The week before I go to a foreign country, I like to read the country’s newspaper. It gives me a feel for the country, and what atmosphere I’ll be tossed into when I arrive. It doesn’t always help: I don’t think anything would have prepared me for arriving in Italy during election season. The Communist rallies were quite the spectacle. As were the Nationalist rallies. And the Socialist rallies.
Lately I’ve been reading the Daily Yomiuri, the English version of Japan’s top-selling newspaper. The Yomiuri is actually the most-read newspaper on the planet, read by over one and a half million people daily. It’s a bit right of center, but well-written even in English.
Here’s something that caught my eye in the Yomiuri today:
Chinese become the largest foreign group in Japan.
There are a couple things to point out here. Minority groups in Japan are a bit different from minority groups in the United States. Historically, Japan has taken drastic steps to prevent immigration and naturalization, mostly successfully: 99.9% of the population is ethnic Japanese (Japan Statistics Bureau, accessed 23 May 2008.) In the country’s less recent history, xenophobia ran rampant: the Ainu people (a distinct ethnic group native to the North of the main Japanese islands, who spoke a language somewhere in between Japanese and Russian) were mostly killed off by ethnic Japanese people a few hundred years ago. Today, ethnic Ainu are usually unaware of their identity, kept in the dark by their family to prevent discrimination. More recently, immigration quotas and harsh requirements for naturalization have effectively encouraged homogeneity. Japan is not accustomed to immigration, and 600,000 foreign-born Chinese is enough to ignite tension.
It’s important to remember that tension between groups of people is a global phenomenon. Even in countries with incredibly low rates of immigration, groups will clash. Humans are instinctively inclined to be wary of differences and although many point to this instinct as barbaric and shameful (which may well be true), it is nevertheless a part of our identity as a civilization and as a species. Ironically, we allow much xenophobia to exist by refusing to accept this fact: intolerance is often perceived as an immature reaction reserved for the intellectually bankrupt, not a natural instinct innate to all of us. If our species has one saving grace, however, it is our ability to tame our instincts by becoming aware of them. Although 600,000 persons may seem trivial compared to the scale of our South and Central American immigration, ethnic tension does not depend on proportion, but perception, and keeping our natural inclinations in mind will ultimately enable us to create a less-tense future.
Followup:
This story was in today’s paper:
Nationality Law unconstitutional/Out-of-wedlock children are Japanese
FTA: “The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that denying Japanese nationality to children born out of wedlock to Japanese fathers and foreign mothers is unconstitutional, overturning a lower court decision.
Ruling in favor of all 10 plaintiffs in two cases, the top court found it unconstitutional that Japanese citizenship was denied to children who were born out of wedlock to Japanese fathers and Filipino mothers, even though the fathers later acknowledged paternity. The plaintiffs currently hold Philippine nationality.”
