I was cruising Yahoo Auctions earlier today and was about to put a bid in on a Famicom game from this seller by the name of gs76u87o.
Then I stopped because I wasn't allowed to. Not because I have any problems with my feedback. Not because I couldn't pay promptly. Not because of anything I had done or would do.
The reason I couldn't put a bid in on the game was because gs76u87o is a piece of racist garbage.
If you can read Japanese and take a look at any of his listings, he openly states that he won't deal with foreigners. Note that the language makes it clear that he isn't referring to people living overseas - which would be OK since most sellers only ship within Japan for a variety of legitimate reasons. No, he means anyone who is not ethnically Japanese he won't deal with regardless of where they live.
While not in the majority, it is disturbingly common to find this sort of racism being openly displayed by sellers on Yahoo Auctions. It probably doesn't get commented on much since these things are always written in Japanese so most foreigners don't notice and it has less visceral impact than seeing "Japanese people only" written in English..
It pisses me off that Yahoo Japan - a major company if there ever was one - allows this open type of racial discrimination to go on. If an Ebay seller put up a condition saying "Only white people can bid on my stuff, if I find out you aren't white, I will leave negative feedback and blacklist you" you can imagine the shitstorm that would happen. That guy would not have an Ebay account for long. On Yahoo Auctions though it is totally OK and good luck trying to complain about it.
This sort of shit is, while not an everyday thing, something that foreign residents of Japan do have to put up with in various situations. The only time it ever really causes a stir is when the perpetrators make the mistake of expressing their racism in English - as was the case with the incident in the photo at the top of this page (which occurred at a pro soccer game - the team actually allowed that banner to be hung in the stadium for the duration of the game and were only punished by the league after an outcry following the photo showing up online).
So anyway, what was my point? Fuck you gs76u87o I guess is obvious, but also fuck you Yahoo Japan for allowing this shit to exist on your service that I AM FUCKING PAYING YOU TO PROVIDE TO ME and have a LEGITIMATE EXPECTATION THAT MY ETHNICITY WILL NOT PRECLUDE ME FROM FUCKING USING IT.
Sorry for the all caps, but that really needed to be emphasized.