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Notes -
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.
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.
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