It's very common in Japan to pander to foreigners (read: "non-Asians") when they never asked to be pandered to in the first place.
It's unlikely anyone ever complained about the symbol but someone probably brought it up a meeting and the slightest chance that a foreigner would be offended was enough to push it through.
Special treatment for foreigners is not new. [1] Recently they rent-a-car agencies have started putting a "foreigner driving" sticker on cars rented by non-Japanese people. Interestingly the sticker says "Foreigner driving" in Japanese but "I love driving in Japan" or "Friendly driving" in English, with no mention of the 'foreigner' part.
> It's unlikely anyone ever complained about the symbol but someone probably brought it up a meeting and the slightest chance that a foreigner would be offended was enough to push it through.
The changes were based on surveys that showed that many tourists had no idea what the symbol represented.
It's unlikely anyone ever complained about the symbol but someone probably brought it up a meeting and the slightest chance that a foreigner would be offended was enough to push it through.
Special treatment for foreigners is not new. [1] Recently they rent-a-car agencies have started putting a "foreigner driving" sticker on cars rented by non-Japanese people. Interestingly the sticker says "Foreigner driving" in Japanese but "I love driving in Japan" or "Friendly driving" in English, with no mention of the 'foreigner' part.
[1] http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160416/p2a/00m/0na/005...