So it -definitely, I think it would have definitely been different if I was white and my sister was white in some instances and maybe somebody might be saying, well no, that’s not true and I can say well it would’ve been different specially, even just the basic stuff like her care, her health care, eh, her care for her hair and her skin and those things. When those things are not even taken into consideration and I have to be saying, well this needs to be done and these things I bought for her and she needs to, you know, her hair needs to be looked after. You go back months later, how could you go back months later, can you imagine it and somebody’s hair has not been combed. Now you wouldn’t get up every day and not comb your hair, and stuff like that and yet she’s got money there to take her to do this and if, if Their excuse was, well she, sometimes she has a tantrum and blah, blah, blah. Fair enough’ Bring somebody in to do that. There was always some excuse why this wasn’t done and that wasn’t followed up and why this product wasn’t bought for her and that stuff so that alone tells you that race has, it is different, it is different, so I guess that kind of answers that question.

I am not sure. If service providers had some cultural awareness training this might be beneficial for all of us to communicate better. I never actually expected to, -this society to fully understand about my culture, because the Japanese are such uncommon people. But I would expect people to be more open minded instead of, like -how can I say- the professionals have some training’s, and then their book taught to them one to Z, A to Z. And I don’t know there’s A to Z, but if they can be a more, just a bit open mind, and try to listen to what I’m saying, and the real meanings behind, I think we can have a better communication. But often I found out they have a shutter in front of their face, and the things becomes complicated, or if they cannot understand, or pick up those word from their own dictionary for example, they tended to just, -and stop listening to you. That point I found it could be because of the, there’s a cultural, -lack of awareness to each other, I don’t mean because I am Japanese, they don’t understand. It’s not just the nationality I think it would be the same way to everybody, yeah.

I have felt it that they do have some sort of dislike for Asians, and it has come through to me. Not with the whites, but with the coloured carers, I’m talking of the African or the Jamaican or whatever, Caribbean. They do have that in you, that they don’t like India, they don’t like Asians, because one carer, you know, when the war was going on, and she’d say, ‘oh that bloody Saddam’ and ‘all Muslims are. Now everyone knows my surname is [name], so they know that I’ve got something to do with the Muslim, you know, the name is Muslim. So they would make it, ‘because of these damn Muslims, the world is suffering today. They would make it a point to say that. So then I stopped putting on the television while they were there, because I said, you know, what they say is their business, but I don’t want to be a party to it of saying those bloody Muslims. It’s none of my business. If they are Muslims, they are Muslims, that’s it. So, you know, I have felt it they don’t like it. They don’t like 1), that I’m Asian, 2) that I have a Muslim surname, so I’ve learnt to stand where I am. I don’t bow down to any of them. That’s it, but it’s not easy, because you’re facing it day in and day out and it has gone on for the last four years.

It is very difficult to explain racism. You know, you know, -which is very silly thing to say because people who never experienced, or who don’t know about concepts of racism they say, how do you know? But you just know by, you know, sometimes they’re spitting in the street and then OK people say, OK if I’m passing by people, even these kind of yobs they will spit. But you know that it’s because of your colour, your skin, your outlook, they’ve, that’s because of that, you know the looks, the glances they give, the way you’re spoken to sometimes. So it may be, I mean, I don’t know, now that you ask the question. That maybe the GP was answering equally in such tones to all his other patients. But, you know, to me it was more sensitive. I didn’t like those tones. I didn’t like the lack of time that was, you know, given but I, -and lack of explanation, and the kind of feeling that you, that I was being dealt with just because it was his duty to deal with me but, no more and no less. I would have preferred kindness more, but, -and so I don’t know but it was just a feeling that they were being racist completely. They were very, awful, you know and it wasn’t just me. My whole family felt that. And yet we didn’t know that we had the choice to change the GPs really.

We can’t eradicate somebody’s race and their identity because when I’m sat in front of anybody, the first thing I see is race and nobody can say, well that might sound racist, it’s not, it’s what you see and you have to identify with that and it’s a known fact that we all see that. I can’t comprehend with anybody sits in front of another person and say they don’t see race, they see a person, that’s not true. You see race and then you see a person behind that. So therefore, my experience would have been -if I was a white women- that they would probably have seen white person. Obviously they had misconceptions or their perceptions I should say, of what they think about me as a white woman would have been different than probably what they’d think of me as a black woman. It happens, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying everybody thinks that way and it’s always about the race issue first and that you’re going to be treated badly all the time but it plays a significant role, it plays a significant role because I think unfortunately there’s lots of people who are not aware of culture, differences, you know. You shouldn’t be embarrassed about that because we live in a society where sometimes we are alienated wherever and needless to say I think lots of these people who are in that job come from a white middle class background and they’ve probably never come into contact with people from BME communities unless they’ve worked in BME communities. So they haven’t got a clue about how we live, how we express ourselves, how we do different things so for them, they come in with their misconceptions about how they view people of a different colour or whatever so obviously the way they come to their conclusions and diagnose people will be based on their misconceptions and their stereotypes about people of colour.

In Northern Ireland, even in Northern, everywhere, everywhere you go, the same. You don’t like it, go home. But then again, my answer is, it’s not only for me, because there’s a lot of Irish people are not well too, and they need to be, you know, concerned about this problem too. But then again for, it’s very hard for minority to express their views, because any time a minority express their views, and even my ex wife said to me a couple of times, if you don’t like it, what are you doing here? I say, it’s not only for me, it’s, I turn a blind eye, it’s not, it’s for the good of everybody here too. But they take it in a different way. Like I criticise the system and the National Health system is the best in the world, you say, where else you can get a National Health like that? And you’re running down the National Health, like I’m running down the people that treat me. The idea was completely different from my ideas. I don’t know, but six months after my second son, -I took him back here, because both my son always say to me, they call me Chinky, they call me this, they, I say, don’t worry, I say, I’ve been called names all over the world. Not only here. In America, I said prejudice in every race, not only the Irish, not only-. The Chinese are prejudiced too. Every country. In America you see the Italian, the Italian will not like the British always. Or the German and all. It’s common. Every country. Prejudice not only between the colour, between people, different, from different country. But that’s why I keep seeing my son annoyed. I say, if somebody call you name, just pretend you don’t speak English, just laugh. He has been called names. I just, yeah, yeah, yeah. I walk to shopping centre one day, one day somebody say, which Chinese restaurant you work? I didn’t say nothing and he say to me, chop chop, chop chop. And I thought, -I just laughed. I say, yeah, yeah, chop chop. I mean, by making fun that way you avoid confrontation.

I think wherever you want to look at this and whether you want to look at mental health or not, especially as a black man, you’re in trouble from the day you’re born, you know, and you get an angry black man show up in your surgery, you know, there could be a myriad of things wrong but I feel the quickest solution is diagnosis and drugs, that’s the quickest way to get rid of the problem as you see it and maybe that does stem from, you know, immigration and people not really knowing where to put themselves and not knowing what to do.

And that’s not, -I don’t think that’s just about mental health, I think that’s about quite a lot of things. You see a group of black boys standing on the street together you immediately think they’re up to no good. Where does that come from, it comes from stereotypes, where do they come from. The majority of what you see is reported about these people on TV. If the world suddenly flipped and on TV for every black person you saw a white person, and for every white person you saw a black person, you know, I don’t think people would be able to cope with that. It’s just, there’s all the little things as well that perhaps other people don’t, don’t think about. My name sounds English, I show up for job interviews and I see people and they’re a bit, ‘oh Ok, I’m not what they were expecting. I think it’s always little things. It’s uncomfortable I feel, and so when you add mental illness on top of that, people don’t really know where to put themselves.