TOKYO - Duan Yuezhong has some advice for fellow Chinese citizens in Japan these days: Don't speak Chinese in public, avoid reading Chinese newspapers on the subway and always get along with Japanese colleagues.
Duan, one of some 460,000 Chinese living in Japan, has good reason to be jittery. Japanese nationalists have reacted to violent anti-Japan protests in China with their own sporadic but troubling attacks on Chinese establishments in Japan.
"I've heard of harassment before, but my friends have never had experiences this bad," said Duan, 47, who heads the Japan-China Exchange Research Institute. "It's scary. If the situation escalates, who knows what will happen next."
The troubles have magnified the focus on the Chinese community here, the second-largest immigrant group after Koreans, and comes as foreigners were already becoming scapegoats for the country's rising crime rate. While the percentage of crimes committed by foreigners is tiny, thefts and murders by foreigners get high-profile media coverage.
The anti-Japanese protests in China broke out following Tokyo's approval of a history textbook that critics say whitewashes Japanese atrocities in the 1930s and 40s. Both Japanese and Chinese officials have called for calm and moved to guard against violence.
In Japan, authorities have pledged to tighten security around Chinese establishments. The prestigious Keio University has convened special meetings on protecting the 244 Chinese exchange students it hosts, though it hasn't taken any major steps.
"If we made too big a deal out of the situation, we are afraid we might make the relationship between the Chinese students and students from other countries unnecessarily more awkward," said Atsuko Ishiguro, a Keio spokeswoman. "We decided it's best to stay calm and see how the situation develops."
Protesters have already thrown a bottle of flaming liquid at a Chinese bank, shot metal pellets through the door of a Chinese language school and splashed red paint on the Chinese ambassador's residence, along with 22 other recent anti-China incidents.
While no Chinese have been injured, Duan and others complain of lower-profile discrimination, such as Chinese being refused service at shops or neighborhood bullying of Chinese children.
And fears were high that rightwing extremists would exploit the tensions to intimidate foreigners. Nationalist groups marched through a Chinese and Korean immigrant neighborhood in Tokyo on Saturday to protest the violence in China.
"We want to explain to them that anti-Japanese activity won't be accepted," said Shuhei Nishimura of the nationalist Kokumin monthly newspaper, which is organizing the rally. "We want to convey the feelings of the Japanese people."
The Chinese community has deep roots in Japan — some 30,000 arrived on the island as a result of Japan's military conquest of China that is the historical background of the current dispute. The Chinese have an especially large presence in the Kansai region of western Japan and in Yokohama, home to a Chinatown that is crowded on the weekends with diners and tourists.
In Yokohama, where many Chinese settled after coming to Japan during Tokyo's occupation of their homeland in the 1930s and 40s, residents said they hoped the dispute would blow over quickly.
One shopkeeper who has lived in Japan for 63 years said she hadn't witnessed anyone getting hurt in anti-Chinese violence — and was hoping she wouldn't.
"If there is a problem, the two sides should talk it out. All people have their shortcomings, but you mustn't resort to violence," said the woman, who asked that her name not be used for fear of attracting unwanted attention to herself.
Tenko Sato, a 70-year-old Japanese man reading palms at a nearby table, said he hoped the Asian giants would quickly bridge their differences — starting with a frank apology from Tokyo that will satisfy Japan's neighbors.
"The Japanese government should apologize and compensate where it needs to. The Japanese government always seems to fudge it — so it's not odd that Chinese are angered," said Sato. "Instead of always carrying on about the war ... we should resolve this quickly."