I wonder if this one holds true if you compare populations and definitions.
Japan is far more homogeneous, so Japanese people interact with people of other races less, by lack of opportunity. Itâs not as though there is racial harmony instead.
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But this homogeneity results in less racial friction which is a good thing in the end, also for foreigners.
I would prefer multiracial fraction free cultures btw but looking at reality it seems a far way to go.
Is it? I think this is a major reason that many landlords refuse to rent to non-Japanese people and that people will say they donât like/hate [people of race/nationality] because of one uncomfortable or bad experience with them
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What you describe surely is a problem in Japan!
But the same thing happens to you in Vienna,
thatâs why foreigners tend to live in foreigner districts,
they cannot find an apartment in a âgoodâ area easily.
With racial frictions I meant another level,
like eg you are being shot on the street because you look different or you are belonging to another religion.
These things just donât happen in Japan (at least I havenât heard about it).
I donât consider that as a good thing. It just the opposite problem of what the US currently has.
I prefer a multi-cultural environment country.
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Well, we already established that youâre extremely unlikely to be shot at all in Japan, for any reason. Yes, thatâs a good thing, but itâs not racial harmony that is the reason you wonât be shot.
You already said youâd change the âno racial hate crimeâ thing, so I get that youâre just saying itâs less, but itâs odd to me to suggest that the high level of homogeneity is a positive for minorities.
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That sounds indeed contra intuitive.
But it is based on the experience that my home country changed from a very homogenous to a multi cultural society in the last 30 years,
and along this change some frictions occurred that now in turn affect all foreigners in a negative way (like ghettos, decreased quality of public schools etc).
There has been on the other hand a change in mentality to be more open (just a tiny little bit and on the surface) but on the other hand the public opinion changed dramatically against almost any foreigner now so I think altogether the situation is worse now.
Maybe Japan will not face the same problems because the are going internationally in a much much lower speed and things might turn out completely different (I hope so, for the sake of my kids).
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To me thatâs just going from one type of bad situation for minorities to a different type of bad situation for minorities. Just because there was less âvisible frictionâ before doesnât mean that minorities werenât being discriminated against. It would just be thought of as ânot a big dealâ because theyâre a small percentage of everyone.
It seems like youâre actually talking about how bad the âfrictionâ impacts the majority population.
And yes, Japanese people are not generally going to be aware of the problems of minorities. Theyâre not going to be impacted by that kind of thing.
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One example:
When I was a child there was one foreigner in my primary school class. He learned German within one year, spoke a perfect countryside dialect, made an education that enabled him to work for a high salary, decided to become a photographer, was able to get that additional education for free and now he is working in his dream job it seems.
Was his life easy as half Asian on the countryside where he was the only one? No I donât think so. But he has a lot of friends.
30 years later, the public schools in Vienna are so multilingual that German is only spoken by about one or two kids if any in a classroom. The children donât learn to speak German, nor English and in any case they donât receive a formal education in their mother tongues. As a result they have no chance in the job market, and live on social insurance or low income jobs to a very high percentage. Most of them seem very frustrated. But they have a parallel society that gives them support.
What is better? I donât know. But at the moment I am really happy that I can send my kids to public schools and in the end of the day they speak perfect Japanese without any effort and extra tuition fees.
(I would be more happy if I would have a foreigners community in my neighborhood btw)
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Iâm going to refrain from discussing anecdotes. (Mention of the Sri Lankan woman before just to refute the idea that the total racial justice problems was ânoneâ. No one disputes that some people might have pleasant lives as minorities)
What language are they teaching classes in if itâs not German, English, or any studentsâ mother language.
As an aside, the thread has been officially completely derailed⊠so probably best for me to just drop out.
I agree, this has derailed too much.
This is my final reply:
They are teaching in German of course, but almost no child is good at it with 16, this is becoming a problem now.
Unfortunately, from the news I catch from time to time and the people I encounter daily (also Austria, yay), this sounds fairly plausible.
But I also have to agree with Leebo (not tagging 
). Quite a bit is happening in Japan as well, but that I hear mostly from colleagues who live there, because on the news itâs mostly: people driving into trees, people driving into cyclists, cars driving into other cars (Japan, reallyâŠ). Also, floods and fires.
Just like the OP I would like to move to Japan in a very foreseeable future, but Iâm trying to take into account that the cleaner grass still has probably the same shade of blue
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You will like Japan, the grass is cleaner and blue. 
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Just out of curiosity - this topic is now roughly one month old, meaning 8 month remain until McYodo will start his asian adventure.
Howâs the progress going?
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Seems like they have remained to level 2 after a month so I wonder too if the progress has been somewhere
Iâve recently found the movingtojapan subreddit, and they have a wiki about visas. If you havenât yet gotten a chance to research the topic in depth, I recommend looking over it:
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Thanks for the link, I am interested in moving to Japan for a short to long term position.
I spotted the same username on renshuu.org hopefully he heeds everyoneâs warningâs and doesnât do Something to get deported
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