18 comments on “My Japan Times JBC column 117: The annual Top Ten for 2019 of human rights issues as they affected NJ residents in Japan, Jan 6, 2020”

• January 6, 2020 at 6:21 pm

  AnonymousOG says:

  Another great article, Debito! 🙂

  I especially liked the final paragraph:

  “These bureaucrats need to step outside and take a look at how diverse Japan is becoming. In February, the country saw legislation passed that recognized the Ainu as an ‘indigenous’ people. Though several activist groups continue to criticize the law for not going far enough, it still means that Japan is now officially a multiethnic country.”

  Maybe next they can recognize the Ryuukyuu as an “indigenous” people as well. I won’t be holding my breath of course, but that should be the next logical step.

  First came the basically Caucasian Russian Ainu from the North, then came the darker Ryuukyuu from the South, and THEN came the Chinese/Koreans arriving to the party late and settling into the middle and calling themselves “Yamato”.

  Meaning, since the legislators finally (begrudgingly) passed legislation recognizing the Ainu as an ‘indigenous’ people, they should do the same with the Ryuukyuu.

  Thus Japan must recognize “The Japanese People” has consisted of THREE races/ethnicities for millennia.

  And then of course, Japan must recognize “The Japanese People” has consisted of FOUR races/ethnicities for the past century: the people whose ancestors arrived here over the past century from Korea, who (regardless of their continued love of their old culture, and their desire to not give up their old nationality) have been living in Japan for 4 generations.

  An ironic point to consider about that FOURTH group: these “century-in-Japan Koreans” are even CLOSER to the “millennia-in-Japan Chinese/Koreans who now call themselves Yamato”.

  The “millennia-in-Japan Chinese/Koreans who now call themselves Yamato” admittedly have grabbed a little bit of the white Ainu DNA and the dark Ryuukyuu DNA, even if just a tiny percent, while the “century-in-Japan Koreans” are comparatively relatively “purer”, haha.

  Hey you silly “Yamatos”, even though you don’t like the culture of these “century-in-Japan Koreans”, you must admit you are genetically CLOSER to them than you are to the Ainu and the Ryuukyuu whom you look down upon. Ha!

  Anyway, back to the list: Japan must recognize “The Japanese People” consists of:

  #1. The Ainu race/ethnicity,
  #2. The Ryuukyuu race/ethnicity,
  #3. The “Yamato” race/ethnicity,
  #4. The century-in-Japan Korean race/ethnicity,
  and last but not least (drum-roll please)
  #5. EVERY OTHER RACE/ETHNICITY OF EVERY OTHER HUMAN WHO IS A JAPANESE CITIZEN.

  Yep, “The Japanese People” consists of ALL those races/ethnicities, deal with it Japan. 🙂

  Reply
• January 7, 2020 at 2:23 am

  AS says:

  I live in Kawaguchi and was surprised to see this:
  “A quick internet search found that it is also in use in the cities of: Saitama and Kawaguchi in Saitama Prefecture; Hiroshima; Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, Yonago, Tottori Prefecture; Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture; the western Tokyo suburb of Hachioji and many more.”
  I googled it but only got 住民 to pop up so I’d like a link to refer to. I’m planning to write to the mayor if the city takes the same view to me/us as Nagoya does.

  Reply
  • January 7, 2020 at 12:49 pm

    AnonymousOG says:

    Good idea, concerned resident, here you are:

    https://tinyurl.com/KawaguchiCityGoogle
    https://tinyurl.com/KawaguchiCityRacism

    Page 1:
    “外国人住民とは、外国人の住民だけではなく、日本国籍を取得していても…”
    ~ Approved by Kawaguchi Mayor: Okunoki Nobuo
    https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/奥ノ木信夫

    But of course, he will probably simply claim “our noble goal with this definition and this campaign is to HELP you Citizen-of-Japan ‘Foreigners’ [sic], see?”

    (If he actually replies to you, you can scan and public post his letter of reply here since he’s on the public clock getting paid by your taxes when writing such official city propaganda and excuse letters.)

    http://www.debito.org/?p=15820
    http://www.debito.org/?p=15820#comment-1762142
    http://www.debito.org/?p=15820#comment-1762287
    http://www.debito.org/?p=15820#comment-1762394

    Reply
    • January 8, 2020 at 5:48 am

      AS says:

      Thanks for the sleuthing. The document is listed for Heisei 28 so I’ll scope around for the latest one on the city website.

      I used the websites 市長への手紙 portal once before and was surprised to not only get a response (not from the mayor himself but from the relevant dept. for my inquiry), but they actual did carry out what I requested (installation of a mirror for cars near where I live since it was basically blind to pedestrians). So I have SOME hope, but I’ll have to word things well.

      Last time, I received a phone call instead of a written message so we’ll see how things go this time around.

      Reply
• January 8, 2020 at 5:57 am

  AS says:

  I haven’t gone through it with a fine comb, but the latest version of the document has removed the culprit #3 from the definitions in both the zenpen and honpen PDFs.
  https://www.city.kawaguchi.lg.jp/material/files/group/26/dai2zi(zenpen).pdf

  https://www.city.kawaguchi.lg.jp/material/files/group/26/H30sisinhonpen.pdf

  I don’t know if it was deliberate or if the “first” paper established it and was therefore removed???

  Still, I plan to write some kind of letter to have my voice heard.

  Reply
  • January 8, 2020 at 12:47 pm

    AnonymousOG says:

    So a concerned resident like yourself must have already complained, so Kawaguchi City Hall (and probably other City Halls as well) thus decided based on those complaints to hide their original “Foreigners who became citizens of Japan, and half-breeds who were born citizens of Japan, and quarter-breeds who were born citizens of Japan, are all still forever 外国人住民/市民/区民” definition.

    But still the definition must have existed quite clearly in the minds of the MANY city hall workers (in many cities throughout Japan) who wrote that definition in the first place and allowed it to continue through many rounds of editing and the mayors who gave the final approval before the initial publishing.

    And yes, as you wisely realized, there is the distinct possibility that: since the original version included that definition, perhaps the subsequent versions deleting it WITHOUT writing any change-of-definition in subsequent printings thus allows them to quietly keep in place their original “Citizens of Japan with foreign ethnic roots are 外国人住民” definition, with the added bonus of being able to easily evade future complaints about their no-longer-mentioned (yet actually-unchanged) original definition.

    Anyway, I think it’s interesting to see some of the comments which they published, and wonder how many even worse comments they hid.

    From the “no more definition mentioned” new version in the first link you shared, here are some of the opinions from the “real 日本人住民” which the Kawaguchi City Hall workers and Mayor felt were OK to publish:

    ・外国人が増えれば色々な問題（マイナス面）が生じる、外国人の住み易い街づくりには懸念する。
    When foreigners increase various negative problems occur, I worry about a city easy for foreigners to live in.

    ・外国人に対し甘すぎる。
    We Japanese are being too naive about the foreigners.

    ・外国人受け入れ推進に疑問を感じる。外国人が増えることは町会では対応できない。
    I feel suspicion about the promotion of allowing foreigners. The increase of foreigners cannot be dealt with by town councils.

    ・多文化共生を推進していくには、実態を把握しなければならない。このアンケートの内容では、十分ではありません！ある規模以上のワンルームマンション及びマンション管理組合に同様の調査を行うべきであります。川口駅周辺は、中国人で溢れており、危機感を持って対応をお願いしたい。
    The truth about the promotion of moving towards multi-cultural-existence must be understood. This questionnaire’s contents are not enough! This same survey needs to be conducted with apartment management associations. Kawaguchi Station area is overflowing with Chinese, I beg you to deal with this with a sense of impending crisis.

    ・中国の方が多すぎます。他の国の方とのバランスとってください。特に西口公園で集団たむろしていて、当マンションの方は、あまり感じのいい光景でないと言っています。
    There are too many Chinese. Please get a balance of other countries. Especially the the group of Chinese gathered near West Exit Park, the Chinese people at this apartment are not a good sight.

    ・日本人との対応が無理、特にクルド人は無理です。
    It’s impossible for Foreigners to correspond with we Japanese, the Kurds are especially impossible.

    ・日本人が外国に移住しても、日本の良い所、特に農業を教える事ができるが、そこで信頼関係が生まれまた親切な国柄が良い結果を生んでいると思う。しかし、外国人住民から教えられる事は無い状況で、仲良くは無理と思う。
    Even if we Japanese migrate to a foreign country, we can teach Japan’s good points to foreign countries, we can especially teach agriculture, thereby producing a relationship of trust, and a friendly national character produces good results. However, since the reality is there is nothing for us Japanese to learn from foreigner residents, it’s impossible for us to get along.

    ・外国は外国人に対し、観光以外の入国は厳しいのが現状です。ビザを取るのも厳しい国もあります。日本は表向き厳しいが、現状は甘い。外国人受け入れは将来を考えて！
    The reality is foreign countries are strict about allowing people in except for tourists. There are also countries where it’s even hard to get a visa. Japan’s outward appearance is of being strict like that, but the reality is Japan is being too lenient about allowing foreigners in. About allowing foreigners in: think about the future!

    ・町会法人化を目指しております。全住民から外国人住民を除外することはできないでしょうか？
    People are waking up to the town council incorporation. Can’t we exclude foreigner residents from the general residents group?

    Wow. And those were all cleaned up during editing by city workers before publication. Who knows what kind of worse replies they received which they hid from any such questionnaire-answer publications, as well as of course the even worse deeply-hidden-本音 opinions which people didn’t openly write down in the first place.

    By the way: Congratulations on having managed to successfully convince city hall to do their job of putting up a Safety Mirror at a deadly 死角blind-corner, fellow caring human. I’ll toot my horn for a moment by bragging about the fact I’ve successfully gotten my local city hall to do the same for 4 死角s in my area, and of course I had to fight tooth and nail each time, with a worker in the deciding Safety section once even admitting in the heat of the debate that he is (illogically) AGAINST any such mirrors being put up at all, since “People being able to see what’s coming on the other side of the blind-corner just makes them drive faster!” Yeah pal, perhaps that’s the kind of crazy driving you and people like you do, but try telling that “mirrors at blind-corners are dangerous” theory to the parents in our city who I consoled at the funeral of their 14-year-old daughter killed due to the lack of a safety mirror at a blind corner (by a truck driver doing the illegal-yet-done-by-everyone-daily-in-Japan selfish act of not stopping behind the stop-sign-line 停止線.) But I digress.

    Reply
    • January 8, 2020 at 6:17 pm

      Niklas says:

      „Even if we Japanese migrate to a foreign country, we can teach Japan’s good points to foreign countries, we can especially teach agriculture, thereby producing a relationship of trust, and a friendly national character produces good results. However, since the reality is there is nothing for us Japanese to learn from foreigner residents, it’s impossible for us to get along.“

      Is that guy for real? Did he ever hear about the Meiji era, or how the US rebuild Japan after WW2. Japan wouldn‘t be as economically developed as it is today without the help from these foreign countries and people. And how did he even manage to bring up agriculture? Japan is definitely not famous for that. They are importing more than 60% of their agricultural products, which means that less than 40% are produced in Japan.

      But yeah, it‘s very interesting what kind of comments people manage to post. Sometimes I can‘t believe how dense some people are.

      Reply
    • January 15, 2020 at 7:20 pm

      AS says:

      I sent off the letter (a real letter) yesterday. Time will tell how city hall will respond.

      Reply
• January 8, 2020 at 7:47 pm

  TJJ says:

  外国人に対し甘すぎる
  We overly dote on foreigners.

  I hear that one all the time. I ask them to point out with specific examples how foreigners have it easy in Japan. The examples given are always something stupid like “people will give you directions on the street” or “signs are in English” or “large dating pool” or something like that.

  But the reality is there are only a few countries in the world where it is considered normal for the police force to stop people because they look foreign and ID check them. Among those countries are China, Japan and the two Koreas. They are also the only countries with full on family registers to record all changes in legal status of individuals. Japan may have a modern veneer but if you scratch the surface you see that their police and legal system is governed by an authoritarian government that wants to control its subjects to the fullest extent and enforce racial narratives to suit its needs. Look at how quickly the corrupt police force bowed down to Nissan and arrested the foreigner before they even had a working idea of what crime they suspected him of. The police force serve the erai-asiajin and if you are NJ then that is not you.

  Reply
  • April 30, 2021 at 4:44 pm

    Geoff says:

    Thank you TJJ

    Ive just discovered this site and Im slowly coming to the realization that it is exactly as you say:”Japan may have a modern veneer but if you scratch the surface you see that their police and legal system is governed by an authoritarian government…” In the popular mindset I know me and my friends think of China like that but we had bought into what I now call the “saké flavored Kool-Aid”. Up until a short time ago I did not know this site existed and now that I do Im reading as much as I can. Ive decided that Ghosn is correct about Japan. I think Ill pick somewhere else to study.

    Reply
• January 8, 2020 at 8:47 pm

  TJJ says:

  外国人住民から教えられる事は無い状況で

  “We have nothing to learn from gaijin…”

  Wow, the hubris. Nothing to learn except:

  – humility
  – your place in the world
  – the fact that you have been brainwashed by government controlled Japanese media since birth.

  Reply
• January 8, 2020 at 9:20 pm

  TJJ says:

  So….every Japanese person knows more about everything than a “foreigner resident” so it is impossible for them to get along…

  I am speechless…

  Reply
• January 8, 2020 at 10:21 pm

  Jim Di Griz says:

  I’m neither surprised nor speechless. Japan’s got a society brainwashed with etho-nationalist racial superiority myths that teaches no critical thinking. It’s no wonder that this results in a total lack of self-awareness.
  Which in turn leads the Japanese to become offended by suggestions that would improve anything, and double-down on failing and bad ideas instead of trying anything new. The individual imperative is simply not to fall foul of social ‘norms’ that could have a disastrous effect on career and pursuit of the ‘dreamy day’ fantasies required to numb the senses to the shocking reality of an insane culture stumbling down the road to extinction by its own making.
  The worse it gets, the more shrill, butt-hurt, entitled, less tolerant and indignant this society has become. I’ve experienced it happen over twenty years.

  Reply
• January 9, 2020 at 7:59 am

  realitycheck says:

  I am not at all surprised by such attitudes on the part of some Japanese citizens. I keep hearing about how Japan is changing yet in truth its capital city Tokyo seems to me and other foreign residents who have lived in other countries’ cities to be quite unsophisticated with a racist undercurrent of resentment against non Japanese that spills over into public displays of this for those who actually move about in daily life on the transportation, deal personally with ward offices and the system here etc.

  This is despite the official PR and even that of foreign producers of free papers and magazines or the selected token gaijin in the public eye who push the words ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusivity’ but are too firmly situated in their privileged bubbles to see that not many foreigners share their lifestyles

  Japan actually seems to have regressed since many of us first came here. Again it is the resentment we are experiencing and just how deep this runs is shown by the samples of bigoted Japanese citizens who voice such bigotry and also intellectually immature views while at the same time praising themselves for being Japanese.

  The impoverishment of public life and social commentary here in Japan results in attitudes held by too many that seem very odd by comparison to the reality of the 21st century and the fact that Japan is a full and supposedly willing participant in the international community and of course reaped the rewards economically because of this and not because somehow it became an economic power in isolation.

  Without other and freer countries’ technology etc, Japan would still be making the cheap and nasty stuff it used to be infamous for in the 1950s. Inventions and socio-economic and political changes do not come from within structures such as those Japan traditionally had.

  Yet even in 2020 we see a resurgence in sakoku thinking aided and abetted in various ways, subtle and not by the status quo. The bigots who make the kinds of comments quoted are also not aware and or intelligent enough to understand that the 2 million or so non Japanese living and working in Japan are doing so primarily because Japan desperately needs our skills and above all our taxes.

  It’s essentially about an ageing society that deludes itself it is somehow going to keep going without the consequences that eventually befall every society that doesn’t change its thinking. All the lip service paid by Japanese politicians, professionals and every day Japanese to the need for more foreign workers because of an ageing population doesn’t change the fact that guest workers instead of immigrants are uppermost in the majority’s thoughts.

  The underlying hostility to non Japanese is expressed in different ways by all ages among too many Japanese – it’s not just bitter older people who are unhappy with a society that they do nothing to change because collectively Japanese have chosen to make a virtue of the things that limit them, give them one of the highest suicide and now family murder rates in the world and drive their odd isolation from each other while proclaiming they are one blood and one race and hence – as well as us.

  It’s called having your cake and eating it too. Decry a small increase in foreigners by international standards while milking them in the income tax and health and pension systems to support your declining social capital because you feel you are entitled to stay the same while most of the world changes.

  Reply
• January 11, 2020 at 7:50 pm

  Max Gonzalez says:

  On the subject of state sponsored Japanese lessons, I got some questions. See, awhile back someone on Facebook shared an article about that (sorry, forget where, I’ll see if I can dig it up), and it left me wondering who’s going to teach it? How serious are they going to be about it? Usually when I’ve gone to city Japanese lessons here in Fukuoka there’s almost always a questionnaire that asks “when will you go home?” and it annoys the hell out of me. I’m thisclose to posting a vulgar response…

  Reply
• January 13, 2020 at 11:25 pm

  Mumei says:

  > The Ainu Recognition Law passes last February, meaning Japan is officially multiethnic.

  Unfortunately the Deputy Prime Minister (and ex-Prime Minister) Tarō Asō seems to be unfamiliar with this official recognition. Just on the 13th he stated that Japan is a “single race”, and has been for been “two thousand years”, speaking “a single language”.

  麻生副総理がまた不適切発言　地元・福岡で「日本は一つの民族」
  https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/17658266/

  Reply
• January 17, 2020 at 10:42 pm

  Jim Di Griz says:

  On the face of it, this appears good, right? 75% of Japanese think Japan should become more hospitable to foreign residents;

  https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/18/national/75-percent-japanese-foreign-residents/

  But I can’t help wondering what percentage of foreign residents think that Japan should be more hospitable to foreign residents? Why didn’t they try something out-of-the-box? Y’know? Gee, what could they have tried instead?….Oh! Why didn’t they just try asking foreign residents? They know what they need instead of being told what they need by the 75%.

  Reply
  • May 3, 2021 at 7:12 am

    TJJ says:

    foreign residents don’t vote and therefore their opinion does not count.

    Reply