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Japan has changed in important and visible ways

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Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#21

Post by asiachick »

lmm wrote: post #9
asiachick wrote: post #5

I like all the rebuttals but the top still strikes me as mostly unsubstantiated claims > That (gerontocracy) in turn has caused Japanese companies to fall behind foreign rivals as they miss technological revolution after revolution — microprocessors, smartphones, semiconductor foundries, battery-powered cars, etc. smartphones: Japan led the world until iPhone then everyone was catching up. Nokia, Ericsson, Microsoft.…

> Why should Japan have excelled here vs any other country? 30 years ago Japan was world-beating, today it isn't. You could say that to not be excelling is the norm, and the causes of success 30 years ago are the things to be investigated; nevertheless, this feels like a decline. > I watched several large bitcoin startups um, startup. I saw what must have been 11 different payment system appear (PayPay, D-Pay, ...),…

Japan was world-beating in what categories 30 years ago (1993)? It wasn't computers. Cars? Toyota is still #1 in the world. What else? Phones (no).

> Japan has dozens of payment systems but how many of them are competing outside Japan?

Why would they? Japanese companies speak Japanese and make things for Japanese. The exceptions are just that, exceptions.

And to be clear, my point is why is Japan called out for this? Where's the article that Germany is a failure because they don't have a global payments competitor? How about France? India? China? Why is only Japan that gets this special "you're a failing country because you don't have a global payment offering"

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#23

Post by xwolfi »

inciampati wrote: post #17
YouMeWeThem wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common misconception. The reason you don't hear more about English-speaking westerners gaining Japanese citizenship is because they don't recognize dual citizenship. Renouncing your non-Japanese citizenships is a prerequisite to gaining Japanese citizenship, which is understandably too big a hurdle for many.

The only dual nationals I know with Japanese citizenship are operating under the argument that they were born with both citizenships and the non Japanese one is legally impossible to remove by coercion. So they claim that the Japanese state is doing the coercion and don't mention it to the authorities. This would be an interesting case in international in law, but I hope it's never a problem for them.

Many countries, like mine, France, also allow to reclaim a nationality you abandoned for social reasons (marriage being the one it aims at explicitely). So you can give up your French one, take the Japanese one, then go back to France without telling Japan and ask for the French one back, it's a few forms away.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#24

Post by jeffh »

lmm wrote: post #12
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #3

I thought this was a good read, but I think there are some things he minimizes. For example, he talks about increasing foreign worker visas, but only has this sentence about citizenship: > Permanent residents are allowed to apply for Japanese citizenship after five years. I recall reading a news article from a few years ago that said that the Japanese citizenship test is almost impossible to the point that few people…

> I recall reading a news article from a few years ago that said that the Japanese citizenship test is almost impossible to the point that few people try. Did they substantiate this claim at all? All available public information is that the vast majority of those who try succeed. People largely don't apply for citizenship, in part because Japan requires them to renounce other citizenships to do so, and in part becaus…

A very recent BBC article substantiates the hostility to immigration in Japan, and is an interesting read overall: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63830490

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#25

Post by shusaku »

jeffh wrote: post #24
lmm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recall reading a news article from a few years ago that said that the Japanese citizenship test is almost impossible to the point that few people try. Did they substantiate this claim at all? All available public information is that the vast majority of those who try succeed. People largely don't apply for citizenship, in part because Japan requires them to renounce other citizenships to do so, and in part becaus…

A very recent BBC article substantiates the hostility to immigration in Japan, and is an interesting read overall: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63830490

This is literally the article being rebutted…

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#26

Post by tstrimple »

Fordec wrote: post #16

A fertility rate of 1.3 is still a demographic crisis. Just because the neighbors degraded to the same level also isn't supposed to be a point of pride. Japan at 1.3 and China at 1.2 are both far below replacement rate of 2.1 and both are heavily detrimental to a nations economic and demographic outlook and on par with only the European with the worst outlooks like Spain, Italy and Ukraine.

I wonder how long it will take our societies to stop asking questions like how can we make people have more babies, and start asking questions like is it smart to plan our entire economy around continuous exponential population growth.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#27

Post by eric4smith »

Visited Japan and loved it.

BUT.

The rest of the world treats Japan as something "special". All the media/manga/anime/pr0n/temples/culture and people.

What I've learned traveling to various countries in the region?

There's nothing really special about Japan, it's people, or it's media.

The country and its denizens have been blown out of proportion with a kind of reputation that's out of this world... for the past 50 years. Yeah I look forward to going back and meeting more people next time -- but it's just a super-ordinary place.

Remember "Big in Japan"?

Nothing special. Go home.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#28

Post by rippercushions »

> Shopping centers, bars, clubs, and glittering zakkyo buildings (the ones with all the signs) continue to multiply. How could you live in Tokyo for a decade and miss all that?

Emphasis on Tokyo, which was basically the only place in Japan that's still growing, until it too started shrinking during COVID.

Go to any second-tier city, or even much of suburban Tokyo, and you'll see urban collapse in action: emptied-out "shutter-gai" shopping arcades, closed restaurants and hotels. Then drive out into the countryside, and you'll see completely depopulated hamlets and virtually all businesses not catering directly to agriculture have already collapsed.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#29

Post by famahar »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #3

I thought this was a good read, but I think there are some things he minimizes. For example, he talks about increasing foreign worker visas, but only has this sentence about citizenship: > Permanent residents are allowed to apply for Japanese citizenship after five years. I recall reading a news article from a few years ago that said that the Japanese citizenship test is almost impossible to the point that few people…

I know some people with citizenship. All it requires is fluent Japanese. They came from a d̶e̶v̶e̶l̶o̶p̶e̶d̶ developing country so getting citizenship was an almost no brainer for them. There's no real complicated test, it' just that the whole process is done in Japanese so you'll have to fill out paperwork and do interviews in Japanese.

>Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here" isn't really a good sign for long-term integration.

For a lot of people this isn't really a big issue. Having a small group of close friends matters way more for people. If anything, it can feel like a relief to not have to be held to such a high standard where you start to lose your identity.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#30

Post by linguae »

asiachick wrote: post #21
lmm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should Japan have excelled here vs any other country? 30 years ago Japan was world-beating, today it isn't. You could say that to not be excelling is the norm, and the causes of success 30 years ago are the things to be investigated; nevertheless, this feels like a decline. > I watched several large bitcoin startups um, startup. I saw what must have been 11 different payment system appear (PayPay, D-Pay, ...),…

Japan was world-beating in what categories 30 years ago (1993)? It wasn't computers. Cars? Toyota is still #1 in the world. What else? Phones (no). > Japan has dozens of payment systems but how many of them are competing outside Japan? Why would they? Japanese companies speak Japanese and make things for Japanese. The exceptions are just that, exceptions. And to be clear, my point is why is Japan called out for this?…

Consumer electronics from Sony, Canon, Nikon, Sharp, etc. immediately come to mind. They were dominant in the 1990s, but have since faced heavy competition.
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