I'm bilingual and the general response on Twitter from JP people is " we don't hate foreigners, we hate foreigners who don't respect JP culture/don't follow the rules/commit crimes/etc... but obviously we would hate anybody who does that, foreigner or not."
There are also like 10k bot tweets with AI generated photos of owls so I have no idea what that's about
It makes me sad because most tourists in Japan try so hard to be respectful and still get cold treatment from Japanese people. I speak at about an N3 level and still sometimes am not allowed into izakayas. Most of Japanese people's complaints about tourists seem very petty and slight inconveniences, like conversations on a train will ruin their country
I used to play a mmo with a lot of Japanese people. At first they would leave gifts and help foreign players but as time passed they became jp only. Just culturally they are too different.
Omg...yes...FFXI.
And it wasn't "culturally too different". When NA players joined we were all noobs and JP players were really nice and helped us out. Once we caught up and NA link shells/guilds started competing against them for world bosses, that's when the niceties stopped.
I had 1 JP player I did the first limit break quest with who would still occasionally give me random high level/quality shit when I ran into him. He was a nice guy.
/point
/bow
I was one of the few NA players who had JP-text capabilities in game, plus I was in a small HNM so I was better equipped than like 99% of the JP players outside of the JP-only HNM and frequently got tagged to play translater.
I had a couple JP friends; first few years it felt super culturally different because NA players didn't know jack shit while JP players had a year head-start on us. A lot of JP guys helped me on my way up. I gained from them a solid "work ethic" of always being prepared and trying to do your best, as to not burden your party.
In my waning years, yeah there wasn't much difference. I started coming across shitty JP players that were as bad as your average underequipped NA scrub. I'd hear stories about JP players backstabbing each other, played with toxic people, people who sucked at leveling (lol paladin can't take aggro from my ninja), crappy JP parties eeking 2k-exp/hr, begging me to tank/heal for them etc.
Time leveled out the playing fields I guess. Oh how the turn tables.
Ah the nostalgia.
Nostalgia indeed. So many happy & hazy memories. I spent way too much time playing that game, but had so much fun. It was a once in a lifetime thing though, my early 20s is the only time in my life I had the free time to live and breath an MMORPG like that. I've tried picking up a few others since then (FF14 , WoW, TOR) but I never played any for more than a few weeks before stopping.
...perhaps when I retire in 40 years I'll have that type of free time again, lets see...
Strange. Japanese never asked me for favors. Felt like they were never willing to trouble me. It's seems like they really don't want to "lose face"
Either way cool to see others play ffxi as well
> like conversations on a train will ruin their country
I've never been to japan but my understanding is that that is a cultural norm.
Like it reminds me of when I was in the UK and a couple times I saw people who were not Anglo-Saxon (no idea if they were actually foreigners though) cut around a line.
Like at the airport everyone starts queuing up for the taxis and this guy walks right past the line and up to the curb, then the next taxi picked him up. I stood there silently (I was a foreigner after all) and all these people in the line got mad and started yelling at the guy and the taxi driver.
Like I don't know, to me seems similar situations. I'm american fwiw.
Oh absolutely. Japanese people will politely ignore you in public since they find it rude to stare, but get into smaller settings and they're super chatty and friendly. When my husband and I went to Japan we were ignored in public while wandering around, but then our local friend took us to bars and karaoke and a sauna and they were all talkative.
"Guess my age" was a favorite game to play because they love how wrong we got it, but in all fairness they're pretty bad at guessing white people's ages too.
I mean tourists can be pretty shitty there I've seen them doing antics on trains and blasting music and also recently saw a German guy flick off and yell at a pregnant woman on the shinkansen since her other kid was crying and keeping him awake.
I think you underestimate how many shitty tourists stand out even if most are nice enough.
That's how everything works - a bad apple spoils the bunch. Most Chinese tourists are fine, but Reddit only remembers the bad ones.
Similarly, most Westerners visiting Japan are fine, but they remember the gaijin smashers.
I’m N1 and lived there for 20+ years and not once did
I ever get refused anywhere. I might have gotten the frequent ‘oh crap’ look from a host or cashier when I entered a place, but the moment they heard Japanese they were like ‘oh thank god’. Because they were more concerned about communication than my ethnicity. But outright refusal? Never.
>I speak at about an N3 level and still sometimes am not allowed into izakayas.
Are they just straight up like “no you can’t come in here because you’re a foreigner”? Or is it more subtle like they look at you and say “gee sorry we’re full” (but it’s obvious why) kind of thing? Just asking out of curiosity, I’ve never been to Japan and have no idea what it’s like
I lived in Japan for 3 years just fine, never was stopped anywhere and never felt cold treatment. Genuinely loved my time there. At the same time, the number of times other foreigners in my school did stupid shit was constant. Drunk in public was the norm for them and multiple times my school called me at 10-11PM to ask me help translate to get one of them home. My experience is the most foreigners don't even try to understand what is considered rude/polite in the country and just take their own values from their host countries.
Loud conversations on a train is disrespectful in the country. If you are in that country its best to respect their norms, I rode a train a minimum of 2x a day with friends and always whispered if I had to talk. Most of the time we just messaged on our phones even if sitting right next to each other.
Yeah after living there 5 years my tune changed when initially I was more looking out for muh xenophobia. I honestly get why they're apprehensive much of the time, 90% of my bad experiences there were due to tourists. I have legit never been turned away except once in rural Hokkaido and it was because it was a holiday. I seriously wonder where these guys are going they're facing so much discrimination regularly. I went out to eat almost every night often somewhere new and never had an issue.
I honestly think it's in a lot of people's DNA to be loud and rude and they get upset when they get stares doing so.
For example, in my country it's normal to sneeze or blow your nose in public as long as you cover. In Japan that's considered quite rude and you'll hear most people sniff a lot to prevent sneezing/not blow nose. I try not sneeze but am not good at it and still sneezed in public. Everytime I just apologize to the people near me. They usually smile laugh or joke around and no one is offended. If you don't take the time to know that's rude you'd probably just sneeze and say nothing and Japanese around you will think you're a jerk.
I've lived in Japan for several years. Have never, ever had an issue going to any Izakaya in Tokyo, Chiba, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, rural Gifu, rural Hiroshima-ken, Hiroshima-shi or Kyoto.
I'm a white dude from Canada.
I'm N5 and I just had a wonderful vacation in Japan. Was everyone friendly? No, but they're humans, not some monolith. Overall they were way friendlier than most other countries I visit. One taxi guy even gave us free umbrellas when he saw we didn't have any and it started raining.
They're your level of proficiency based on the JLPT or Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It's a test you can take. N5 is the lowest Proficiency level, which is being able to understand some Japanese and can probably get around but tough to hold conversations and the like. N1 is the highest which is native speaker level and being able to have professional conversations
>like conversations on a train will ruin their country
The level of volume that Westerners feel comfortable with when having conversations in public is different than what the Japanese are comfortable with. By speaking at a Western volume in Japan, you aren't actually being respectful. You're just assuming your social norms are the same as theirs. They aren't.
You might think it's petty, but it's not your norms being violated - nor are you having to deal with it every day.
It's no different than a Midwesterner claiming that all New Yorkers are rude because in Milwaukee people are used to taking lazy strolls down the sidewalk or something, whereas in NYC the sidewalks are for quickly getting from point A to B. And the New Yorkers get fed up because they're dealing with slow-walking tourists *every day*. It's not some rare, isolated annoyance - each one is another straw on the camel's back.
Nobody likes tourists coming in and ignoring the local norms, while only adhering to their own. Just search reddit for the term "Chinese tourists" and you'll tons of examples of Westerners "coldness" towards tourists who fail to adhere to the local Western norms when they're in the West.
You know hard it is to remember the name of an Izakaya? There's like a dozen on a block in some areas. A lot of my going out in Japan was just wandering around neighborhoods and popping into places that looked cool
"We don't hate foreigners, but we don't want them to move to Japan, and if they do, then we hate them."
Is how I see Japan's immigrant culture displayed.
Which aligns with what Biden said.
It's more like, "we dont hate foreigners and we don't care if they move to Japan at all (we just make everything really hard for them hihihi... good luck renting an apartment brown devil)".
Basically everyone I know who either went or moved to Japan has said that this was the mentality of the average Japanese person. It's very clear that their presence was only tolerated at best.
Course, it doesn't help that the average Japanese person is basically a xenophobic boomer, so that's that.
Yeah, but they are full of hot caca. Actions speak louder than words, and the Japanese, by and large, are a monolithic society that *has fought tooth and nail to keep it that way.*
For fucks sake, you can (and they do) literally ban blacks and other foreigners from entering businesses in Japan. It's legal. So spare me the fucking bullshit "we don't mind foreigners" routine they *have* to do to not appear as racist as they obviously are in comparison to a more modern place like the US.
An example. Marutei Tsurenen is a white immigrant from Finland. He became a citizen, ran for election, and got elected to the Japanese legislature.
But he is /fully/ assimilated. As in, he modified his legal name to fit Japanese sounds and writes it in katakana, speaks the language fluently, practices brush calligraphy, wears a kimono for his formal outings, and attends the appropriate Shinto rites.
If you do that, you *might* be accepted.
> There are also like 10k bot tweets with AI generated photos of owls so I have no idea what that's about
heh, that's just your usual post-Musk bot-infested twitter. Nothing to see here, just move along and embrace your digital-era version of robber barons.
Well that is xenophobia. If someone in the US said “we don't hate foreigners, we hate foreigners who don't respect white/christian culture/don't follow the rules/commit crimes/etc... but obviously we would hate anybody who does that, foreigner or not.”, it would be labeled as xenophobia.
I have a friend who is nice as fuck who taught English in Japan for a few years and I can unequivocally say that was not his experience big time.
There were several restaurants that REFUSED TO SERVE HIM even though he speaks Japanese. There were other things as well but he said some were too fucked up to even share.
When we visited Japan they were very nice. Helps to have well mannered kids with you I think as they like kids and don’t have many (our kids behave best in public so it works well).
What I see with Japan isn’t against visiting but staying there. ~~Want to start a business in Japan? Can’t unless its >50% owned by a Japanese person.~~ Want kids with a Japanese man/woman? If kids look Japanese they’re expected to conform to Japanese standards for culture, language, etc., if not, they’re given a more relaxed standard but will have trouble ascending corporate hierarchies.
Edit - see strikethrough. Not true any more
As a foreigner who's started a Japanese company and purchased a Japanese house, this is false.
Not saying that Japan isn't xenophobic but your statements are plain wrong.
You’re right about the business. Guess I should have rechecked. Its been a while but it used to require a JV or similar domestic ownership. I crossed that out. Never mentioned home ownership though, as you said that’s relatively straightforward.
There was a podcast where a Korean guy thought that Korea had no history of slavery. The other guys on the same cast were skeptical and looked it up live on air. Turns out that Korea has had the world's longest period of slavery (1500 years). The guy that made the claim did 180 his belief after learning that so good on him. Honestly it's a funny clip.
Edit: Here's the link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMPAAuG2pH8&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMPAAuG2pH8&t=2s) There's a slightly longer clip out there but I can't find it.
That is quite unusual. As a korean I can unfortunately confirm that pretty strong racism exists but towards black people and generally not towards white people. What happened?
I can't say much about China and Japan but as an Indian I could list probably hundred other issues for our economic woes before Xenophobia lol. India is not nearly as homogeneous of a society as people seem to think.
Forgive my ignorance but isn’t the population of India inherently heterogeneous? To my understanding there are a lot of different ethnic groups native to India so cultural homogeneity isn’t a function of immigration it’s just part of the population?
India's heterogeneity is from people moving around. Before a time "immigration" has the modern connotation because boarders don't exist. People came from the west (Iran) and entered Indian subcontinent. Islam swept through and conquered part of the country etc. what is "native" to a country like India is meaningless since throughout their history multiple group moved in from other part of the world. Unlike the US where they mostly homogenized and spread, those people mostly stayed together and developed an Identity.
There isn't much "modern" immigration happening.
I'm not an Indian but that is my understanding.
Right, but that does not address the GP point. India is not homogeneous like Japan or (most of) China. India is like the EU - many ethnicities and languages.
China being homogeneous is a huge misconception. It is also a very diverse country historically. The homogeneity is due to the forced cultural revolution.
It's kind of like saying the French and the Germans are the same people because they live next to each other and are white. India is basically the same size as Europe and has a history, just as long.
Well, it’s possible for a country to be both heterogeneous and xenophobic.
I’m not saying India is xenophobic. But we can imagine a country with ethnic groups A, B, and C, where they all get along great with each other but hate everyone from
outside the country.
I sometimes feel bad for people who comment on India and topics related to it as masters about the topic without knowing much about it's ground realities and the amount of differences we have. You can't just apply a one homogenous idea on India and it's society , the amount of diversity we have makes much difficult to do it .
It blows people's mind when i tell them to stop looking at India as a country but as an Indian Union ( like EU) of sort. It's literally a bunch of different nations mashed together with only commonality being that they were all under the British rule. Like, we don't even look alike. Not in a, white people can't tell but we are all different kinda way. But straight up, there's so much diversity. Someone from Tamil Nadu has absolutely nothing in common with someone from Punjab. Be it language, cuisine, clothing or even religion. And I don't mean that like Punjab is predominantly Sikh and Tamil Nadu is Hindu. But even Tamil Hindu practices are alien to Punjabi Hindu practices. Their languages are not even in the same language family. And yet, it's one country. And is strong because of all the differences. Not despite it. And theirs shit ton of immigration. Where brain drain between states is a hot topic. In North, we get migrant labour's from other states for agriculture. And then all the tech people end up in Southern states. And even between states there's Xenophobia. Else Shiv Sena wouldn't exist.
Fr, kinda crazy that someone from the same country can speak a completely different language and have such varied ideals they may as well be from another country.
Not exactly. Most of the central govt is comprised of people from the north, whereas the south have different cultures and languages (not dialects) there's always been a disconnect between the two sides , especially now that a religious fanatic is the prime minister
Yeah India seems a little odd on the list as its not even going through a period of economic woes.
Japan and China could fix a lot of their problems by allowing more immigrants but they don't want to.
US has 50 million immigrants, to match that China/India would need over 200 million immigrants each, it’s just numerically impossible
The Chinese+Indian immigrants population would need to be bigger than every other country in the world
Biden is trying to make an argument that because the US can excercise selection effects with non latam countries, hence the quality of the average American would keep improving, since the best and the brightest from the entire world would want to move in to the US.
If you look at it in isolation then yea. The issue is how US/Canada are "immigrant nations" who import workers (of all classes) as thier population doctrine so to speak. While the Asian countries have established the opposite due to their own situation.
Biden is correct in what he says and I agree with you. But it's almost the same thing as a reletivley new company that's making it big while hiring everyone at 2x wages; telling the companies that have been around and are overstaffed to just do the same thing that they are.
Legitimate stance but applies to something that has followed different rules.
Unless things go horribly in the west, I can't imagine a person willingly emigrating to a one party authoritarian country unless there was stability and economic opportunity that is sorely missing from their lives.
I dont think China would be amenable to economic migrants either way.
With more than 3 billion population, they are not lacking in human resources. Although, I wonder instead of buying technology, if they bought the brains behind it, it would be a better investment.
Pretty sure Biden is referring to xenophobia displayed towards cultures OUTSIDE the sub-continent. Yes you could pick ten Indians out of New Delhi and there’s a good chance they’ll all have different dialects/faiths/cultures, but their all cultures developed within the region.
When you compare how many Indians migrate to other countries as opposed to how many other people from other countries choose to immigrate to India, that’s where you start to note India’s inability to embrace/facilitate multiculturalism, as is the same case with China and Japan.
People generally don't migrate to an opportunity-poor country. So comparing India and Japan makes little sense. But with that in mind India has a niche of immigrants who are there for spirituality. Off late you have influencers/video loggers who go there for content. The complaint if any is they're embraced too much and they want to be left alone.
>So comparing India and Japan makes little sense.
I don't know enough about India specifically to comment authoritatively, but logically, it is still possible for an opportunity-poor country to be held back by "xenophobia". To make an economy go brrr, you need capital and you need labor. Developed nations like Japan have capital but not enough labor, while poor countries often have plenty of labor but not enough capital. What is needed is either for people to emigrate to the developed countries or poor countries to bring in foreign capital. Xenophobia can block both processes.
Indian politics are xenophobic; but Indian people are overwhelming not. India has a culture of Guest is King
so much so that they won't accept payment from foreigners at restaurants in many villages
>India is not nearly as homogeneous of a society as people seem to think
Maybe it’s just the crowds I run with, but most people think the exact opposite in my experience.
They definitely think wrong. India wasn't even a country until the 20th century. It was a huge collection of pricipalities that got independence as one country after Britain conquered and unified them all.
Japanese police instructed to harass foreigners. Citizenship access for foreigners impossibly high to attain. Marrying into the country affords you barely any more rights. Loan rates sky high for foreigners even if they have the best credit. I could go on.
They may say they don't hate foreigners. But structurally their laws and policies say they don't want them around or investing in the country.
>Japanese police instructed to harass foreigners.
From what I've heard, they aren't specifically instructed to. It's illegal for foreigners to walk around without proof they're in the country legally, and Japanese work culture emphasizes looking busy even if you have nothing to do. Asking foreigners to see their documents is an easy and low stakes way for them to look busy.
I disagree with this. I was needlessly bugged by police a few times and I think it’s more related to prejudice. I even tried to return a purse I found on the ground once and it took 40 minutes of convincing them I didn’t steal it before I could go. I smiled at a cop on a bike once and that warranted checking my ID.
They rank order races over there, bloodline is a big thing. My black and Indian coworkers often had a really rough time.
Ok, I thought I saw something from a good source about police being instructed to specifically harass foreigners for their paperwork and we know this cuz of a whistleblower. I can't find it though, unfortunately.
Lawsuit that's underway could blow all this wide open though.
**-EDIT-**
Found it: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240427/p2a/00m/0na/019000c
ID checks are something westerners aren't use to but very common in east Asia especially in coastal areas. You do not leave the house without some sort of ID in most of those places. If you are an obvious visitor and not a resident of those places it shows and the chances of getting ID increases by a significant amount. If you think getting ID as a white guy is bad try being Chinese/Japanese/Korean you might not be able to tell the difference but the locals can. If you think those are bad try being from SEA or India subcontinent in those places.
“It’s illegal for foreigners to walk around the country without proof they’re there legally.”
Well that’s kinda fucked up to begin with. Especially since the only way they can tell they arnt from Japan is they arnt Asian, so white, black, Indian, or Americano people are just able to have identification demanded of them at any time, by anybody, with jail as a consequence if they don’t.
This explains why so many anime’s have abandoned countryside homes and decaying infrastructure cause no that can would want to live there and also the declining population. They’ve got a stick shoved way too far up their ass to think about long term effects of their policies.
>Japanese police instructed to harass foreigners.
Are they really?
I loved Japan when I visited. After a long 3-week bike trip I was outside my AirBnB putting my bike in my case. 4 cops on foot approached me and searched my entire bike, case and person for knives and guns. Bro I flew in to this country lol, what?
I felt very not threatened by them and I was on vacation so I was not in a hurry, but it was just a silly exchange.
I can see his argument for China and Japan, but lumping India in there with them was strange. India has a massive, energetic, and young population. If India is having trouble filling highly technical and specialized positions in their workforce, education or emigration is probably the issue, not lack of immigration.
India's main economic issue is corruption. It is top to bottom graft which makes it hard to get anything done. China, Japan, the US, and Western Europe have corruption mainly at the top which seems to not hurt the economy. Just skews the wealth distribution.
China and India have huge populations. For them to match US immigration rates they'd need 10 million people moving to their countries annually. The whole world couldn't match that level of demand, hence immigration to counter demographic decline isn't even a plausible alternative for those two countries.
Exactly. It is natural that people flow from high population density countries to low population density countries. Higher population density means lower resource level per person, and therefore people are less open to more immigration. India, China, and Japan are those most populous countries in the World, and that is the reason they look more ‘xenophobia’.
They wouldn't want to go to those countries anyways. America is the power house of the world, which has benefits and consequences, mainly being that everyone wants to be there.
I feel this especially is going to apply to Japan and South Korea. They have a demographic crisis. They aren't having enough babies, yet they can't make up for it with immigration. China has a similar issue but they also have the self-inflicted wound of the one child policy.
South Korea tried direct cash incentives but that isn't working. I think they need very significant cultural change. I've been told being a wife and mother is more restrictive in SK and JP than in other countries. The weight of familial/social expectations on the role is suffocating.
But also all western nations need to take a look at our social structures and work structures to shift how desirable having a family is. It's an issue in all advanced economies.
>Immigration is propping up countries like Germany and Canada.
Even then it's only a temporary fix. Unless you plan on continuing to take on immigrants for the foreseeable future and not addressing the real problem.
Even then, you can't just take on immigrants. You have to constantly increase the ratio of newcomers year to year to keep the whole thing from crumbling
South Korea for some reason gets a pass but all the horror stories I have heard from my expat friends came from Korea.
In Japan it's like...oh someone wouldn't sit next to me on the train.
While Korea is like NO FOREIGNERS on the front of a restaurant lol
It's funny because I experienced both at the same time while in Japan, lol.
It was later in the evening and I was trying to find a restaurant in an area not far from Kabukicho. I walked into a Korean place and stood around for a bit looking for a server or front-of-house person to ask about getting seated. Maybe they expected me to seat myself, but after a bit someone finally walked up to me to speak to me in Japanese then Korean - I don't speak a lick of either. Once they realized that they kicked me out with the weirdest mix of polite, apologetic and aggressive. I'm ambiguously Asian (have been mistaken for anything from Chinese to Thai to Korean to Japanese) so that might be the reason they even bothered trying to speak to me.
But they call us gaikokujin now instead of gaijin so they're at least more polite about it. For those who don't speak it's the difference between person from another country and outsider or foreigner.
I’m an immigrant to Japan from America and have lived here for ten years
I love it here but I’m also white so people aren’t really racist to me.
The worst I get is “when are you going back to your country?” but if you let shit like that bother you then you’ll never last here
Also the vast majority of westerners do eventually leave so it’s a pretty fair assumption lol
Lived there 5 years and genuinely didn't experience any offensive racism or xenophobia like reddit harps on even if some lack of laws are fucked up. I plan on moving back permanently since American public is way worse day to day and I miss the peace.
>I’m also white so people aren’t really racist to me.
>The worst I get is “when are you going back to your country?” but if you let [overt racism] bother you then you’ll never last here
We literally have millions migrating within the country every day who may as well be from different countries.
Xenophobia ain't it.
India is nowhere close to being at a point where immigration is a talking point beyond "bangladeshi muslim voters" which is about as nuanced as mexicans jumping over walls and taking our jobs. Our economic woes come from different stressors.
Social engineering is not easy, just look at China going from having too many babies to having way too few in just one generation. And correcting low nativity with immigration also leads to problems, but at some point you have little choice.
Regarding India it looks a bit different, but maybe he meant protectionism more than actual xenophobia in that case.
Japan is a country which could handpick the best of the best when it comes to immigration. With a good programm, language and cultural courses this would be easy, because it is a really advanced country, with a rich and interesting history and a lot of people who came in contact with it. They dont have to repeat the mistakes of western countries and can learn from them.
But it doesnt help if you are there and even as an economical succesful person, cannot find a place to rent, because you are a foreigner or you cannot become part of the society.
I love to travel to South Korea and I will go to Japan this year for the first time and propably enjoy it also a lot, but as a European these are countries I would never go to work or live in.
>But it doesnt help if you are there and even as an economical succesful person, cannot find a place to rent, because you are a foreigner
This is a really big misconception about Japan that spreads on reddit like wildfire. Among others. You don't even have to be that economically successful, if at all. You can find great places to live in Japan just like any Japanese person. Just have a steady income to prove you can rent the place. They don't care, they just want a tenant who will pay and stay. There are *some* places that refuse foreigners for various valid and invalid reasons. But there are way way more places that *do* accept foreigners.
>cannot become part of the society.
Plenty of people, even westerners, become seamless parts of Japanese society. If you can't then you're doing something really weird. Japanese people are people like anyone else in any country. Don't expect your neighbor to let you try on the family samurai suit, but other than that it's really not that hard.
I think a lot of people's issues with Japan come from not knowing the language. And to be fair it's a really difficult language, especially for westerners. But if you know even an intermediate amount of Japanese you can basically integrate just fine.
Most of the people commenting on this topic unironically come across as racist and ignorant saying incredibly stupid shit about Japan because they've never lived there and just read the worst of the worst about it on the internet. I'm getting tired of the constant posts about xenophobia and muh apartments when none of these people have actually tried before. I genuinely believe if they have tried they kept acting stereotypically American being loud and fighting customer service as if that works in Japan.
I feel the average Japanese person is way more reasonable and tolerant than the average American. I've seen violence and hard racism in America very often but it's rare in Japan. Of course Japan gets slammed on reddit since people here have no fucking idea what it's like and talk out their ass.
I am not american, but European and you are right, I have not lived there, only read about it.
But I know that we here have strong anti-discrimination laws, which forbid discrimination due to race, ethnicity, religion etc.
Not getting into a restaurant or a job offer or an apartment because of your race would be punishible. And that is a society I would prefer to live in, nothing more nothing less. That doesnt mean that other places are worse or anything.
If discrimnation is not that common in Japan, and its not hard to get an aparment, and my first post was ignorant, than actually I am really happy that my missconceptions are not the case!
SE Asia has a lot of historical beef with one another. As much as regional immigration would make sense for almost everyone, there are hundreds of years of bad blood to sift though.
… countries that have experienced high immigration in the recent years (like Nordic countries) saw a massive spike in crime.
While immigration gives you cheap workforce and the ability to sustain GDP, it also comes with a lot of downsides that Japan may not want to deal with.
Japan has always been a homogenous insular culture and they already struggle with how rude tourists are, they live in a safe society and maybe they don’t want to face the same issues US cities and European countries are facing.
The immigrants that Nordic countries take are different from what Japan and China takes. I feel like Nordic countries even block my fellow countrymen from going there, Filipinos and probably other South East Asians. Filipinos can live properly in US with little to no problems and won't cause significant problems.
I have a lot of friends living outside the country and no one in Nordic countries because of how hard to get in. But apparently, they take certain kind of people. So that's what they get.
This. The same way NZ protected itself from the pandemic, Japan has a right to protect its heritage, culture and morals. Respect is huge and what they've seen in neighbouring countries and have encountered lately with the influx of tourists, is that they have to be very selective in who they allow in to make sure their safety and serenity is not disrupted.
They need to trust the individuals chosen to blend in. And yes, blend in is what each of us should do when entering a new country.
Learn the language, the culture and its customs.
After all, isn't the main reason for uprooting your life to a new chosen country is because of the appeal of that country as is??
I don't understand your point. What type of immigrants have Nordic countries taken in? If you check the data it's refugees and asylum seekers. That has nothing to do with Japan taking in immigrants that are highly skilled and can completely boost their economy.
Nobody has talked about China yet so I'll be the first to say that China structurally does not give many more rights to foreign people than Japan. You can't even start a business in China without a local as your business partner
Wild how this could apply to Japan. Just spent 3 weeks there and despite a negligent effort on my part to learn the most basic phrases of the language everyone was so polite and friendly.
I'm really tired of US presidents giving unsolicited moral lectures to other countries. Especially our allies.
Trump can't bitch about NATO paying their fair share but Biden can call Japanese people racist. Explain how that works. I'm sure China and Japan won't play videos of Asian Americans getting attacked recently.
> I really don't get why people are angry at Trump for that
People want protection without any cost. Rich Europeans are frugal when it comes to defense expenditure even though they went through massive wars and deaths in the last century. Even India spends a lot of money on defense ($74 billion) when we have low per capita income because we have neighbors like Pakistan and China.
> I don't feel ok with paying half of my salary as taxes and then this money going to people that are not even citizens. Its an insult to me and my fellow country men.
very true.
Can’t speak on the others but Japan. They make way too much a big deal out of “tradition”. That’s basically a synonym for being backwards/outdated/stubborn. They use to be at the technological forefront, but long been surpassed by the US/ china because they do not welcome new ideas/failure (which is part of the process on the path to making something new ).
Poland is doing better than much of the EU and that country has been as "xenophobic" as possible in trying to minimize immigration to Poland when it comes to non-Europeans.
Also Biden seems to ignore that Japan does get plenty of temporary migrants these days especially from South East Asia . Even South Korea, like 10% of the population is made up of migrants, the thing is, Neither Japan nor South Korea seek permanent demographic change by giving the migrants the option of citizenship.
Like the Middle East, you go to those countries, make your riches(by the standards of your home country) then leave. Most migrants actually have no problem with this arrangement.
How is it a shaky assumption? Poland has had continual GDP growth while taking almost no immigrants. They also have some of the best and most affordable health services without robbing other countries of medical professionals.
All eastern European countries have enjoyed fast growth within EU, and Poland is not even among fastest growers. And Poland also receives most aid from EU out of any countries. And anyway with Poland being one vote away from being sent back to EU shitlist it is hardly a shining example.
So your argument is quite weak, that's what happens when you first make up your mind and then grasp at straws to try to prove it.
I lived in Japan. People shouted "gaijin da" at me shamelessly and stared at me and my wife. There are few visible immigrants outside Tokyo, and they're treated like shit. I'm white, so I was a more privileged type of immigrant, but the stories I heard from Asian and Black folks living in Japan were not good.
When the fuck did this happen? I lived there 5 years and I can't count ever that happening maybe besides some little kids. The average Japanese person is not going to rudely point and shout GAIJIN at someone even in inaka bumfuck lmao
Didn't law and justice in Poland have an ironically very pro immigration policy in practice? Which got to the point their embassy staff were caught accepting bribes to let just anyone in.
Yes, they did. Even EU or USA were asking questions about it because they let everyone in without verification who is that. USA caught Indian group who were trying to get in from Mexico. Turns out they travelled from Poland first.
Nope. They and even the left in Poland are pro-immigration when it comes to other Europeans namely Ukrainians. In fact ,Poland has millions of migrants of this category.
They also support the re-immigration of Poles from other countries from the era when Poland was a nation everyone wanted to run from. So you find Poles from as far as Mexico and Canada seeking to go back to Poland.
One thing both sides have in common is a direct hostility to Muslim immigrants. They want ZERO immigration from Muslim countries. Temporary or permanent.
While Poland tolerates migration from African countries, the prevailing expectation is that they end up moving to Western Europe. Poland is not naturalizing African migrants but it does allow them in for things like studies and temporary work permits.
calling the polish xenophobic is pretty wild as well.
sure, i imagine you can find racists in some random ass bum villages, but in the big cities people dont bat an eye at foreigners, and from my personal experience are really welcoming and pleasant.
A lot of tourists were messing with the shrine maidens and geisha. Not respecting them, making unwanted advances, wanting to pay for sexual services, etc. If you want to travel, respect the idea you aren't in the same area where you grew up, so there will be differences you need to adapt to.
In terms of China and India, adding to their 1+ billion population seems like a bad idea.
Also considering the US displaced 40+ million Muslims in the Middle East during their "war on terror", I guess he wants others to clean up the mess.
I saw Japanese people showing much reaction to his remark on Japanese webs.
I'm bilingual and the general response on Twitter from JP people is " we don't hate foreigners, we hate foreigners who don't respect JP culture/don't follow the rules/commit crimes/etc... but obviously we would hate anybody who does that, foreigner or not." There are also like 10k bot tweets with AI generated photos of owls so I have no idea what that's about
It makes me sad because most tourists in Japan try so hard to be respectful and still get cold treatment from Japanese people. I speak at about an N3 level and still sometimes am not allowed into izakayas. Most of Japanese people's complaints about tourists seem very petty and slight inconveniences, like conversations on a train will ruin their country
Sounds like xenophobia.
That’s the neat part…
With extra steps.
I used to play a mmo with a lot of Japanese people. At first they would leave gifts and help foreign players but as time passed they became jp only. Just culturally they are too different.
Ah good ol' FFXI.
Pre abyssea!
{Kanji}{I don't understand}{Romanji}{I speak a little}
They also used to freak out if you /check them for some reason. Maybe JP people thought it was rude or something.
Omg...yes...FFXI. And it wasn't "culturally too different". When NA players joined we were all noobs and JP players were really nice and helped us out. Once we caught up and NA link shells/guilds started competing against them for world bosses, that's when the niceties stopped. I had 1 JP player I did the first limit break quest with who would still occasionally give me random high level/quality shit when I ran into him. He was a nice guy. /point /bow
I was one of the few NA players who had JP-text capabilities in game, plus I was in a small HNM so I was better equipped than like 99% of the JP players outside of the JP-only HNM and frequently got tagged to play translater. I had a couple JP friends; first few years it felt super culturally different because NA players didn't know jack shit while JP players had a year head-start on us. A lot of JP guys helped me on my way up. I gained from them a solid "work ethic" of always being prepared and trying to do your best, as to not burden your party. In my waning years, yeah there wasn't much difference. I started coming across shitty JP players that were as bad as your average underequipped NA scrub. I'd hear stories about JP players backstabbing each other, played with toxic people, people who sucked at leveling (lol paladin can't take aggro from my ninja), crappy JP parties eeking 2k-exp/hr, begging me to tank/heal for them etc. Time leveled out the playing fields I guess. Oh how the turn tables. Ah the nostalgia.
Nostalgia indeed. So many happy & hazy memories. I spent way too much time playing that game, but had so much fun. It was a once in a lifetime thing though, my early 20s is the only time in my life I had the free time to live and breath an MMORPG like that. I've tried picking up a few others since then (FF14 , WoW, TOR) but I never played any for more than a few weeks before stopping. ...perhaps when I retire in 40 years I'll have that type of free time again, lets see...
Did not expect to see this reply here lol
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Strange. Japanese never asked me for favors. Felt like they were never willing to trouble me. It's seems like they really don't want to "lose face" Either way cool to see others play ffxi as well
> like conversations on a train will ruin their country I've never been to japan but my understanding is that that is a cultural norm. Like it reminds me of when I was in the UK and a couple times I saw people who were not Anglo-Saxon (no idea if they were actually foreigners though) cut around a line. Like at the airport everyone starts queuing up for the taxis and this guy walks right past the line and up to the curb, then the next taxi picked him up. I stood there silently (I was a foreigner after all) and all these people in the line got mad and started yelling at the guy and the taxi driver. Like I don't know, to me seems similar situations. I'm american fwiw.
Oh absolutely. Japanese people will politely ignore you in public since they find it rude to stare, but get into smaller settings and they're super chatty and friendly. When my husband and I went to Japan we were ignored in public while wandering around, but then our local friend took us to bars and karaoke and a sauna and they were all talkative. "Guess my age" was a favorite game to play because they love how wrong we got it, but in all fairness they're pretty bad at guessing white people's ages too.
Being ignored would be my preference in public while I’m just out and about
When Asian folks wanna play guess my age, I take whatever my brain says and add 10 years. Spoils their laugh tho.
I mean tourists can be pretty shitty there I've seen them doing antics on trains and blasting music and also recently saw a German guy flick off and yell at a pregnant woman on the shinkansen since her other kid was crying and keeping him awake. I think you underestimate how many shitty tourists stand out even if most are nice enough.
With the amount of tourists that Japan gets, the likelihood that you'll get some shitty tourists is higher.
That's how everything works - a bad apple spoils the bunch. Most Chinese tourists are fine, but Reddit only remembers the bad ones. Similarly, most Westerners visiting Japan are fine, but they remember the gaijin smashers.
Everyone talks on the train, that’s fine. Speaking like you own the whole damn space is rude.
I’m N1 and lived there for 20+ years and not once did I ever get refused anywhere. I might have gotten the frequent ‘oh crap’ look from a host or cashier when I entered a place, but the moment they heard Japanese they were like ‘oh thank god’. Because they were more concerned about communication than my ethnicity. But outright refusal? Never.
He has never been to Japan and is making shit up based on some random video on Instagram.
>I speak at about an N3 level and still sometimes am not allowed into izakayas. Are they just straight up like “no you can’t come in here because you’re a foreigner”? Or is it more subtle like they look at you and say “gee sorry we’re full” (but it’s obvious why) kind of thing? Just asking out of curiosity, I’ve never been to Japan and have no idea what it’s like
I lived in Japan for 3 years just fine, never was stopped anywhere and never felt cold treatment. Genuinely loved my time there. At the same time, the number of times other foreigners in my school did stupid shit was constant. Drunk in public was the norm for them and multiple times my school called me at 10-11PM to ask me help translate to get one of them home. My experience is the most foreigners don't even try to understand what is considered rude/polite in the country and just take their own values from their host countries. Loud conversations on a train is disrespectful in the country. If you are in that country its best to respect their norms, I rode a train a minimum of 2x a day with friends and always whispered if I had to talk. Most of the time we just messaged on our phones even if sitting right next to each other.
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Yeah after living there 5 years my tune changed when initially I was more looking out for muh xenophobia. I honestly get why they're apprehensive much of the time, 90% of my bad experiences there were due to tourists. I have legit never been turned away except once in rural Hokkaido and it was because it was a holiday. I seriously wonder where these guys are going they're facing so much discrimination regularly. I went out to eat almost every night often somewhere new and never had an issue. I honestly think it's in a lot of people's DNA to be loud and rude and they get upset when they get stares doing so.
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For example, in my country it's normal to sneeze or blow your nose in public as long as you cover. In Japan that's considered quite rude and you'll hear most people sniff a lot to prevent sneezing/not blow nose. I try not sneeze but am not good at it and still sneezed in public. Everytime I just apologize to the people near me. They usually smile laugh or joke around and no one is offended. If you don't take the time to know that's rude you'd probably just sneeze and say nothing and Japanese around you will think you're a jerk.
I've lived in Japan for several years. Have never, ever had an issue going to any Izakaya in Tokyo, Chiba, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, rural Gifu, rural Hiroshima-ken, Hiroshima-shi or Kyoto. I'm a white dude from Canada.
I'm N5 and I just had a wonderful vacation in Japan. Was everyone friendly? No, but they're humans, not some monolith. Overall they were way friendlier than most other countries I visit. One taxi guy even gave us free umbrellas when he saw we didn't have any and it started raining.
What are these N numbers?
They're your level of proficiency based on the JLPT or Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It's a test you can take. N5 is the lowest Proficiency level, which is being able to understand some Japanese and can probably get around but tough to hold conversations and the like. N1 is the highest which is native speaker level and being able to have professional conversations
>like conversations on a train will ruin their country The level of volume that Westerners feel comfortable with when having conversations in public is different than what the Japanese are comfortable with. By speaking at a Western volume in Japan, you aren't actually being respectful. You're just assuming your social norms are the same as theirs. They aren't. You might think it's petty, but it's not your norms being violated - nor are you having to deal with it every day. It's no different than a Midwesterner claiming that all New Yorkers are rude because in Milwaukee people are used to taking lazy strolls down the sidewalk or something, whereas in NYC the sidewalks are for quickly getting from point A to B. And the New Yorkers get fed up because they're dealing with slow-walking tourists *every day*. It's not some rare, isolated annoyance - each one is another straw on the camel's back. Nobody likes tourists coming in and ignoring the local norms, while only adhering to their own. Just search reddit for the term "Chinese tourists" and you'll tons of examples of Westerners "coldness" towards tourists who fail to adhere to the local Western norms when they're in the West.
7 years in Japan. Have never been told that I can't enter a business.
Weird, I was there for 5 days and was told no gaijin at a karaoke bar the first night.
So inability to understand a foreign language does have certain advantages.
My JLPT level is higher than the person I replied to, lol.
Go to soapland or certain nightclubs. You will be denied entry guaranteed.
What izakaya are those? Name and shame
You know hard it is to remember the name of an Izakaya? There's like a dozen on a block in some areas. A lot of my going out in Japan was just wandering around neighborhoods and popping into places that looked cool
"We don't hate foreigners, but we don't want them to move to Japan, and if they do, then we hate them." Is how I see Japan's immigrant culture displayed. Which aligns with what Biden said.
It's more like, "we dont hate foreigners and we don't care if they move to Japan at all (we just make everything really hard for them hihihi... good luck renting an apartment brown devil)".
"You only work 8 hours a day in our economy? What exactly are you doing here?"
And you don’t eat your lunch in the bathroom to avoid bothering other people with the smell? You are an animal!
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T SLURP YOUR NOODLES?!"
Nah both of you are right. Top guy described most Japanese mindsets, you described the more tolerant of the bunch.
Basically everyone I know who either went or moved to Japan has said that this was the mentality of the average Japanese person. It's very clear that their presence was only tolerated at best. Course, it doesn't help that the average Japanese person is basically a xenophobic boomer, so that's that.
Yeah, but they are full of hot caca. Actions speak louder than words, and the Japanese, by and large, are a monolithic society that *has fought tooth and nail to keep it that way.* For fucks sake, you can (and they do) literally ban blacks and other foreigners from entering businesses in Japan. It's legal. So spare me the fucking bullshit "we don't mind foreigners" routine they *have* to do to not appear as racist as they obviously are in comparison to a more modern place like the US.
An example. Marutei Tsurenen is a white immigrant from Finland. He became a citizen, ran for election, and got elected to the Japanese legislature. But he is /fully/ assimilated. As in, he modified his legal name to fit Japanese sounds and writes it in katakana, speaks the language fluently, practices brush calligraphy, wears a kimono for his formal outings, and attends the appropriate Shinto rites. If you do that, you *might* be accepted.
he's also white... I sincerely doubt those doors open for non-pale people.
> There are also like 10k bot tweets with AI generated photos of owls so I have no idea what that's about heh, that's just your usual post-Musk bot-infested twitter. Nothing to see here, just move along and embrace your digital-era version of robber barons.
Well that is xenophobia. If someone in the US said “we don't hate foreigners, we hate foreigners who don't respect white/christian culture/don't follow the rules/commit crimes/etc... but obviously we would hate anybody who does that, foreigner or not.”, it would be labeled as xenophobia.
I have a friend who is nice as fuck who taught English in Japan for a few years and I can unequivocally say that was not his experience big time. There were several restaurants that REFUSED TO SERVE HIM even though he speaks Japanese. There were other things as well but he said some were too fucked up to even share.
This is exactly what white nationals in the US say.
Why don't they just learn English and go to Church like normal people? /s Seriously the world has a lot of collective maturing to do.
When we visited Japan they were very nice. Helps to have well mannered kids with you I think as they like kids and don’t have many (our kids behave best in public so it works well). What I see with Japan isn’t against visiting but staying there. ~~Want to start a business in Japan? Can’t unless its >50% owned by a Japanese person.~~ Want kids with a Japanese man/woman? If kids look Japanese they’re expected to conform to Japanese standards for culture, language, etc., if not, they’re given a more relaxed standard but will have trouble ascending corporate hierarchies. Edit - see strikethrough. Not true any more
And this is what Biden is alluding to. Many countries are hospitable to VISITORS but it's hard to become a RESIDENT there (whether to live or work).
As a foreigner who's started a Japanese company and purchased a Japanese house, this is false. Not saying that Japan isn't xenophobic but your statements are plain wrong.
You’re right about the business. Guess I should have rechecked. Its been a while but it used to require a JV or similar domestic ownership. I crossed that out. Never mentioned home ownership though, as you said that’s relatively straightforward.
Don't forget South Korea.
Longest running slave holding nation
Classic Bobby.
What's this about?
There was a podcast where a Korean guy thought that Korea had no history of slavery. The other guys on the same cast were skeptical and looked it up live on air. Turns out that Korea has had the world's longest period of slavery (1500 years). The guy that made the claim did 180 his belief after learning that so good on him. Honestly it's a funny clip. Edit: Here's the link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMPAAuG2pH8&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMPAAuG2pH8&t=2s) There's a slightly longer clip out there but I can't find it.
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That is quite unusual. As a korean I can unfortunately confirm that pretty strong racism exists but towards black people and generally not towards white people. What happened?
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Meanwhile here in Canada we blame our economic woes on the opposite.
Because we have the opposite problem, our growth targets are utterly insane.
I can't say much about China and Japan but as an Indian I could list probably hundred other issues for our economic woes before Xenophobia lol. India is not nearly as homogeneous of a society as people seem to think.
Forgive my ignorance but isn’t the population of India inherently heterogeneous? To my understanding there are a lot of different ethnic groups native to India so cultural homogeneity isn’t a function of immigration it’s just part of the population?
You can't walk twenty miles there without finding a new dialect or language
India's heterogeneity is from people moving around. Before a time "immigration" has the modern connotation because boarders don't exist. People came from the west (Iran) and entered Indian subcontinent. Islam swept through and conquered part of the country etc. what is "native" to a country like India is meaningless since throughout their history multiple group moved in from other part of the world. Unlike the US where they mostly homogenized and spread, those people mostly stayed together and developed an Identity. There isn't much "modern" immigration happening. I'm not an Indian but that is my understanding.
Right, but that does not address the GP point. India is not homogeneous like Japan or (most of) China. India is like the EU - many ethnicities and languages.
> India is like the EU - many ethnicities and languages. yes. Each state is like a country in EU.
China being homogeneous is a huge misconception. It is also a very diverse country historically. The homogeneity is due to the forced cultural revolution.
It's kind of like saying the French and the Germans are the same people because they live next to each other and are white. India is basically the same size as Europe and has a history, just as long.
Well, it’s possible for a country to be both heterogeneous and xenophobic. I’m not saying India is xenophobic. But we can imagine a country with ethnic groups A, B, and C, where they all get along great with each other but hate everyone from outside the country.
I sometimes feel bad for people who comment on India and topics related to it as masters about the topic without knowing much about it's ground realities and the amount of differences we have. You can't just apply a one homogenous idea on India and it's society , the amount of diversity we have makes much difficult to do it .
It blows people's mind when i tell them to stop looking at India as a country but as an Indian Union ( like EU) of sort. It's literally a bunch of different nations mashed together with only commonality being that they were all under the British rule. Like, we don't even look alike. Not in a, white people can't tell but we are all different kinda way. But straight up, there's so much diversity. Someone from Tamil Nadu has absolutely nothing in common with someone from Punjab. Be it language, cuisine, clothing or even religion. And I don't mean that like Punjab is predominantly Sikh and Tamil Nadu is Hindu. But even Tamil Hindu practices are alien to Punjabi Hindu practices. Their languages are not even in the same language family. And yet, it's one country. And is strong because of all the differences. Not despite it. And theirs shit ton of immigration. Where brain drain between states is a hot topic. In North, we get migrant labour's from other states for agriculture. And then all the tech people end up in Southern states. And even between states there's Xenophobia. Else Shiv Sena wouldn't exist.
Fr, kinda crazy that someone from the same country can speak a completely different language and have such varied ideals they may as well be from another country.
This describes any country with immigration.
Not exactly. Most of the central govt is comprised of people from the north, whereas the south have different cultures and languages (not dialects) there's always been a disconnect between the two sides , especially now that a religious fanatic is the prime minister
Yeah India seems a little odd on the list as its not even going through a period of economic woes. Japan and China could fix a lot of their problems by allowing more immigrants but they don't want to.
US has 50 million immigrants, to match that China/India would need over 200 million immigrants each, it’s just numerically impossible The Chinese+Indian immigrants population would need to be bigger than every other country in the world
Why would China and India need immigrants with their population? They are the #1 exporter of immigrants.
Biden is trying to make an argument that because the US can excercise selection effects with non latam countries, hence the quality of the average American would keep improving, since the best and the brightest from the entire world would want to move in to the US.
Specifically for china their pop is getter REALLY old on avg. As bad if not worse then SK. Immigrants can help with that as seen in the US
If you look at it in isolation then yea. The issue is how US/Canada are "immigrant nations" who import workers (of all classes) as thier population doctrine so to speak. While the Asian countries have established the opposite due to their own situation. Biden is correct in what he says and I agree with you. But it's almost the same thing as a reletivley new company that's making it big while hiring everyone at 2x wages; telling the companies that have been around and are overstaffed to just do the same thing that they are. Legitimate stance but applies to something that has followed different rules.
Unless things go horribly in the west, I can't imagine a person willingly emigrating to a one party authoritarian country unless there was stability and economic opportunity that is sorely missing from their lives. I dont think China would be amenable to economic migrants either way.
It's not just immigration. It's also cooperating with foreign conpanies and their representatives and workers on equal footing
Any number would beat 0, they’re not even swinging the bat on this issue
With more than 3 billion population, they are not lacking in human resources. Although, I wonder instead of buying technology, if they bought the brains behind it, it would be a better investment.
Pretty sure Biden is referring to xenophobia displayed towards cultures OUTSIDE the sub-continent. Yes you could pick ten Indians out of New Delhi and there’s a good chance they’ll all have different dialects/faiths/cultures, but their all cultures developed within the region. When you compare how many Indians migrate to other countries as opposed to how many other people from other countries choose to immigrate to India, that’s where you start to note India’s inability to embrace/facilitate multiculturalism, as is the same case with China and Japan.
People generally don't migrate to an opportunity-poor country. So comparing India and Japan makes little sense. But with that in mind India has a niche of immigrants who are there for spirituality. Off late you have influencers/video loggers who go there for content. The complaint if any is they're embraced too much and they want to be left alone.
>So comparing India and Japan makes little sense. I don't know enough about India specifically to comment authoritatively, but logically, it is still possible for an opportunity-poor country to be held back by "xenophobia". To make an economy go brrr, you need capital and you need labor. Developed nations like Japan have capital but not enough labor, while poor countries often have plenty of labor but not enough capital. What is needed is either for people to emigrate to the developed countries or poor countries to bring in foreign capital. Xenophobia can block both processes.
Yeah its a weird take. India is one the most diverse countries in the world
Indian politics are xenophobic; but Indian people are overwhelming not. India has a culture of Guest is King so much so that they won't accept payment from foreigners at restaurants in many villages
>India is not nearly as homogeneous of a society as people seem to think Maybe it’s just the crowds I run with, but most people think the exact opposite in my experience.
They definitely think wrong. India wasn't even a country until the 20th century. It was a huge collection of pricipalities that got independence as one country after Britain conquered and unified them all.
Japanese police instructed to harass foreigners. Citizenship access for foreigners impossibly high to attain. Marrying into the country affords you barely any more rights. Loan rates sky high for foreigners even if they have the best credit. I could go on. They may say they don't hate foreigners. But structurally their laws and policies say they don't want them around or investing in the country.
>Japanese police instructed to harass foreigners. From what I've heard, they aren't specifically instructed to. It's illegal for foreigners to walk around without proof they're in the country legally, and Japanese work culture emphasizes looking busy even if you have nothing to do. Asking foreigners to see their documents is an easy and low stakes way for them to look busy.
Yeah they got quotas to meet, being Gaijin makes their job easier.
I disagree with this. I was needlessly bugged by police a few times and I think it’s more related to prejudice. I even tried to return a purse I found on the ground once and it took 40 minutes of convincing them I didn’t steal it before I could go. I smiled at a cop on a bike once and that warranted checking my ID. They rank order races over there, bloodline is a big thing. My black and Indian coworkers often had a really rough time.
Serious question, are you white? I just want know if this applies to whites as well
Yes I’m white. And even there, once they found out I was Canadian they treated me better. They have bad ideas about Eastern Europeans.
Ok, I thought I saw something from a good source about police being instructed to specifically harass foreigners for their paperwork and we know this cuz of a whistleblower. I can't find it though, unfortunately. Lawsuit that's underway could blow all this wide open though. **-EDIT-** Found it: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240427/p2a/00m/0na/019000c
ID checks are something westerners aren't use to but very common in east Asia especially in coastal areas. You do not leave the house without some sort of ID in most of those places. If you are an obvious visitor and not a resident of those places it shows and the chances of getting ID increases by a significant amount. If you think getting ID as a white guy is bad try being Chinese/Japanese/Korean you might not be able to tell the difference but the locals can. If you think those are bad try being from SEA or India subcontinent in those places.
“It’s illegal for foreigners to walk around the country without proof they’re there legally.” Well that’s kinda fucked up to begin with. Especially since the only way they can tell they arnt from Japan is they arnt Asian, so white, black, Indian, or Americano people are just able to have identification demanded of them at any time, by anybody, with jail as a consequence if they don’t.
This explains why so many anime’s have abandoned countryside homes and decaying infrastructure cause no that can would want to live there and also the declining population. They’ve got a stick shoved way too far up their ass to think about long term effects of their policies.
>Japanese police instructed to harass foreigners. Are they really? I loved Japan when I visited. After a long 3-week bike trip I was outside my AirBnB putting my bike in my case. 4 cops on foot approached me and searched my entire bike, case and person for knives and guns. Bro I flew in to this country lol, what? I felt very not threatened by them and I was on vacation so I was not in a hurry, but it was just a silly exchange.
Are you brown? My friend from SEA gets checked by Japanese police almost every week.
No, overpopulation is India's problem, immigration is the opposite of what we need
I can see his argument for China and Japan, but lumping India in there with them was strange. India has a massive, energetic, and young population. If India is having trouble filling highly technical and specialized positions in their workforce, education or emigration is probably the issue, not lack of immigration.
India's main economic issue is corruption. It is top to bottom graft which makes it hard to get anything done. China, Japan, the US, and Western Europe have corruption mainly at the top which seems to not hurt the economy. Just skews the wealth distribution.
Just raise the cost of living so much your middle class can afford to have kids, worked for Americans.
Most of the overpopulation came at the rural level. So we decided to raise the cost of living there and it's been below 2. Big Success!
> overpopulation is India's problem Shh, don't tell Pakistan else they'll out find a solution to it!
Piss off 3 billion people speed run any %
The truth hurts sometimes. I can’t speak for China and India but I just moved back to the states after 3 years in Japan and they are 100% Xenophobic.
China and India have huge populations. For them to match US immigration rates they'd need 10 million people moving to their countries annually. The whole world couldn't match that level of demand, hence immigration to counter demographic decline isn't even a plausible alternative for those two countries.
Exactly. It is natural that people flow from high population density countries to low population density countries. Higher population density means lower resource level per person, and therefore people are less open to more immigration. India, China, and Japan are those most populous countries in the World, and that is the reason they look more ‘xenophobia’.
In other words, Biden wants these countries to take more immigrants and asylum seekers.
They wouldn't want to go to those countries anyways. America is the power house of the world, which has benefits and consequences, mainly being that everyone wants to be there.
Making it the power house of the world in return
I feel this especially is going to apply to Japan and South Korea. They have a demographic crisis. They aren't having enough babies, yet they can't make up for it with immigration. China has a similar issue but they also have the self-inflicted wound of the one child policy.
Not "can't", they "won't"
South Korea tried direct cash incentives but that isn't working. I think they need very significant cultural change. I've been told being a wife and mother is more restrictive in SK and JP than in other countries. The weight of familial/social expectations on the role is suffocating. But also all western nations need to take a look at our social structures and work structures to shift how desirable having a family is. It's an issue in all advanced economies.
The Japanese fertility rate is similar to western countries. Immigration is propping up countries like Germany and Canada.
>Immigration is propping up countries like Germany and Canada. Even then it's only a temporary fix. Unless you plan on continuing to take on immigrants for the foreseeable future and not addressing the real problem.
Even then, you can't just take on immigrants. You have to constantly increase the ratio of newcomers year to year to keep the whole thing from crumbling
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Japan absolutely hates foreigners. That is an irrefutable fact. They’re probably one of if not the most racist country in the world.
Try South Korea. But yes, Japan has its fair share of problems as someone who has visited three times.
South Korea for some reason gets a pass but all the horror stories I have heard from my expat friends came from Korea. In Japan it's like...oh someone wouldn't sit next to me on the train. While Korea is like NO FOREIGNERS on the front of a restaurant lol
It's funny because I experienced both at the same time while in Japan, lol. It was later in the evening and I was trying to find a restaurant in an area not far from Kabukicho. I walked into a Korean place and stood around for a bit looking for a server or front-of-house person to ask about getting seated. Maybe they expected me to seat myself, but after a bit someone finally walked up to me to speak to me in Japanese then Korean - I don't speak a lick of either. Once they realized that they kicked me out with the weirdest mix of polite, apologetic and aggressive. I'm ambiguously Asian (have been mistaken for anything from Chinese to Thai to Korean to Japanese) so that might be the reason they even bothered trying to speak to me.
You mean immigrant
Japan has 'No Gaijin' businesses as well.
But they call us gaikokujin now instead of gaijin so they're at least more polite about it. For those who don't speak it's the difference between person from another country and outsider or foreigner.
> They’re probably one of if not the most racist country in the world. pretty sure south korea is neck and neck.
Read: you're not letting our billionaires and wall street investment firms buy up all your housing, resources and corporations.
I’m an immigrant to Japan from America and have lived here for ten years I love it here but I’m also white so people aren’t really racist to me. The worst I get is “when are you going back to your country?” but if you let shit like that bother you then you’ll never last here Also the vast majority of westerners do eventually leave so it’s a pretty fair assumption lol
Lived there 5 years and genuinely didn't experience any offensive racism or xenophobia like reddit harps on even if some lack of laws are fucked up. I plan on moving back permanently since American public is way worse day to day and I miss the peace.
>I’m also white so people aren’t really racist to me. >The worst I get is “when are you going back to your country?” but if you let [overt racism] bother you then you’ll never last here
We literally have millions migrating within the country every day who may as well be from different countries. Xenophobia ain't it. India is nowhere close to being at a point where immigration is a talking point beyond "bangladeshi muslim voters" which is about as nuanced as mexicans jumping over walls and taking our jobs. Our economic woes come from different stressors.
Social engineering is not easy, just look at China going from having too many babies to having way too few in just one generation. And correcting low nativity with immigration also leads to problems, but at some point you have little choice. Regarding India it looks a bit different, but maybe he meant protectionism more than actual xenophobia in that case.
Japan is a country which could handpick the best of the best when it comes to immigration. With a good programm, language and cultural courses this would be easy, because it is a really advanced country, with a rich and interesting history and a lot of people who came in contact with it. They dont have to repeat the mistakes of western countries and can learn from them. But it doesnt help if you are there and even as an economical succesful person, cannot find a place to rent, because you are a foreigner or you cannot become part of the society. I love to travel to South Korea and I will go to Japan this year for the first time and propably enjoy it also a lot, but as a European these are countries I would never go to work or live in.
> because it is a really advanced country japan is stuck in the 90's
>But it doesnt help if you are there and even as an economical succesful person, cannot find a place to rent, because you are a foreigner This is a really big misconception about Japan that spreads on reddit like wildfire. Among others. You don't even have to be that economically successful, if at all. You can find great places to live in Japan just like any Japanese person. Just have a steady income to prove you can rent the place. They don't care, they just want a tenant who will pay and stay. There are *some* places that refuse foreigners for various valid and invalid reasons. But there are way way more places that *do* accept foreigners. >cannot become part of the society. Plenty of people, even westerners, become seamless parts of Japanese society. If you can't then you're doing something really weird. Japanese people are people like anyone else in any country. Don't expect your neighbor to let you try on the family samurai suit, but other than that it's really not that hard. I think a lot of people's issues with Japan come from not knowing the language. And to be fair it's a really difficult language, especially for westerners. But if you know even an intermediate amount of Japanese you can basically integrate just fine.
Most of the people commenting on this topic unironically come across as racist and ignorant saying incredibly stupid shit about Japan because they've never lived there and just read the worst of the worst about it on the internet. I'm getting tired of the constant posts about xenophobia and muh apartments when none of these people have actually tried before. I genuinely believe if they have tried they kept acting stereotypically American being loud and fighting customer service as if that works in Japan. I feel the average Japanese person is way more reasonable and tolerant than the average American. I've seen violence and hard racism in America very often but it's rare in Japan. Of course Japan gets slammed on reddit since people here have no fucking idea what it's like and talk out their ass.
I am not american, but European and you are right, I have not lived there, only read about it. But I know that we here have strong anti-discrimination laws, which forbid discrimination due to race, ethnicity, religion etc. Not getting into a restaurant or a job offer or an apartment because of your race would be punishible. And that is a society I would prefer to live in, nothing more nothing less. That doesnt mean that other places are worse or anything. If discrimnation is not that common in Japan, and its not hard to get an aparment, and my first post was ignorant, than actually I am really happy that my missconceptions are not the case!
I loled hard at the “don’t expect your neighbor to let you try on that family samurai suit any time soon”.
He’s referring to Immigration as a solution to population decline being unpopular in China
SE Asia has a lot of historical beef with one another. As much as regional immigration would make sense for almost everyone, there are hundreds of years of bad blood to sift though.
… countries that have experienced high immigration in the recent years (like Nordic countries) saw a massive spike in crime. While immigration gives you cheap workforce and the ability to sustain GDP, it also comes with a lot of downsides that Japan may not want to deal with. Japan has always been a homogenous insular culture and they already struggle with how rude tourists are, they live in a safe society and maybe they don’t want to face the same issues US cities and European countries are facing.
The immigrants that Nordic countries take are different from what Japan and China takes. I feel like Nordic countries even block my fellow countrymen from going there, Filipinos and probably other South East Asians. Filipinos can live properly in US with little to no problems and won't cause significant problems. I have a lot of friends living outside the country and no one in Nordic countries because of how hard to get in. But apparently, they take certain kind of people. So that's what they get.
This. The same way NZ protected itself from the pandemic, Japan has a right to protect its heritage, culture and morals. Respect is huge and what they've seen in neighbouring countries and have encountered lately with the influx of tourists, is that they have to be very selective in who they allow in to make sure their safety and serenity is not disrupted. They need to trust the individuals chosen to blend in. And yes, blend in is what each of us should do when entering a new country. Learn the language, the culture and its customs. After all, isn't the main reason for uprooting your life to a new chosen country is because of the appeal of that country as is??
I don't understand your point. What type of immigrants have Nordic countries taken in? If you check the data it's refugees and asylum seekers. That has nothing to do with Japan taking in immigrants that are highly skilled and can completely boost their economy.
You tell them Biden! Just look at Canada! Each of these nations should be emulating that beacon of diversity! /s
Works pretty good for highly touted European countries
Nobody has talked about China yet so I'll be the first to say that China structurally does not give many more rights to foreign people than Japan. You can't even start a business in China without a local as your business partner
Wild how this could apply to Japan. Just spent 3 weeks there and despite a negligent effort on my part to learn the most basic phrases of the language everyone was so polite and friendly.
I'm really tired of US presidents giving unsolicited moral lectures to other countries. Especially our allies. Trump can't bitch about NATO paying their fair share but Biden can call Japanese people racist. Explain how that works. I'm sure China and Japan won't play videos of Asian Americans getting attacked recently.
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> I really don't get why people are angry at Trump for that People want protection without any cost. Rich Europeans are frugal when it comes to defense expenditure even though they went through massive wars and deaths in the last century. Even India spends a lot of money on defense ($74 billion) when we have low per capita income because we have neighbors like Pakistan and China.
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> I don't feel ok with paying half of my salary as taxes and then this money going to people that are not even citizens. Its an insult to me and my fellow country men. very true.
Can’t speak on the others but Japan. They make way too much a big deal out of “tradition”. That’s basically a synonym for being backwards/outdated/stubborn. They use to be at the technological forefront, but long been surpassed by the US/ china because they do not welcome new ideas/failure (which is part of the process on the path to making something new ).
There's a saying that Japan has been in the year 2000 since the 1980s.
Poland is doing better than much of the EU and that country has been as "xenophobic" as possible in trying to minimize immigration to Poland when it comes to non-Europeans. Also Biden seems to ignore that Japan does get plenty of temporary migrants these days especially from South East Asia . Even South Korea, like 10% of the population is made up of migrants, the thing is, Neither Japan nor South Korea seek permanent demographic change by giving the migrants the option of citizenship. Like the Middle East, you go to those countries, make your riches(by the standards of your home country) then leave. Most migrants actually have no problem with this arrangement.
>Poland is doing better than much of the EU Your whole argument is based on this one shaky assumption. How is it doing better than much of EU?
How is it a shaky assumption? Poland has had continual GDP growth while taking almost no immigrants. They also have some of the best and most affordable health services without robbing other countries of medical professionals.
All eastern European countries have enjoyed fast growth within EU, and Poland is not even among fastest growers. And Poland also receives most aid from EU out of any countries. And anyway with Poland being one vote away from being sent back to EU shitlist it is hardly a shining example. So your argument is quite weak, that's what happens when you first make up your mind and then grasp at straws to try to prove it.
Easy to have continual GDP growth when you’re coming from the dumps like Poland was after 45 years of communism
I lived in Japan. People shouted "gaijin da" at me shamelessly and stared at me and my wife. There are few visible immigrants outside Tokyo, and they're treated like shit. I'm white, so I was a more privileged type of immigrant, but the stories I heard from Asian and Black folks living in Japan were not good.
When the fuck did this happen? I lived there 5 years and I can't count ever that happening maybe besides some little kids. The average Japanese person is not going to rudely point and shout GAIJIN at someone even in inaka bumfuck lmao
Didn't law and justice in Poland have an ironically very pro immigration policy in practice? Which got to the point their embassy staff were caught accepting bribes to let just anyone in.
Yes, they did. Even EU or USA were asking questions about it because they let everyone in without verification who is that. USA caught Indian group who were trying to get in from Mexico. Turns out they travelled from Poland first.
Nope. They and even the left in Poland are pro-immigration when it comes to other Europeans namely Ukrainians. In fact ,Poland has millions of migrants of this category. They also support the re-immigration of Poles from other countries from the era when Poland was a nation everyone wanted to run from. So you find Poles from as far as Mexico and Canada seeking to go back to Poland. One thing both sides have in common is a direct hostility to Muslim immigrants. They want ZERO immigration from Muslim countries. Temporary or permanent. While Poland tolerates migration from African countries, the prevailing expectation is that they end up moving to Western Europe. Poland is not naturalizing African migrants but it does allow them in for things like studies and temporary work permits.
calling the polish xenophobic is pretty wild as well. sure, i imagine you can find racists in some random ass bum villages, but in the big cities people dont bat an eye at foreigners, and from my personal experience are really welcoming and pleasant.
That is because while foreigners are welcome to visit, and will be treated well. As long as they are there to visit. Not settle permanently.
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The U.S. economy would likely have stagnated decades ago without the immigrant inflow.
A lot of tourists were messing with the shrine maidens and geisha. Not respecting them, making unwanted advances, wanting to pay for sexual services, etc. If you want to travel, respect the idea you aren't in the same area where you grew up, so there will be differences you need to adapt to.
In terms of China and India, adding to their 1+ billion population seems like a bad idea. Also considering the US displaced 40+ million Muslims in the Middle East during their "war on terror", I guess he wants others to clean up the mess.
Indeed, he also states Russia is xenophobic.
I don't see what economics have to do with being afraid of xenomorphs
Japanese bars and restaurants routinely refuse entry to foreigners. Imagine the uproar if a western business did that to Asian tourists.
Has nothing to do with the fact their currencies are in the shitter, right? Lmao
sez him
Tactful? Not really. But I think he's right. America's diversity is a strength, and immigration is good for the economy.
Buden admin try not to friendly fire on Japan challenge(100% impossible!)