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Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

asia.nikkei.com

41–50 of 168 posts

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

#42
post #22

The article doesn't mention, but Japan also took steps to make immigration easier for skilled workers with the Highly-Skilled Foreign Professional visa [1] based on this point system [2]. Can even qualify for permanent residency in as little as one year if you score 80+ points. [1] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/ [2] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/171110_leaflet...

Hmm interesting.but it looks like they are only interested in young doctors and researchers. Not in professional workers, at least when you use the Excel, or is there an other way to calculate the points?

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

#43
post #22

The article doesn't mention, but Japan also took steps to make immigration easier for skilled workers with the Highly-Skilled Foreign Professional visa [1] based on this point system [2]. Can even qualify for permanent residency in as little as one year if you score 80+ points. [1] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/ [2] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/171110_leaflet...

Hmm interesting.but it looks like they are only interested in young doctors and researchers. Not in professional workers, at least when you use the Excel, or is there an other way to calculate the points?

You can switch between sheets/tabs in the Excel doc. There are three eligible categories: researchers, specialized/technical (like software), and business managers.

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

#44

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.

You will never be one of them, no matter how hard you try.

I would not even try, I'm not Japanese. I can like their culture, work there, respect their laws and all, but Japanese I am not and will never be.

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

#45
post #21
post #2

I wonder what percentage of these immigrants are ethnically east/southeast Asian, or even ethnically Japanese. I imagine a large portion of the Peruvian and Brazilian immigrants shown in the chart have Japanese ancestry (I believe Japanese ancestry makes immigration from those countries easier -- to the extent that one point there was a black market in being adopted as an adult by Japanese people -- and there is a la…

> 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.

This modern terminology is useful for distilling a vast amount of moral judgement into a single term in order to dismiss an entire class of heterogeneous social structures, some of which are horrible, some of which are fine, into being classified into the set of 'morally evil.'

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

#46
post #2

I wonder what percentage of these immigrants are ethnically east/southeast Asian, or even ethnically Japanese. I imagine a large portion of the Peruvian and Brazilian immigrants shown in the chart have Japanese ancestry (I believe Japanese ancestry makes immigration from those countries easier -- to the extent that one point there was a black market in being adopted as an adult by Japanese people -- and there is a la…

Permanent immigration is still closed off for the vast majority, except for IT workers and the articles quotes companies that hired mostly Chinese/Indian engineers for those positions. Every other career is limited to 5-10 years stay in Japan with restrictions on staying with an employer and difficulties in bringing a spouse and how much that spouse can work once there - it's much more of a temporary thing as describ…

> Every other career is limited to 5-10 years stay in Japan with restrictions on staying with an employer and difficulties in bringing a spouse and how much that spouse can work once there - it's much more of a temporary thing as described in the article versus paths available to immigrants to the USA.

I know people in Tokyo with working visas who are architects, waiters, dish washers, cooks, English teachers, academics, programmers, International school teachers, translators, and business people. All have working (not spousal/relative visas) and none of them have a visa tied to an employer. I have never heard of a visa in Japan tied to an employer (and none of my working visas ever were), with exception of the intra-company transfers.

I also think the path to permanent residency is relatively straight forward for all groups. Stay on a working visa 10+ years with no hiccups or long periods of unemployment, then apply. I have known plenty of non-IT workers to get it.

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

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“American” suffices over here. You need additional qualifiers to distinguish native-born from naturalized.

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

#48
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It isn’t accurate but nor is it exactly wrong. The word is very contextual. Most nationalities can be construed into races, and many things we considered race today arose from nationalities a long time ago (in the long run they blend together).

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

#49

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.

The kind of xenophobia you'll be facing is pretty tame compared to most other parts of the world though. Especially if you're a skilled worker from a developed country. Japanese are indifferent and non-confrontational. If you don't care about what people think and don't try to integrate too hard, life isn't bad.

Compared to where?

Most of the world is China, India and Africa.

The rest of the developed world is vastly better than Japan when it comes to treating immigrants better.

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

#50
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.]

I don't think the issue is about "becoming" any of those nationalities you mentioned. You might not be considered Indian or Nigerian or Kuwaitian in those countries, but you sure as hell won't be ostracized or receive disapproving looks. That is speaking generally since every country has racist/xenophobic people.

Blackface is quite common in Japan. Example: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42561815

They have more work to do on their attitude towards foreigners than opening up more immigration channels.

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