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Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#31

Post by volgo »

weiming wrote: post #28
volgo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ethnicity, not just nationality, seems to matter a lot in Japan The correct modern terminology for that is racism. Something most people don't know a lot about, because as a culture Japanese tend to be very outwardly polite so a lot of racism is very subtle and can't be spotted by someone who's just visiting.

I find it funny that most of Western sentiment about Japan is very boolean: it's either "Japan is a mythical, enchanting land you must visit, great food and lovely people" or "Japan has a rapidly aging population, things are tough, and they are also racist." Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences?

A boolean opinion would be saying whether Japan is "good" or "bad" as a whole. I was commenting specifically on the racism issue. They have amazing technological advancements, but have a major problem as a culture with racism. The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#32

Post by weiming »

volgo wrote: post #31
weiming wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny that most of Western sentiment about Japan is very boolean: it's either "Japan is a mythical, enchanting land you must visit, great food and lovely people" or "Japan has a rapidly aging population, things are tough, and they are also racist." Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences?

A boolean opinion would be saying whether Japan is "good" or "bad" as a whole. I was commenting specifically on the racism issue. They have amazing technological advancements, but have a major problem as a culture with racism. The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue.

> The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue.

I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#33

Post by xkcd-sucks »

ikeyany wrote: post #30
iguy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can never ever become Chinese either. Nor Indian. Nor Nigerian. Nor Russian. Never mind Kuwaiti. The exception here is the west, both in terminology used for people originating elsewhere, and in actual beliefs. [You, personally, may possibly have one exception on this list, roughly if you come from the edge of one of these, but never more.]

How so? The west is well-known for treating ethnic minorities as the "other". I don't think your opinion is very common among them.

The state sanctioned Chinese language literally does not have a word for "ethnicnically foreign permanent resident/citizen of China"

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#34

Post by iguy »

ikeyany wrote: post #30
iguy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can never ever become Chinese either. Nor Indian. Nor Nigerian. Nor Russian. Never mind Kuwaiti. The exception here is the west, both in terminology used for people originating elsewhere, and in actual beliefs. [You, personally, may possibly have one exception on this list, roughly if you come from the edge of one of these, but never more.]

How so? The west is well-known for treating ethnic minorities as the "other". I don't think your opinion is very common among them.

There's no utopia. That's all that's "well-known".

I guess my criteria (for the above) are something like this: an awful lot of British people, and 100% of newspapers, will describe the sprinter Sir Mo Farah as being British, and only get to his place of birth on page two. This pretty much doesn't happen elsewhere.

Although a reverse thing does happen, in which (for example) 2nd- and 3rd-generation british indians are not only welcome to almost all the privileges of Indian citizenship, but (if they become famous) are cheered in India. There is a lot of fawning over Priti Patel in the Indian newspapers, but obviously none at all in Ugandan newspapers.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#35

Post by rohit2412 »

weiming wrote: post #32
volgo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A boolean opinion would be saying whether Japan is "good" or "bad" as a whole. I was commenting specifically on the racism issue. They have amazing technological advancements, but have a major problem as a culture with racism. The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue.

> The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue. I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist.

I think generalizing to a population shouldn't be racist. However, judging a Japanese individual based on expected stereotypes even without the said person showing it should be termed racist

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#36

Post by Pyxl101 »

weiming wrote: post #32
volgo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A boolean opinion would be saying whether Japan is "good" or "bad" as a whole. I was commenting specifically on the racism issue. They have amazing technological advancements, but have a major problem as a culture with racism. The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue.

> The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue. I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist.

> I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist.

Would it be racist to say that slavery in the pre-Civil War United States south was a societal issue? Or to say that racism in Nazi Germany against Jews was a societal issue? I don't think so. (I give these example to demonstrate that there is some line a society can cross where you'd hopefully agree it's an issue.)

I don't know whether the claims are true or not about Japan, but I don't think it's inherently racist against the Japanese to claim that xenophobia or racism are societal issue there.

To believe that all such accusations are inherently racist is to believe in a form of moral relativism in which no society can ever be justifiably called racist.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#37

Post by krapp »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #27
krapp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, "Asian" is a race, "Japanese" is a nationality, which doesn't necessarily require one be Asian.

Ainu is a race, as are Yamato and Ryukyuan. Asian is a much bigger race, then we have nationalities. Sometimes Japanese is used to mean Yamato. Also, see Han (ethnicity) and Chinese (nationality), where outside of China the latter is often used to mean the former.

Fair enough, and I'm sure that when Japanese nationalists talk about Japanese as a race, they probably mean Yamato, but that doesn't make it accurate to describe "Japanese" as a singular ethnic or racial identity.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#38

Post by thaumasiotes »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #33
ikeyany wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? The west is well-known for treating ethnic minorities as the "other". I don't think your opinion is very common among them.

The state sanctioned Chinese language literally does not have a word for "ethnicnically foreign permanent resident/citizen of China"

That would sound a little more convincing if you hadn't taken six words to define the concept in English.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#39

Post by krapp »

ShabbosGoy wrote: post #11
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #9

Even with a more open system for legally accepting immigrants, Japan has an extraordinarily closed system for culturally accepting immigrants. An immigrant to Japan is considered an outsider to much more of an extent than other countries.

And it is a lifelong stigmatization as well. You will never be one of them, no matter how hard you try.

More than lifelong, in some cases, if you're Korean.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#40

Post by grizzles »

weiming wrote: post #28
volgo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ethnicity, not just nationality, seems to matter a lot in Japan The correct modern terminology for that is racism. Something most people don't know a lot about, because as a culture Japanese tend to be very outwardly polite so a lot of racism is very subtle and can't be spotted by someone who's just visiting.

I find it funny that most of Western sentiment about Japan is very boolean: it's either "Japan is a mythical, enchanting land you must visit, great food and lovely people" or "Japan has a rapidly aging population, things are tough, and they are also racist." Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences?

I'm a westerner, I lived in Japan for a year. I'd say it's both those things. The racism westerners experience is very different & much better than the 3K's type racism [1] other foreigners are subject to in Japan.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty,_dangerous_and_demeaning

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