Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

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My jarring awakening to the importance of genetic and cultural Japanese-ness in Japan was when that girl won the Miss Japan pageant. She was seen as not-Japanese as she was white. Which I hadn't thought would be a problem. (Maybe it was foolish of me, but to be fair they had actually already had a black Miss Japan. So why wouldn't they accept a white one?) Anyway, it culminated in that girl giving up the crown but it taught me an important lesson after several conversations with friends.

Japanese-ness is not some backward notion from a time that the world has advanced beyond. They take Japanese-ness extremely seriously. One ignores it to their own detriment. As that particular Miss Japan contestant found out.

And as, I suspect, many foreign residents of Japan will find out in the coming years. It's unfortunate.

But culture above everything I guess?

If a democracy votes to not allow foreigners in, and to lower their standard of living year after year, and die out as the birth rate declines - I think it is the will of the citizens

Well, true.

Sigh.

>and to lower their standard of living year after year, and die out as the birth rate declines

Eventually the population will get low enough that standards of living start improving because there's so much land and resources per person, and the Japanese birth rate will start rising again. Which won't happen if they keep importing foreigners to compete with Japanese youth for resources.

Lower GDP doesn't mean to lower standard of living, if it is due to lower population. Similarly, more foreigners doesn't mean better standard of living. There is no point in increasing the GDP if this doesn't translate.

Check the EU: millions of foreigner have arrived in the past 20 years, yet EU's GDP has been growing very little during the same time

It cuts deeper than that. Second generation ethnic Japanese who grow up outside the country are not treated as fully Japanese.

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