In late April, the New York Times Books section posted a tweet that set off a firestorm of debate and condemnation about whether or not a long-term foreign resident of Japan should actually have to learn Japanese if they live in the country. The tweet in question linked to a review in the New York Times of Pico Iyer's new book, Autumn Light. Iyer is a well-known essayist and travel writer who has lived in Japan off-and-on for the past twenty-five years. The debate touched on matters such as Orientalism and how Japan has traditionally been portrayed by Western writers, the status of women in intercultural marriages and the unpaid labour that foreign-born men often rely on simply in order to function from day to day in Japan, and the hierarchy that exists in the foreigner community in Japan. According to Iyer's publisher, the new book is intended to be “a far-reaching exploration of Japanese history and culture and a moving meditation on impermanence, mortality, and grief.” Although he has lived in Japan for 25 years, Pico Iyer doesn’t choose to learn more than a smattering of Japanese because he says needs mystery and “a sense of open space in life, something to offset the sense of the familiar.” https://t.co/0JpPZ4e03m — New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) April 23, 2019 It's unlikely that many people on Twitter actually read the New York Times review of Iyer's book. Most of the 290-some-odd replies to the original tweet, as well as a number of conversations among “foreign-residents-of-Japan Twitter” focused on Iyer's never having learned to speak Japanese despite having lived in the country for a long, long time. Others commented on the anonymity of Iyer's “Japanese wife” who, presumably makes sure Iyer can live his life easily in Japan. In other words, he lives the life of an eternal toddler, unable to engage like an adult with everyone arround him. Good thing his wife is there to take care of every single thing that needs doing to actually live here. https://t.co/UUTgg3O5T1 — Nulla Crux, Nulla Corona (@EasternSmooth) April 23, 2019 As an on-and-off foreign resident of Japan who has invested a significant amount of time learning Japanese and just trying to fit in, I was irritated by the New York Times Books tweet as well. I left a few comments on Twitter expressing my own disgust with Iyer's supposed attitudes about Japan, although I generally refrain from criticizing fellow writers and residents of Japan in public. The community of long-term foreign residents in Japan active on social media is pretty small, and the number of foreign residents writing about the country is smaller still. A disparaging remark can set up a social media feud that never ends. On top of that, there is a small but significant number of long-term foreign residents of Japan (some of whom have naturalized and have become Japanese citizens) who stalk and harass journalists, academics and other writers who have the “wrong” opinions about Japan. It's a toxic culture that I've experienced first-hand writing about Japan at Global Voices, and that I don't want to participate in. And yet still I left comments here and there expressing my irritation with Pico Iyer. Why does Pico Iyer's refusal to learn Japanese inspire such vitriol? One reason could be that almost every non-Japanese Westerner who spends time in Japan feels both a sense of accomplishment for mastering simple tasks such as reading a train timetable or ordering from a restaurant menu, and a sense of disdain for other foreign visitors or residents who have not. Not every long-term foreign resident of Japan has the time and energy to master the Japanese language, which makes it easy for those of us who can speak and read Japanese to feel smugly superior (although, in the foreign hierarchy of Japan, there is always someone who has achieved an even higher mastery of Japanese than you, and who can therefore feel even more smugly superior). It also takes a lot of time and effort for a Westerner to establish a life in Japan. Besides learning approximately 1,800 Chinese characters and mastering 10,000 words, foreign-born residents of Japan have to become near-experts on an almost infinite number of subjects, including etiquette, tax law, history, food, and the importance of always possessing a pocket handkerchief (public lavatories almost never have paper towels for drying one's’ hands).