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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   6149 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 21, 2023

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That's funny, when I was in Japan recently I was thinking there seemed to be way more than 2.3% of the population non-Japanese as officially claimed. I always thought racial statistics in the US seemed pretty accurate though, how do you think they might be different?

I went to Japan a few years back and would’ve thought 2.3% to be an overestimate! I was in a road trip around Kyushu at the time. Before that I’ve gone to Hokkaido and around Honshu as well, and my impression is that 2.3% is probably too high for most prefectures.

Were you in Tokyo (+ surrounding cities) or Kyoto perchance?

I was staying in a suburb of Tokyo but have been as far south as Hiroshima and as far north as a few hours north of Tokyo by train. I've visited small towns and big ones, there are definitely more foreigners in Tokyo and Kyoto but there are still a lot outside the major cities too.

This page claims that most of the foreigners who live in Japan are Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Filipino, combined making up 77% of all foreigners in Japan. So these are basically "invisible" minorities to me as I can't really quickly identify those ethnicities apart from Japanese (unless I hear them talk or they're like, obnoxiously stereotypically nouveau riche Chinese or particularly non-Asian looking Filipino) which means that only (less than) 1.771 percent of the Japanese population is a visible minority to me and it seems impossible. I saw tons of Indians/South Asians followed by tons of whites and a fair number of blacks (mostly appearing to be from rich western countries like the US though also- Kenyans or Nigerians or wherever the guys at the bars in Kabukicho are from.) I don't know how I can account for tourism- I'm guessing if even as much as 80% of the white and black people I saw were there as tourists it still leaves tons of people who live there full time. I doubt most of the Indians/SA people I saw were just tourists because many of them work at convenience stores and there are tons and tons of Indian, Nepalese and Bengladeshi restaurants.

Granted I still hear small children in large groups say "gaijin! gaijin!" when I walk past them, I make shop clerks in department stores so uncomfortable that they hide when they see me and shop clerks in small stores will like, cower in the back room when I come in some times so I'm definitely still enough of an outsider as a white man to cause anxieties among the Japanese (and before you think I'm criticizing them in any way or that I'm implying that I expect different treatment- I'm not and I don't! I wish every country was an ethnostate with a rich indigenous culture and I aim to make my presence as unobtrusive as possible) but in no way do I feel like I'm a 1.7 percent rarity as a visible minority in Japan, it has to be closer to like 5 percent (granted I don't know how I could objectively gauge this seeing as I'm white.) I will say that Japan is still far, far more ethnically homogenous than anywhere else on the planet I've been, it's very common that I'm the only non-Asian when I'm on train cars or at restaurants but it never feels like it's the case 98% of the time, it seems closer to like 90 or 95 percent of the time.

it's very common that I'm the only non-Asian when I'm on train cars or at restaurants but it never feels like it's the case 98% of the time

Keep in mind, if you're looking at a room of let's say ten randomly selected people, you've rolled the gaijin spotting dice ten times, not just once.

0.98 to the power of 10 = about 82% probability of not seeing a gaijin ten times in a row.

I mean, you're a visiting foreigner so you're probably going to go to places where there are more visiting foreigners than average.

I did take that into consideration as well, I was in Japan for three months and lived in a random Tokyo suburb but traveled to small towns while I was there and I've been to Japan two other times before covid also and generally avoid touristy places like the plague and I'm basing my observations on all that, not as a random tourist who flew to tokyo for 2 weeks and took the shinkansen to Kyoto and back

See my reply to 2Rafa

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