towns where Japan is little known (this often happens
     in national republics such as Marii El), you will be treated just
     like any other foreigners (schoolboys may beat you for fun, etc.)
  3. If you are superbly dressed, you will be inviting everyone to
     attack you in Russia. It is wrong to be dressed nicely without
     hiring bodyguards.
As for myself, I am poorly dressed (not with a design, but due to my
budget restraint), carry no valuables, and stay in known places.
     Good news is that Japanese girls are not known to be sexually
attacked in Russia.
     My personal impression is that Japanese are safer than Germans
because they tend to be regarded to be poorer, but are more often
victims due to their lack of cautiousness (showing off a computer,
living in a flat with a wooden door, being alone with suspicious
guys in a corridor, inviting criminal by not paying extra money to
a railway conductor, who would naturally inform someone for revenge
of a fact that in car number something sleeps a rich man,..) Of course
Japanese Americans are not that stupid, I am sure.

    It is nice to look having come from the West but not rich
enough to entice criminals. Just behave like another American student,
and you will be safe, I assure you. Moscow has become much safer now
compared with four years ago: Transcaucasians and Gypsies are fewer
(they are challenged and harrassed by police all too often); crimimals are
no longer interested in small money...

    My own experience is that life in Russia is much better than in
UK or US where hatred towards Orientals stands out.

Cheers,
Tsuji

P.S.
All of my remarks above are based on my personal experience including
hearsay from my compatriots, but not on any academic surveys. So
you need to understand with a pinch of salt.