>>>> ...and an offshore labour camp called Korea.
>>>>
>>>> Angela.
>>>
>>> Except that Japan departed those shores in 1945, the moment the, uh,
>>> "post-war" system that is now held in so low esteem began. If we want to
>>> talk about the occupying power that had much more to do with both Japanese
>>> and Korean development, we would do better to look to the U.S. Army and aid
>>> development programs (esp. in Korea).
>>>
>>> All best,
>>> Christian
>>
>>
>>Didn't Angela mean all the japanese companies that delocalized their
>>activity in Korea (but not only) for cheap labor ???
>>
>>JC Helary
>
> yes, and i should have mentioned as well the internal labour camp of
> 'ethnic koreans' in japan. (thinking here of Hick's _Japan's Hidden
> Apartheid_.)
I did not read the book but here are some stats about the number of registered "migrants" in Kagawa prefecture (where I live) and a proposal to answer you.
total pop (about) 1.030.000 (jap pop about 120.000.000) registered foreign pop (1998) 5453-0.5% (1.512.116-1.3%) incl.
1)china 1614 (29.6%) / 272.230 (18%) 2)korea (n&s) 1138 (20.9%) / 638.828 (42%) 3)filipines 900 (16.5%) / 105.308 (7%) 4)other asia 295 (5.4%) / 107.043 (7%) 5)center/south america 1059 (19.4%) / 274.442 (18%) 6)north america 193 (3.6%) / 54.700 (3.6%) [incl 80% (USA/CAN)] 7)europe 176 (3.2%) / 39.925 (2.6%) [1/3 from GB] 8)oceania, africa, others 78 (1.4%) / 19.640 (1.3%) [half Aus/NZ]
(an attempt to explain the differences between Kagawa and the national avrg comes at the end of the post for the people who are interested)
Among them, the biggest categories are : 1)foreigners who have blood ties with japanese (typicaly parent/child relation) 1029 2)"special" residents 1022 (I could not find a definition of what 'special' means) 3)descendants of japanese nationals 966 4)trainees 656 5)people working in relation with international treaties 300 6)'normal' residents 276
Even though the data does not mention the nationalities per category it is of common knowledge (but that can be questioned by more precise info) that :
'special' residents are mostly what we call here 'zainichi', which is the regular word for 'resident' but really means resident of korean nationality. There are chinese 'zainichi' also. They are people who have been in japan for many generations (fifth generation in certain cases). They were granted the right to vote before the war (until the 20's ?) but now are just like 'normal' residents legally speaking.
descendants of japanese nationals are typically coming from center and south america (but also from china and others). A lot of them have no knowledge of japanese and are here as cheap labor.
trainees (the data I have covers only the 'official' trainees coming through prefectoral or national - public- programs : only 296 people) come mostly from China (154) Malaisia (21) Bengladesh (19) Thailand/Korea (15/15) Filipines (13). It is considered that most of them (incl. the private programs) are cheap labor.
The filipinos work for a big part in the red light districts.
All this is approximate. When the data was published it was not considered 'correct' to show the relation between categories and nationalities (I was part of the 'editorial' group, and we were not given the right to ask the immigration office so we did not search this king of info)
Considering what I see, wich is very subjective, the cheapest labor is of course illegal residents (not mentioned above obviously) the official figure is about 300.000 for all Japan but I think it is a joke (don't ask me why). I attended a meeting in Tokyo the other day to support a group of people who had been here for years but had not been able to renew their (one year) visa, even the ngos there accepted the figure. I had the feeling they were accepting it because they don't want the administration to argue that if the figure is trully bigger then their is no way they'll grant a visa to the 21 demanders (yes, only 21, incl children who were born here, mostly iranian origins). Another feeling I have is that most illegal residents work in the construction industry. But the industry's practices (rigged bids, direct links with local politicians) makes me thing that their presence is necessary merely to make more profits because money is good, not so much to increase productivity because their is tough concurence on the market. That might explain the official low figure ???
The next cheapest labor seems to be category 3. They are people who are able to do only low skilled work mostly because of their lack of japanese ability. Still, some of them have received education (some are even specialists in their fields) in their home country so a few can go beyond the status of cheap laborer and actually settle in Japan.
Then comes 4, same language problem, they usually don't get money (or just pocket money or food allowance) but live in dorms or cheap places paid by their host institution. They are mostly specialists and get some training in japanese while they work in their field of speciality.
I would say (but I may be wrong) that next comes the Koreans (and other similarly long term residents). They all have a japanese education, have well established support networks that provide them with high profile jobs (for the most skilled) and have multiple ways to escape the segregation because they are asians (faking a japanese name, changing nationality...).
> economy. moreover, it is much easier to arrive at a sense of an
> egalitarian society, when those who are counted as citizens do not tend to
> occupy the lowest rungs of the labour market, whether they're in japan or
> offshore.
Well, as shown above, even though migrants (incl Koreans) probably play some part in the flexibility of Japan's economy. I really think more japanese than we accept to see "occupy the lowest rungs of the labour market". There was an article in Asahi the other day describing the labor situation of HS/uni graduates showing that less and less young people choose (or are given the choice) to have a first job in which they will stay more than 3 years and it includes a lot of min. wage temporary work (usualy paid 700yen/h). Even normal staff in companies or the public services are victims of a 'one year renewable contract' policy, which concerns mostly young women (I have no stats at hand to support that, sorry). Not even to mention the daily laborers (I think there is a book called 'San'ya blues' that acurately describes the daily labor market in Tokyo, plus accounts from priest-workers 'le clou qui depasse' in French, and others.)
So the labour camp you mention is filled mostly with 1)unskilled 2)young 3)women taken in whatever combination you like. the 0) [foreign residents] category is such a minority (less than 1.5% the population) that I don't think it plays such a determinant role.
> that's not to minimise the importance of the US occupation of japan and s
> korea; but it is to indicate the hidden reasons for what the article in
> question refers to as japan's 'egalitarianism' and 'socialism'.
>
> Angela
[for the cir list : the article mentioned here was published in the Financial Times. you can see it on http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0001/0335.html]
--differences between Kagawa and the national average--------
total pop (about) 1.030.000 (jap pop about 120.000.000) registered foreign pop (1998) 5453-0.5% (1.512.116-1.3%) incl. 1)china 1614 (29.6%) / 272.230 (18%) 2)korea (n&s) 1138 (20.9%) / 638.828 (42%) 3)filipines 900 (16.5%) / 105.308 (7%) 4)other asia 295 (5.4%) / 107.043 (7%) 5)center/south america 1059 (19.4%) / 274.442 (18%) 6)north america 193 (3.6%) / 54.700 (3.6%) incl 80% english speakers 7)europe 176 (3.2%) / 39.925 (2.6%) 1/3 from GB 8)oceania, africa, others 78 (1.4%) / 19.640 (1.3%) half Aus/NZ
1)Kagawa has a special relationship to the province of SenSei in China. The bouddhist priest who brought bouddhism to Japan was an official in Kagawa (old name Sanuki) before going to SenSei to study. The official 'modern' relation started about 12 years ago with a lot of exchange student, trainees,etc.
2)Kagawa is a quite rural area so Korean workers who came at the beginning at the century are relatively few, they mostly went to urban areas like Osaka (might be wrong, no stats)
3)Well, I can't say that Kagawa is known for it's red light districs, besides the fact that we have the longest covered shopping arcade in Japan (almost 3km) and that it's quite active at night. And reducing filipino immigration to this is probably far from the truth... Kagawa was the first prefecture to start programs of 'international weddings' in the country side to face the aging of the population. It concerned mostly filipino women.
4)no clue
5) at the end of the 19th century Kagawa was very poor, so a lot of families left to go to c/s-america. It probably compansates for the fact that the level of industrialization (seems to be/is ???) lower than the national average.
6)-7)-8) I guess the number of english conversation shools is equaly spread over the country... ---------------------------------------------------------------
Lunch Time !!!
Yours,
Jean Christophe Helary