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How Homogeneous Is Japan?

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Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#11

Post by DC-3 »

csomar wrote: post #10

Landing in Japan, I was surprised to find that people did not look that similar. I mean, this is Asia and all Asians look the same. But Japan had some yellowish, whitish, brownish people that were all, euh, Japanese. In a sense, they were Japanese because they behaved like Japanese. It seems that behavior plays a big role in how people can identify another one as being one of them. Robert Sapolsky has a great series…

> To uproot racism, you need to rally your population behind common denominators and values.

That's all very nice but how do you apply it to the situation where you have a minority group with little to no interest in integrating into the indigenous culture?

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#12

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

627467 wrote: post #2

Racial stats and forms asking about it are an underestimated force that perpetuates systemic racism, increases segregation, discrimination and undermines social cohesiveness. Change my mind.

Why? The onus is on you to support your argument. Not on others to disprove yours with no sources.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#13

Post by csomar »

ThePadawan wrote: post #3

> If I told you that the U.S. was “93.3% American”, would you conclude that the U.S. is a homogeneous country? Because that’s exactly what everyone who cites the “98% Japanese” statistic is doing for Japan. ...yes? I find both those numbers insanely high, since the proportion of non-citizens here in Switzerland is 25% (country-wide) or 32% ([0], Zurich). And this doesn't exactly make the country a melting pot either.…

That's more of an indicator of the difficulty to gain citizenship. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_nationality_law#Ordinary...

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#14

Post by sheefrex »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #9

>The refusal to gather statistics on ethno-racial diversity is unusual Is this true? I don't understand why any country would want to open the box of pandora that is gathering statistics on ethno-racial diversity. I always thought countries like the USA and China were the exception.

As far as I'm aware, France and to a lesser degree Germany also don't collect this information.

> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/16/france-and-ger...

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#15

Post by terramex »

ThePadawan wrote: post #3

> If I told you that the U.S. was “93.3% American”, would you conclude that the U.S. is a homogeneous country? Because that’s exactly what everyone who cites the “98% Japanese” statistic is doing for Japan. ...yes? I find both those numbers insanely high, since the proportion of non-citizens here in Switzerland is 25% (country-wide) or 32% ([0], Zurich). And this doesn't exactly make the country a melting pot either.…

Also, reasoning in cited sentence is wrong.

If U.S. is "93% American" then on average 7 out 100 people you meet will not be "American", whereas for Japan only 2 out of 100 will not be "Japanese" - based on those numbers Japan is about "350% more homogeneous" country, not "5%" as suggested.

It is a case of Potato Paradox, where small numerical differences between values given as percentages can hide big differences in real world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_paradox

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#16

Post by azernik »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #9

>The refusal to gather statistics on ethno-racial diversity is unusual Is this true? I don't understand why any country would want to open the box of pandora that is gathering statistics on ethno-racial diversity. I always thought countries like the USA and China were the exception.

Just off the top of my head for countries that also track ethnicity/race in government statistics: Belgium (because the Walloon/Fleming ethnic divide is so central to its politics), Germany (under the euphemism "migration background"), Russia, Israel, Lebanon...

Ethnicity is an extremely important identity category, and if you want to manage that diversity you need information.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#17

Post by paddez »

arkitaip wrote: post #8

"About 2.2% of Japan's total legal resident population are foreign citizens" [0] "Japanese people make up 98.1%, Chinese 0.5%, Korean 0.4%, and other 1% (includes Filipino, Vietnamese, and Brazilian) of people living in Japan, according to the CIA World Handbook" [1] So Japan is exactly as ethnically homogenous as you would think. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_of_Japan [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.o…

> About 2.2% of Japan's total legal resident population are foreign citizens

You've conflated "citizenship" with "ethnicity".

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#18

Post by thaumasiotes »

DC-3 wrote: post #11
csomar wrote: post #10

Landing in Japan, I was surprised to find that people did not look that similar. I mean, this is Asia and all Asians look the same. But Japan had some yellowish, whitish, brownish people that were all, euh, Japanese. In a sense, they were Japanese because they behaved like Japanese. It seems that behavior plays a big role in how people can identify another one as being one of them. Robert Sapolsky has a great series…

> To uproot racism, you need to rally your population behind common denominators and values. That's all very nice but how do you apply it to the situation where you have a minority group with little to no interest in integrating into the indigenous culture?

You make them do it anyway.

It's interesting to note in this context that unlike most countries, China fully assimilated its Jewish population.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#19

Post by xorfish »

ThePadawan wrote: post #3

> If I told you that the U.S. was “93.3% American”, would you conclude that the U.S. is a homogeneous country? Because that’s exactly what everyone who cites the “98% Japanese” statistic is doing for Japan. ...yes? I find both those numbers insanely high, since the proportion of non-citizens here in Switzerland is 25% (country-wide) or 32% ([0], Zurich). And this doesn't exactly make the country a melting pot either.…

Yes, but the reason for that is, that Switzerland has a really difficult naturalisation process and is a smaller country.

If all humans migrate a similar distance on average, you would expect that a smaller country that is surrounded by other countries to have a higher proportion of immigrants.

Notice that for Switzerland, you need to use the term non-citizens and can't use the term immigrant. That is because a good portion of the non-citizens are not immigrants and have lived here for their entire life.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#20

Post by africanboy »

ThePadawan wrote: post #3

> If I told you that the U.S. was “93.3% American”, would you conclude that the U.S. is a homogeneous country? Because that’s exactly what everyone who cites the “98% Japanese” statistic is doing for Japan. ...yes? I find both those numbers insanely high, since the proportion of non-citizens here in Switzerland is 25% (country-wide) or 32% ([0], Zurich). And this doesn't exactly make the country a melting pot either.…

TL;DR: ethnicity is not citizenship

Switzerland has never been homogeneous and the recent immigration to Switzerland is very different from regular immigration elsewhere.

It is an exception in the west, mostly due to low taxation for rich people or political reasons.

for the same reasons in Lichtenstein 33℅ of the population is non-citizen and not surprisingly in Monaco an astonishing 75℅ of the residents are foreign born.

If Italian people go to Switzerland they are counted as immigrants, but the Italian ethnicity is native in Switzerland, same goes for German and French people.

The same thing is not true for Chinese or Korean people in Japan.

Also 1℅ of Japan equals to 15℅ of the Swiss population.

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