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While I was thinking about moving permanently to Japan, I had a fun notice: in order to get japanese citizenship, I have to give up mine russian and I could be counted as a traitor in Russia (no peace treaty for 74 years and counting!).

Everything you are talking about regarding Japanese citizenship is true, although you are framing it as if it's something that is written in stone and immutable. Some of the ethnic Koreans in Japan are descendants from the Koreans that were __forcibly__ moved to Japan during Japanese occupation pre-WW2. It would only make sense to have some special exceptions for them. The occupation ended, and they didn't choose to be there in the first place.

EDIT: regarding the ethnic Koreans forced labor in Japan, see this reference :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Japan#World_War_II

[...] 670,000 Koreans, were conscripted into labor [...], about 60,000 died [...] Many were stripped of their nationality and denied repatriation by Japan.

The plural of anecdote is not data. And Korean people have been oppressed in the past, and no attempt to rectify the situation has been made by the government. That's why a lot of Korean people born in Japan gravitate towards less savoury activities.

Plus, Japanese took Chinese and Korean women and forced them to become whores or "comfort women" for the Japanese soldiers stationed in the mainland. As recently as 2014 the Prime Minister of Japan said there was no evidence that the Japanese government took "slaves".

And the second point, which you don't touch upon, is if you look even vaguely Japanese at all, you are expected to follow all the social norms. If you don't, they give you a pass.

I already mentioned that Koreans in Japan have obtained a special status that is AFAIK better than any other nationality as a direct result of WW2. As an example of an attempt to rectify things what about this long list of official apologies that are somehow forgotten in this kind of "discussion"? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statemen... And you are again being disingenuous with what you care to mention. From the list above: January 1, 1992: Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, in a press conference, said: "Concerning the comfort women, I apologize from the bottom of my heart and feel remorse for those people who suffered indescribable hardships". Are you perhaps trying to raise the bar? In 10 other official apologies the suffering of the comfort women is acknowledged. You will also see that the Japanese government didn't only spend words on this issue, but also allocated funds.

From the very article you are citing :

March 1, 2007: Prime Minister Shinzō Abe stated in a newspaper article that there was no evidence that the Japanese government had kept sex slaves, even though the Japanese government had already admitted the use of brothels in 1993.

Your quote doesn't invalidate anything I wrote. My response proved jimmywanger's claim "no attempt to rectify the situation has been made by the government" to be false. Also note how he moved the goalposts. In his original post he talks about how Koreans are oppressed, while in the second post he changed it to have been oppressed in the past. I have no interest in discussing the definition of "slave". I do find it irritating he brought up WW2 within 2 hours after the article was posted, just because it was about Japan. I get the impression he just wanted to use the opportunity to bad-mouth Japan.

> I do find it irritating he brought up WW2 within 2 hours after the article was posted, just because it was about Japan. I get the impression he just wanted to use the opportunity to bad-mouth Japan.

Trying to read somebody's motives (who you have never met) is mostly incorrect. Japanese people in Japan are incredibly racist towards other Asian people. And the Japanese government is backpedaling and still visits a shrine with convicted war criminals celebrated as casualties.

> and still visits a shrine with convicted war criminals celebrated as casualties.

Not trying to be apologetic, but I recently learned that the Yasukuni shrine is _also_ the "home" of Sakamoto Ryōma and others involved in the Tokugawa shogunate overthrow and the following Meiji restoration, so it's not /that/ simple.

Survivors of the so-called "comfort women" issue have focused on changing the stance of the Japanese government and less on seeking compensation (most survivors are now decreased anyway, soon there will be nothing available to compensate). When the government allocates funds and at the same time disagrees the issue, it is natural to think that it wants to wait til a storm of publicity ends---a good reason to be condemned. Also note that the government's opinion on the issue has been steadily deteriorated since 2010, as jimmywanger correctly puts. It's right to worry about.

Why the downvotes?

From 2018:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/12/national/politi...

"The plural of anecdote is not data."

Then present some data other than a wikipedia article which doesn't appear to support your case.

The wikipedia article indicates that as recently as 2007, the Prime Minister of Japan did not believe that the Japanese government seized the comfort women by force[0].

When we riot over Confederate statues, and yet we're ok with their government officials visiting shrines which celebrate war criminals[1]?

Of course the United States is not blameless. We gave amnesty to the leaders of Camp 731 in exchange for experimental knowledge and the Tuskegee experiments are of course unforgivable.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women#History_of_the_i... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine#Post-war_issue...

You're talking about the Japanese PM, and it's possible to make a case that current and past PMs have been racist.

That's not the same as saying that the population in general are racist and Asians are oppressed i.e.: "if you're Asian and not Japanese, they look down on you. Read about ethnic Koreans in Japan and how they're oppressed"

So... data that shows that non-Japanese Asians are oppressed in Japan?

On top of that, is there data that shows that racism in Japan is quantitatively worse than other countries?

I don't know about quantitatively worse. But if you look here, a UN rep stated that Japanese racism "primarily affects three groups: national minorities, descendants of former Japanese colonies, and foreigners from other Asian countries"[0]. He also said that racism was "deep and profound." This was in 2005. We're (United States) still trying to get rid of racism, even after the civil rights movement of 1950. Racism doesn't go away after 12 years.

Which goes back to my ORIGINAL POINT which is that if you're a non-Japanese Asian in Japan, you got nothing coming.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_issues_in_Japan#Comment...

ok, so... no data then, just a series of quotes and observations about individuals.

I'd honestly be interested in learning about racism in Japan, and if it is different/worse than other countries. But all that's been presented is anecdotes.

I cited wikipedia and a UN observer. What else do you want as data? Survey data? Who would answer a survey asking if you were racist, specifically if you're racist towards certain ethnic groups? What are you realistically asking for that will change your mind?

Yes, survey data. And to be clear, the world value survey has asked questions covering racism. In particular:

"Would you accept someone of a different race as a neighbour?"

and

"How often do you see racist behaviour in your neighbourhood?"

You could also look at mobility of foreign workers of as opposed to native workers of a similar background. Unfortunately the world value survey results don't really support your case. You'd want the racism broken down by ethnicity I guess if you believe that the Japanese are particularly racist against other Asians.

The refugee figures help support the idea that Japan is more racist (Japan accept far fewer refugees than other countries), but as this is a political issue, rather than based on the reaction of individual Japanese people, it's harder to draw conclusions from this.

But yes, I don't really find a comment by an individual, or unquantified data from wikipedia very compelling.

I think xenophobia is a great marker for racism.

Here's a wiki article for racism and xenophobia in South Korea: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_South_Korea

Interesting, by the World Value Survey figures South Korea looks worse than Japan overall. 34.1% of people mentioned that they would not want a person of a different race as a neighbour, as opposed to 22.3% in Japan.

I was still shocked by how high the numbers are for Japan. It's mostly dominated by people over 50 (27.8%) those under 29 only replied positively 10.5% of the time.

The numbers for the US are fascinating too. Overall only 5.6% of people said they wouldn't want a person of a different race as a neighbour. But the trend is the opposite to Japan, 6% of people under 29 said they would not want a person of a different race as a neighbour (4.7% of people over 50).

That young people on average are less likely to want a person of a different race as a neighbour in the US is surprising to me.

> Interesting, by the World Value Survey figures South Korea looks worse than Japan overall. 34.1% of people mentioned that they would not want a person of a different race as a neighbour, as opposed to 22.3% in Japan.

Is that enough? Other countries are more racist - East/South Asia is in general extremely tribal and racist. Thai people hate Vietnamese, Koreans and Chinese HATE Japanese, and Chinese people look down on South East asians, and the Japanese look down at everybody. Pakistanis and Indians mutually hate each other, Taiwanese look down on Mainlanders, and Northern Chinese look down on the Southern Chinese for eating strange things and being sly/tricky, whereas the Southern Chinese look down on the Northern Chinese for drinking too much and getting into fights.

> The numbers for the US are fascinating too. Overall only 5.6% of people said they wouldn't want a person of a different race as a neighbour. But the trend is the opposite to Japan, 6% of people under 29 said they would not want a person of a different race as a neighbour (4.7% of people over 50).

Like I said, I'm not saying other countries aren't racist. I'm saying that the Japanese are incredibly racist towards other Asians.

> Like I said, I'm not saying other countries aren't racist. I'm saying that the Japanese are incredibly racist towards other Asians.

You have supplied no data to support this statement, beyond anecdotes.

The data I've seen doesn't support the notion that the Japanese are "incredibly racist" against anyone at all.

According to the xenophobia study, even people under 29 in Japan are twice as likely as the entire US population to object to the presence of neighbors of a different race. Older people are four times as likely to object. And with a UN observer saying the racism is primarily directed towards other Asian people which is more than an "anecdote" despite your assertion since he was sent there to assess this specifically, I have to say that I'm not quite sure what you're saying. How do you design a study about the targets of racism that people answer? You're asking for data that has an extraordinarily low probably of existing and trumpeting the fact that of course you are right, because you insist on numbers, any numbers.

1 in 10 people being racist wouldn't really qualify as being "incredibly racist" in my view. Perhaps "incredibly racist" isn't a very useful term anyway.

Yes, it's important to look at data rather than anecdotes. We can both pick anecdotes to support different arguments. I could point out for example that the 4th largest company in Japan was founded by someone of Korean decent...

Yes, there is racism in Japan. Yes, racism is more socially acceptable than in the US. Yes, it seems likely that it is more often directed against Asian neighbours. You have not presented any data that suggests that it is "incredibly racist" in Japan.

I would be interest in further data that quantifies the racism in Japan. Rather than a series of anecdotes that seem to support an opinion you've already formed.