{"id":16218,"date":"2020-08-24T16:02:24","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T23:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=16218"},"modified":"2020-08-24T16:09:14","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T23:09:14","slug":"debitos-latest-sna-visible-minorities-13-japans-cult-of-miserable-happy-questioning-whether-japan-really-is-a-superlatively-hospitable-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=16218","title":{"rendered":"Debito’s SNA Visible Minorities 13: “Japan\u2019s Cult of Miserable Happy”, Aug 24, 2020, questioning whether “omotenashi” Japan is actually all that hospitable to anyone, what with such a strong “culture of no”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. Here’s my latest column. Enjoy the rest of your summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Debito Arudou, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

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\nVisible Minorities: Japan\u2019s Cult of Miserable Happy<\/strong>
\nShingetsu News Agency, Column 13, AUG 24, 2020<\/strong>
\nBy DEBITO ARUDOU<\/strong>
\nhttp:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2020\/08\/24\/visible-minorities-japans-cult-of-miserable-happy\/<\/a><\/p>\n

…These are sobering times for Japan fans. Thanks to the pandemic, even the most starry-eyed and enfranchised foreigners are having their bubbles burst, realizing that their status in Japan, no matter how hard-earned, matters not one whit to Japan\u2019s policymakers.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As covered elsewhere, current immigration policy dictates that Japanese citizens can leave and re-enter the country at will, as long as they subject themselves to testing and quarantine upon return. But that doesn\u2019t apply to Japan\u2019s resident non-citizens.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite widespread protest (and some token revisions), they still generally get barred from re-entry, meaning thousands of foreign workers, spouses, and students are either stranded overseas, watching helplessly as their Japan livelihoods and investments dry up, or stranded in Japan unable to attend to family business or personal tragedy, at a time when thousands of people worldwide die of Covid daily.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Targeting all foreigners only as vessels of virus makes it clearer than ever that Japan\u2019s requirements for membership are racist. It strips yet another layer of credibility from the \u201cCool Japan\u201d trope, such as the overhyped \u201cculture of hospitality\u201d (omotenashi) during Japan\u2019s buildup to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Since this is an opportune time to remove layers of lies from Japan\u2019s narrative, let\u2019s address another one: That Japan is an unusually hospitable place…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the rest at http:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2020\/08\/24\/visible-minorities-japans-cult-of-miserable-happy\/<\/a><\/p>\n

======================
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SNA: These are sobering times for Japan fans. Thanks to the pandemic, even the most starry-eyed and enfranchised foreigners are having their bubbles burst, realizing that their status in Japan, no matter how hard-earned, matters not one whit to Japan\u2019s policymakers.<\/p>\n

As covered elsewhere, current Immigration policy dictates that Japanese citizens can leave and re-enter the country at will, as long as they subject themselves to testing and quarantine upon return. But that doesn’t apply to Japan\u2019s resident non-citizens, who still generally get barred from re-entry…<\/p>\n

Targeting all foreigners only as vessels of virus makes it clearer than ever that Japan\u2019s requirements for membership are racist. It strips yet another layer of credibility from the \u201cCool Japan\u201d trope, such as the overhyped \u201cculture of hospitality\u201d (omotenashi) during Japan\u2019s buildup to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.<\/p>\n

Since this is an opportune time to remove layers of lies from Japan\u2019s narrative, let\u2019s address another one: That Japan is an unusually hospitable place…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,18,36,22,34,33,5,12,4,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-academia","category-bad-social-science","category-cultural-issue","category-exclusionism","category-fingerprinting-nj","category-human-rights","category-immigration-assimilation","category-japanese-government","category-problematic-foreign-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16218"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16221,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16218\/revisions\/16221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}