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DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JULY 25, 2023: THE FUTURE OF DEBITO.ORG
Hello Debito.org Newsletter Readers. Let me open with an update on where we are:
We are close to thirty years since Debito.org came in to being as an information site for life and human rights in Japan. It will continue to exist for as long as I live and breathe, if not beyond. That said, I’m finding myself more and more distant from Japan these days both in the physical and professional senses. I now have lived outside of Japan for several years teaching Political Science at the university level. Consequently I am finding Japan these days, as it fades into a relative backwater geopolitically, increasingly a minor example in my research interests, which revolve around the state of democracy vs. authoritarianism worldwide.
But I do have some articles to share, and I wanted to ground them in this context above before I get to the TOC:
Table of Contents:
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1) My SNA Visible Minorities 46: “Visible Minorities: Departing Japan at Middle Age” (May 15, 2023), where I make the case for deciding whether you’re a “lifer” in Japan by age 40.
2) My SNA Visible Minorities column 47: “The Reverse Culture Shock of Leaving Japan”, with some pointers of how to resettle and reassimilate overseas despite all the things you might miss about Japan
3) BLOG BIZ: Thoughts about the future of Debito.org: What’s next?
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By Debito Arudou, Ph.D. (debito@debito.org, www.debito.org, Twitter (for as long as that exists too) @arudoudebito)
Debito.org Newsletter are as always freely forwardable
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1) My SNA Visible Minorities 46: “Visible Minorities: Departing Japan at Middle Age” (May 15, 2023), where I make the case for deciding whether you’re a “lifer” in Japan by age 40.
Excerpt: This column offers a frank assessment of living your life out in Japan as an immigrant. It of course can be done, but most of you will find that even after decades swimming against the current in terms of legal status and social acceptance, you will get no commensurate reward after all your efforts. In fact, I found that life opportunities dwindle as you age in Japan, and you get locked into a dreary, impoverished lifestyle like most other elderly here. If you think you can avoid this situation, power to you, but I suggest you make your decision to stay permanently or not by age 40. Good luck.
I lived in Japan for 24 years, married and had kids, became tenured faculty at a university, bought land, built a house, and learned the language and culture well enough to write books in Japanese and take out Japanese citizenship. In terms of trying to assimilate into Japan, I don’t think there’s a lot more I could have done. I was an ideal immigrant. But then, like Editor Michael Penn at the Shingetsu News Agency, I too left Japan.
That’s both a pity and, in my case, an inevitability. Japan should be trying harder to keep people like us. It really doesn’t. The longer you’re in Japan, the more your opportunities dwindle. Let’s first talk about the natural obstacles to people staying on, starting with how difficult it is to keep a visa…
Full article with comments archived at
https://www.debito.org/?p=17259
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2) My SNA Visible Minorities column 47: “The Reverse Culture Shock of Leaving Japan” (July 25, 2023), with some pointers of how to resettle and reassimilate overseas despite all the things you might miss about Japan
Excerpt: SNA Editor Michael Penn is now doing SNA from the United States. Inspired by his big move, my previous column was about my leaving Japan in middle age, where I suggested readers decide whether or not to be a lifer in Japan by age 40. Accordingly, this column will talk about establishing a new life outside Japan…
The biggest culture shock I felt after Japan was right after I arrived overseas. In the United States, for example, many big airport hubs are dirty, run-down, and relatively unpredictable compared to their Japanese counterparts. The waiting areas in particular feel like bus stations. Facilities are sometimes ill-maintained, instructions to your connecting flights or ground transit often monolingual and poorly signposted, ground staff often inattentive and inaccessible, and the food… well, it’s “airport food,” enough said. I quickly missed Japan’s clean, efficient, and plentiful public transportation that follows a schedule, and the restaurant fare that actually looks like the picture on the menu…
This initial culture shock starts fading once you’ve had a good night sleep and enjoy a few familiar things: Larger hotel rooms. Comfort foods like a thick steak with A1 Sauce or a spiral-cut ham hock. An apple pie that actually has more than one apple in it. Supermarkets full of cereals, dozens of flavors of canned soups, bulk goods, and cheap rice and vegetables. News media that is an absorbing read not just because it’s in your native language, but because the topics are interesting! Procuring a car so you can merge into society like everyone else.
But things will still grate for awhile: Being forced to tip. Dirty public restrooms that seem to be the norm, not the exception. Bureaucrats who seem to have little personal dedication to a job well done. Political discourse more concerned with riling you up than with solving problems. The din of people on cellphones or kids having public meltdowns that you can’t shut out because they’re speaking in your native tongue. And the biggest worry: Getting sick or injured and having to deal with American healthcare! It’s worse with family in tow, listening to their grumbles about future uncertainties and cultural differences and feeling helpless to offer quick fixes. During this purgatory period of constant irritability, the grass will always seem greener elsewhere.
It takes months, but resettlement will happen. Things that you miss about Japan eventually get overwritten by routines you establish as things feel more like home…
Link to the full article on SNA at
https://shingetsunewsagency.com/2023/07/24/reverse-culture-shock-of-leaving-japan/
Anchor site for commentary at
https://www.debito.org/?p=17282
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3) BLOG BIZ: Thoughts about the future of Debito.org: What’s next?
Hi Blog. I want to tell you a bit about what’s on my mind. I’ve been researching and commenting on Debito.org for nearly thirty years. I’m not tired of writing, but my writing here has become monthly because, in terms of the urgency of commenting about Japan, I’m not really feeling it right now.
The issues I read about within Japan are usually insular, petty, and repetitive. And they are generally on topics I have commented on before. I’ve done the doctorate, written and updated my books multiple times, and said basically all I need to say about the state of discrimination and how to make a better life as an immigrant in Japan. My current job does not involve Japan at all, and my Japan skills are only personally useful when I’m actually in Japan. My interests have generally moved on to the geopolitical and on the state of democracy itself worldwide. That’s what I read about and teach about in my classes on a daily basis. Now I want to devote those energies to something more productive, such as my students and my retirement savings. In terms of profession I am, after all, a university instructor of Political Science first and an essayist/activist second. It’s time to focus on the professional side as I approach age 60 and my career enters my twilight years.
Not to worry, Debito.org as a blog and a searchable website resource on life and human rights in Japan, will stay up in perpetuity. I will continue to write monthly columns for the Shingetsu News Agency, and I will post excerpts on Debito.org. And I will of course continue to approve comments here on a regular basis. But would you be interested in my blogged thoughts even if they’re not about Japan?
More of my thoughts about where I am as a researcher and a commentator at
https://www.debito.org/?p=17262
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A final word: This is not the final Debito.org Newsletter. Of course not. At last count this Newsletter has 7658 subscribers, and that’s a valuable resource built up over decades that deserves to be maintained. So, again, if you are interested in my writings that are NOT specifically Japan-related, please let me know at debito@debito.org, and I will start putting them in these Newsletters as well.
Thank you for reading Debito.org for all these years. Sincerely, Debito
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JULY 25, 2023 ENDS
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143 comments on “DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JULY 25, 2023: THE FUTURE OF DEBITO.ORG”
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Any Debito.org readers care to wager if / when we’ll see NJ driving buses?:
FOCUS: Tokyo bus operator banks on foreign drivers as shortage looms
Something tells me that we’re more likely to see Jigokudani freeze over first.
Yeah, I saw that.
From ‘the back of the bus’ like Rosa Parks (but at least a customer?) to being the driver (driving Miss Daisy?).
Let’s see the exams these potential drivers have to pass for reading Kanji road signs first.
Like NJ nurses and caregivers, it’s doomed.
Update: Any Debito.org readers care to wager if / when we’ll see NJ driving trains?:
Japan preparing to add transport roles to skilled visa amid shortages
Vietnamese „trainees“ told to undergo contraception to work in Japan.
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/01/3198269c9d30-vietnamese-trainees-told-to-undergo-contraception-to-work-in-japan.html
Another case of deja vu. This is getting ridiculous. Also notice how most people quoted in the article claim that there would be no problem if she was “half” Japanese, but that’s a lie because there were two “half” Japanese women who won the Miss Japan competition previously and everyone on the internet was upset about it. Now they keep moving the goalpost. Just admit that you only accept “100%” Japanese women winning because you’re a racist and stop the hypocrisy.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68078061
No doubt this measure is needed because of sangokujin and other foreigners committing atrocious crimes again and again:
Japan to fight crime in quake-hit areas with 1,000 security cameras
Japanese language version here: 防カメ1000台設置へ 能登地震避難所や街頭に―警察庁
I‘m taking bets. Who‘s gonna bet with me that the court will rule that the constitution only applies to kolumin?
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240129/p2a/00m/0na/019000c
— Well, there is one naturalized citizen amongst the Plaintiffs, so the Kokumin defense is harder to maintain. And Wajin isn’t a construct in Japanese jurisprudence.
Anyway, this is remarkably similar to the nationality makeup of the Otaru Onsens Case. One advantage this case has: All the Plaintiffs aren’t White.
Japan considers 6-month resident status for mobile digital nomads (「デジタルノマド」を呼び込め 最長6カ月の在留資格 政府が検討), but South Korea already has a digital nomad visa which allows foreign residents to stay for up to 2 years!:
Korea Officially Announces New Digital Nomad Visa
You heard it from JK first: Uzbekistan is going to be the next go-to place for NJ labor (replacing Vietnam):
East Japan bus operator training people in Uzbekistan with an eye to securing drivers / バス会社がウズベキスタン拠点に人材育成 運転手確保に勝機も
From the article:
Interesting, would a Japanese person feel secure with a clearly non-Japanese person behind the wheel of a bus? I’m not being facetious. I know Japan has made progress in the last few years regarding foreigners in the work place, but will they put their lives in the hands of a foreigner?
Here’s a better question — which would a Japanese person feel more secure with: a visible N behind the wheel of a bus, or a self-driving bus?
See my post about NJ volunteer firefighters not being allowed to help in the earthquake disaster zone because they would have implicit ‘authority’ over the wajin.
How many arguments with entitled rude passengers can an NJ bus driver take?
Spoiler alert — they’re providing language support services,not actually fighting fires:
Foreign firefighting volunteers increasing in east Japan prefecture / 外国人消防団員、任用着々 言葉の課題、解決に期待 県内 /神奈川 (Japanese language paywall version)
The Vietnamese were not submissive enough and had the gall to actually compile video evidence of being physically bullied etc. How ungrateful (irony). They used to use Kanji too and some could pass as a Japanese, so the tacit reasoning probably went.
I was predicting Indonesia or Papua New Guinea for the next further south source of indentured labor and kawaii Care-Givers in the Co Prosperity Sphere, so Uzbekistan is a literal sidestep. However, like Indonesia it is a Muslim country so perhaps Japan Immigration will chicken out of any meaningful numbers, as one unspoken criteria seem to be fulfilling long-held and cherished stereotypes.
Myanmar relies on Japanese army training and its a pariah state so perhaps that is a better bet.
Props to associate professor Kabir Mahmudul for rescuing an elderly man in snow-hit north Japan / 雪の中でうずくまる80代救う バングラデシュ出身の准教授に感謝状
Heads-up for all Debito.org readers with PR: if you’re behind on your taxes, you may be getting the boot:
Foreigners with permanent residency could face stricter rules / 税や保険料を納めない永住者、許可の取り消しも 政府が法改正を検討 (Japanese language paywall version)
This is a no-brainer, but let’s wait to see what the GoJ decides:
Ministry mulling college scholarships for foreign children / 外国籍の子に奨学金、拡充へ 「家族滞在」ビザ所持者にも (Japanese language paywall version) / 外国籍の子、一部を奨学金制度の対象に追加へ 新年度から 文科省 (Japanese language paywall version)
„Slahi expressed shock and disappointment at the visa refusal, saying, “I thought Japan was a free, democratic, and peace-loving country.”
Oh well, you see…
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240219/p2g/00m/0na/002000c
Clinic refusing NJ (who are paying health insurance btw), government agencies do nothing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/s/LhXilvS4mr
Some old story, I guess.
This has got to be a new speed record for GoJ refugee recognition status:
Japan grants refugee status to democracy advocate Myanmar woman
From the article:
Fun fact: The Nagoya Regional Immigration Services Bureau is the same place where Wishma Sandamali was detained and died!
More GoJ tinkering to the labor pool: New visa rules to allow more foreign students to find jobs in Japan
But wait, there’s more GoJ tinkering! This time, it’s trash rules: Japan city to require multilingual trash rules posted for foreigners
Nagoya District Court acquits Vietnamese man of drug possession charge / 麻薬所持で無罪判決 ベトナム籍被告 名古屋地裁 /愛知 (Japanese language paywall version)
The Vietnamese guy is lucky: has he been wrongly convicted, he would have had to spend 4+ years in prison and pay a 700,000 yen fine!
Great article about racial profiling in Japan
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/world/asia/japan-police-racial-profiling-tokyo.html
NJ arrested for ‘overstaying visa’ even after immigration tell the police NJ was NOT overstaying.
https://japantoday.com/category/crime/tokyo-police-mistakenly-arrest-filipino-man-for-allegedly-overstaying
J-police can’t comprehend their own language, or just think they can make up whatever laws they want on the spot?
Or maybe just assuming that NJ=criminal so they’ll find something else if they arrest him…?
All tourists will be banned from Japan‘s geisha district lol. Yep, that‘s why I went to Cyprus (very welcoming culture) and will probably never go to Japan again.
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/kyoto-japan-geisha-tourist-ban-b2507869.html
I wish my country would reciprocate and ban all Japanese tourists from the old town district. They always travel in large groups and clog all the roads. Rules for thee, not for me.
What will the outcome be? Gion appointed Oyaji with a uniform and #POWER =
1. All tourists politely barred?
2. All NJ tourists politely barred?
3. All NJ appearing individuals strictly coerced into doing something?
Japan can’t get the police to enforce its actual laws, so it never ends well when busy-bodies with a lust for power are legitimized to freely interpret mere ‘rules’.
#omotenashi
Yes, it will end up with deputized busybodies lording it over anyone who appears NJ…until they try it on with a Japanese speaking Oyaji NJ Company Director (i.e. me) and then we get into Oyaji vs Oyaji altercation in an argument over who’s the more “erai”!
Outdated arguments like, “because you aren’t Japanese” can simply be brushed aside with, “But I am the paying customer with PR status”
“Ore wa okyaku no de dakara chanto ore no kengen o sonchō shite kudasai, J-road man!”
Alternatively, when told what and where I cannot do or be, I follow them around pestering them with touristy questions like “Ok, where can I do that?”
They want to act like staff and lay down THE RULES then give me an alternative and some of that much vaunted Omote Nashi.
Remember who the customer is, Kyotoites.
“with the growing menace of tourists.”
With an attitude like that, why oh why was Abe and Japan focusing on tourism as a money earner?
Why don’t they just go back to manufacturing electronics and other stuff like they used to do?
(Ok, I know, CHINA, but still, Japan makes some quirky unique products, surely that would be easier for an Ohtaku nation writ large that “does not want to interact with the outside world”- to paraphrase a UN probe).
Like international events, which we have seen due to heavy handed policing etc Japan should not be allowed to host, this country just has the wrong attitude to tourism and should not be doing it if they cannot respect tourists properly (which certain discriminators claim they cannot cater to anyway).
You can’t just take people’s money and disrespect them, Japan. While somehow twisting it around and saying its the customers who are showing the “disrespect” to e.g. “Izakaya Culture” etc.
What next? Tourists showing disrespect to 7/11 Culture? To Pachinko Culture? To Tokyo Disneyland culture?
Further thoughts: Japan cannot kick its “exclusive xenophobia” because its so tied up in what Japan is selling.
Kyoto and geisha being the ultimate in exclusivity. But Gaijin san, if you learn Japanese and have powerful J friends. you might, just might, one day, be allowed to visit their bar (and be overcharged for the privilege- because its “Outside their usual service”).
This feeds into the “mysterious, inscrutable Nippon” PR Japan puts out.
Decades ago, there were tours run farmers from Inaka to visit Tokyo and be guided around.
Being rejected entry from a nightclub was part of the experience they paid for.
I think this is deeply engrained in what makes them “special” in their own perception of themselves. It is also a feature of the Erai Hito elites. It is even part of the Shinto religion- the Emperor goes to meet the Sun Goddess in the controversial Daijosai but no one knows what he does in there. This is not a salvation for all religion- more like a hierarchical continuation of your place in the afterlife.
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-daijosai-japanese-emperor-naruhitos-controversial-accession-rite-6125819/
These NJ looters should be ashamed of themselves…oh…wait…never mind!
【能登半島地震】被災住宅に侵入し窃盗か 少年ら3人逮捕 石川・輪島市
能登半島地震 被災した住宅に侵入し窃盗か 10代男女3人逮捕(2024年3月6日)
能登半島地震で住民避難 無人の住宅に侵入し指輪など盗んだ疑い 10代の男女3人逮捕 石川・輪島市|TBS NEWS DIG
石川県の被災地で空き巣を繰り返したか 指輪やブランデーなど盗んだ疑いで10代の男女3人を逮捕 (24/03/06 11:07)
能登半島地震の被災地で住宅から指輪などを盗んだ疑い 10代の男女3人を逮捕 住人は避難していて留守
10代男女3人が被災地の住宅に侵入し…指輪やブランデーなど盗んだ疑いで逮捕 能登半島地震直後の1月5日
Given that one out of every 24 children born in Japan in 2021 had one or more NJ parents (!), it’s long past time for schools to get over their black, straight hair fetish:
School rules presuming black, straight hair perplex children with foreign roots in Japan / 「黒髪・直毛」が前提の校則 外国人ルーツの子の人格形成に影響
Also making a transgender woman shave her head in prison.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240312/p2a/00m/0na/007000c
In most (if not all, I don’t have the time to check the laws of all those countries) western democratic countries you have the right to wear whatever hairstyle in prison anyway. This is another Japan = China aspect.
Author Takano says Japan has become ‘outlying zone’ in the world / 「ニッポンは田舎の終着駅」 GDP4位転落、辺境作家が占う未来
‘Outlying zone’? Boy, that’s sure putting it nicely!
What Takano-san actually said was quite a bit more blunt:
And this:
That’s certainly putting it mildly! Here’s my translation:
“Japan: the last station on the line out in the sticks.”
The best part though, is this:
Based in this damning assessment, here’s my two-yen:
Nice slogans in Japanese. I will use some as one liner comebacks to shut down nationalists in their cups who bother me, on my way out the door.
-they mistakenly think migrant workers from other Asian states still long to come to Japan
This really hits the nail on the head. Most have got wise to the trainee scam. Even if they haven’t the Yen is too weak, taxes are going up, salaries are stagnating.
Only people who come are die-hard anime/culture fans and I see more and more of these types on forums worriedly asking things like “Is Japan really that racist?” etc.
Fairly or unfairly, Japan’s reputation is well and truly tarnished.
Couple of other good points in this article:
He called it “unbelievable” that Japan still ranks as high as fourth in GDP in the world.
– its probably just that places like the UK (6th) have it even worse with food banks and homelessness, etc, if comparing GDP to actual overall quality of life.
“And conservative Japan appears to be staying in a defensive shell, abandoning its former stance of learning from the rest of the world, although that attitude could have been found here before the economic boom” in the 1980s, he said.
– indeed, Abe got what he wanted, it has gone back to the old days, except not the booming economy days but even further back; when Japan was that quirky unknown “other” that manufactured some good products (except these are more niche products rather than mass produced hardware these days, though there is still the car industry “Passenger car imports from Japan into the European Union were valued at nearly 7.7 billion euros in 2022, up from 7.1 billion euros in 2021. Japan is one of the major source countries for EU passenger car imports in terms of value, accounting for about 11 percent of the total value of imports in 2022”).
Saw a reaction on Reddit, a bit of an Elephant in the Room
“My foreign partners all find it weird that Japanese always want to say no. What kind of business practice is that ?”
Indeed, the positivity and can-do enthusiasm I encountered in the 80s in overseas Japanese that partly made me want to come here seems to have long evaporated into a kind of default, Shoganai Negativist inertia.
Managers just explain why something cannot be done. They think that’s all there is to the job. It has even led to blows back in the day. They forgot who was bringing in the income (me, not him).
The Japan that Can (and always) Say No. Ishihara’s Legacy?
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