virmaior

a valid point. But being a FA is both highly regarded and more popular than in the West (or at least it was 5 years ago).

WanderingGent

This will be just one data point, but I flew int'l C on JAL and was treated very well -- very pleasant FA's and GA's; the main FA and I had a great conversation about my travels and hers as an FA.

Oh yes -- I'm dark-skinned, in my late 20's but look young enough to be carded all the time, and don't speak Japanese. I am, though, OW Emerald and was dressed shirt-and-tie on board. Make of it what you will.

Personal experience may have something to do with it, especially personal experience as (a) a minority and (b) an "out of place" minority. Have I ever been treated 'differently' in a negative way by an FA? No. Do I survey the F cabin and note that, 9 times out of 10, that I am the only black person and/or the only person under 30? Every single time. Do I need to do this? No -- I've been in premium classes enough to not be concerned about anything. Actually, being, er... 'unique' tends to get me more attention, in a good way, from FAs.

atakam

I was hoping to get a better answer from you, now I am feeling sorry for you, just assuming things. BTW, before Tokyo, I lived in Kyoto, Kobe, Fukuoka, Morioka and Sapporo. Between 6month to a year, each place...

About "your" meal story on ANA, should I assume that there was only 1 western meal??? Since your sister requested it at boarding, they could have locked it for her and offer the rest of the western meals to the rest of the passengers. Or more likely, you can't get your choice if you have a lower status than the rest of the passengers. There is a procedure in ANA, where the best customers, get their first choice. BTW a NRT-TPE flight is a regional short flight, no very representative on catering. It is not a full service route.

Guava

This is what you said and I quote:

You could have said: I have been living in Tokyo and other places in Japan for 10 years. It would have been far more accurate as an English sentence. Otherwise, please don't accuse others of not being able to read your mind if you are obviously unclear.

I don't know. Whatever the reason is, it's not important. My point is, sure you can be loud and complain and you may get what you want. However, if a FA tells you a meal choice is unavailable, which can happen on any airlines, it doesn't necessarily mean you are being discriminated against. And complaining may get what you want, sure, except it may come at the expense of another pax's comfort. When I fly First or Business, usually long-haul transcontinental within North America, I have often volunteered to change meal with pax whose preference can't be accomodated. The last one was an AC SEA-YYZ flight in Business class. The pax was a UA MP elite, who had somekind of Kosher or vegetarian preference as part of his profile. The cabin had only 3 rows and I was sitting in row 2 right across from him. He was mad that AC did not pick up his dietary requirements in his MP profile. I volunteered to give him my fruit plate selection for the bagel and smoked salmon that AC was serving. The AC purser also ended up giving him some buy on board food items from Y for free I think.

I just think it's uncourteous to force another pax to give up his/her meal preference just so because you complain loud enough and wanted to share my sister's story as a FYI, nothing more.

studentbecometeacher

Flyingfox wrote "Park Hyatt in Tokyo", not Park Hyatt Hilton. What is a "Park Hyatt Hilton" anyways? Like a Toyota Camry Honda?

Guava

In that sense, I can understand. I still remember as a 21 year old flying Qantas First class from LAX to SYD on my own many years ago, I distinctivley remember the male QF FA checking and checking my boarding pass (discretely) several times.

runnerwallah

Flew J on JAL (award ticket!) a year ago. I'm a brown/non-white guy like yourself. The flight attendants went out of their way to take care of me. The English skills weren't the greatest, but I experienced top notch service, maybe better than my neighbors. My experience, however, might have been positively influenced by the Japanese language book I was reading for they asked me if I knew Japanese. I was a little concerned that I would be treated worse because of my race; fortunately that did not happen on the JAL flights I took.

As for the OP, sorry to hear about your experiences. Being treated unfairly because of your race, whether only perceived or real, is a sad thing to experience.

ORDnHKG

Trust me, if you have been to JL lounge on ORD, you won't like it either. It is really basic, F on the right and C on the left, F and C serve the exact same thing, no real food either. No showers, bathrooms share by both F and C side people. The only difference between F and C is C has a TV, whereas F has none. It is an enclosed room, so no view either. I was there in the evening for the OZ flight, OZ use this lounge on ORD. The only thing I can say somewhat nice about JL F lounge is there is "one" massage chair, usually when people sit in there, they never want to get up, hence no chance to try it out. If you have been there, you would so much appreciate UA IFL.

It is very obvious you didn't even read the entire post by OP. OP had mentioned about rest of its flight in the original post. Read before you judge people.

747-444

Which means the service should be even better. The amount of money spent to get enough miles for an award F seat is mind boggling.

Also, the grammar of the OP grammar sucks, are you 5?

Guava

Japanese women's attitude towards foreign men can be very complex. I am not surprised you were treated especially well, while in anaggie's case, not so well. There is no shortage of Japanese women marrying foreigners in Japan, including dark skin black men. Likewise, many young Japanese women also like to work for non-Japanese companies because they believe they will be treated better and more equally as opposed to being treated like short-term employees who will soon marry off in a Japanese company. While the discussion of this thread is about some alledged racism on JAL, in Japan, gender-based discrimination against women is perhaps a far bigger issue. Japanese women are neither blind or unedcuated, they can see and they aren't necessarily "submissive" in the way media like to portray them to be. The inequality against women are so bad and their feelings ignored by Japanese men that there is a whole industry of women manga called Yaoi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi

This has existed in the 1970's and is essentially a manga for women only and it is almost always exclusively about same-sex love stories between young men. Now, it isn't because Japanese women all have somekind of gay male fetish - that ain't the case - rather, it's a women manga because its readers can actually temporarily escape the confinement of expectations by the society, which is really a cage imposed on women only. Yaoi really is a product of severe gender inequality in Japan. What this says also is that many Japanese women would rather love foreign husbands who would treat them more like equals, even if the society as whole views certain races quite lowly. Then again, it depends on who you run into and this isn't a 2 X 2 = 4 question. Hence, both you and anaggie could both be right - just ran into two completely different FAs and experiences.

Someone said wearing a suit & tie - aside from the fact that is totally unnecessary and uncomfortable thing to do on a long-haul flight and I tend to think those who do that as non-frequent traveller or on award ticket It doesn't hurt to look official though. Japan is a suit happy country, especially if you are a man. Foreigner who wears proper suits will probably regarded as business travelers, therefore, treated with just a little more respect than usual. If you want to trade your own comfort for a maybe, go for it, I never recall any Japanese person actually wearing a suit on a 12~14 hour flight in First Class, whether it's JAL or ANA, it would look ridiculous IMO but YMMV.

Edit: I did recall seeing one person wearing a suit and he was in C, likely a Japanese government employee or official. Even though he wasn't flying F, he had the right to disembark along with F pax. The FAs went to get him and he was received by a bunch of greeters once the cabin door is opened.

atakam

Wrong again with your assumptions. Before Tokyo I lived in other countries (before that I lived in Japan in several cities), so it is correct that I have been living in Tokyo for 10 years. Obviously as you don't know enough about Japan, 90% of the int'l FA positions are in Tokyo and so do the candidates come from (either Tokyo family or migrated to the city when young and grew up there), the rest (of the FAs) for statistical purposes do not count. Countryside as you can call all other places out of Tokyo does not represent the universe.

Tak

I am sorry I missed it.

wolf539

Interesting to note that pe3ep has disappeared... Four posts in two days and away he went!

My guess is that there was a lot more to the story.

AndyFlyer

I agree with you...he had his say and then p'd off. Shame.

To add my two cents to the issue, I recently flew JFK-NRT, NRT-BKK, BKK-NRT all JL First (well, NRT-BKK return was Jalways), and all three segments were superb. I had excellent crew, who couldn't do enough to help every passenger, regardless of ethnic origin. The food was truly delicious (some of the best I've had on many long-haul flights of late), it was beautifully presented and mid-flight snacks brought shortly after I requested them. PJs were offered, and when I went to change, the crew leapt into the lavatory before me, and flipped a lever, allowing a panel to drop to the floor from the wall which was covered in leather, permitting me to change on a non-urine stained bathroom floor - what a nice touch. On my NRT-BKK leg, I noted the purser had a brooch of gold grapes, signalling that she was a sommelier. We had a long chat after lunch and she told me about the courses she was taking and her ambition to become one of Asia's few, female masters of wine. Her English language skills impressive, as were her French and Italian. Her knowledge of wine was exceptional. So, you can see, the list of positive experiences I had on JAL First were many - in fact, I can't really think of a negative!

I am always curious about the lives of cabin crew, so have a small chat with them early on in the flight. They are usually very responsive and we interact well, and my bonus tends to be excellent service levels. I have also seen people board aircraft, throw bags on their seats, have a face that looks like thunder, and take out all their aggression on the cabin crew for some odd reason. They certainly don't do much to endear themselves to the crew, and then moan when they leave the plane that the experience was crap. Flying is very much a two way street - courtesies and politeness are met and often returned ten-fold when extended in an appropriate fashion.

wolf539

Agreed... Flying NRT-BKK-NRT in J later this month (second trip this year) and I'm looking forward to the usual excellent service. Hopefully there will be an equipment swap and I'll get the new seat both ways!