91–100 of 232 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sort of morbidly fascinated by the equation in the American press of "China's Muslim population" with "China's Uyghur population". They're very different things.
If that is true could Olympus elaborate on how?
Is it now considered a de facto truth that people identifying as "Right" are racists? If not, why bring up the Right in this sentence? When I was growing up, Right overlapped with Conservative, but racists were a discrete group of people.
If Right now means racist, what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racist?
There may be more diversity in Japan than given credit but there is more similarities between a Korean and a Japanese than there are between someone from Syria and a French person. Pretty naive to gloss over that fact.
Counter-examples don't refute a general observation. They can only refute an absolute statement.
But when it comes to actual numbers and breakdowns (which would put a general observation into perspective or prove it wrong) the article is lacking, aside from the 93% which is already large.
Also homogenous is not just race, it's also about culture, language, and so on, and Japan is homogeneous to a whole other level as a national culture. Those Korean-Japanese are no less Japanese culturally and operate entirely within the Japanese system/life.
Not like some large communities create their own enclaves, ghettos with different languages, cultures, etc, as seen in some countries.
There may be more diversity in Japan than given credit but there is more similarities between a Korean and a Japanese than there are between someone from Syria and a French person. Pretty naive to gloss over that fact.
Actually out of curiosity, I'd love to hear a Japanese or Korean persons take on this claim. Im from the Middle East so Syria and France seem pretty different for me, but maybe if you're from the country/region being compared it's a lot easier to see the differences.
There may be more diversity in Japan than given credit but there is more similarities between a Korean and a Japanese than there are between someone from Syria and a French person. Pretty naive to gloss over that fact.
There is a border in common between Korea and Japan. I don't remember seeing one between Syria and France. Not to sure what's your point....
> have about 9-13% Jōmon ancestry (which is highest in the Ainu people, who are largely of Jōmon descent) and the majority of their ancestry from the Yayoi people.
> [Yayoi] are genetically most similar to Ryukyuans and Koreans as well as other East Asian people but quite distinct from the Ainu.
WARNING: the second point can stir anger in those that culturally identify as Japanese or Korean, two groups with a history of animosity. Hopefully the controversy has diminished since the first genetic studies emerged.
> If I hear “Japan is a homogeneous society” one more time, I’m going to write a long angry blog post. Oh wait…this is that blog post.
I think this anger is misplaced.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_and_anthropometric_stu...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's useless at all in that Japan is one of the hardest country on earth to get citizenship. I've got family in Japan. All you need to do is to go to Japan to see that it's very "japanese". You can get residency semi-easily but getting citizenship is extremely hard. It's not the EU or the US where a huge lot of "foreigners" can become citizen.
Note also that Japanese law implements blood citizenship and not birthright citizenship. Domestically born children of immigrants remain immigrants, in general.
"To some on the Right, Japan is a paradise of racial purity..." Is it now considered a de facto truth that people identifying as "Right" are racists? If not, why bring up the Right in this sentence? When I was growing up, Right overlapped with Conservative, but racists were a discrete group of people. If Right now means racist, what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racis…
"while to some on the Left, it’s a bastion of xenophobia and isolationism"
He is obviously parodying two extremes: the right's "racism is fine" and the left's "everybody else is racist".
>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.
I think its an heritage from WWII, in particular the "yellow star".
France refuses to consider racial differences (and religious differences too), it seeks unity in everything, to the point that it almost drove local languages to extinction.
> Ethnicity is an extremely important identity category, and if you want to manage that diversity you need information.
As a french person I object to this. It's all about culture, not face features. If you want to study "communities", don't look at the face, look inside the head. And the idea that a government would "manage" ethnicity is exactly the kind of thing that repulses us.