JC Helary added:
>1,500,000 registered foreign nationals (1.2% >of the population) -you have
to register if >you stay for more than 90 days- about >300,000 visa
overstayers, a totally unknown >count of people who entered illegally.
>4,500,000 foreigners enter japan every year >and about half leave within a
few weeks. >there are probably more than half million >japanized koreans
since about 2,000,000 >stayed after the san fransisco peace treaty >but only
about 600,000 remain as foreigners >now. those 600,000 were 95% of the
foreign >population only 20 years ago.
I said about 2,000,000 because the official count at the end of 2000 was just under 1,700,000 and I'd heard there was a growth in the influx of people coming to work and study. I'd also seen in the Nikkei estimates that it now stood at close to 2,000,000 by year end 2001 if estimates were accurate, but you do have to then subtract the Koreans. I think most Japanese would now accept people like Son, the guy who runs Sofbank. BTW, there are 64,000 international tertiary students here now. I've been told the goal is to get 100,000 international students by the year 2010. And right now, it's the Chinese who are coming.
As for those on work visas, the two largest groups by ethnicity (not counting the Koreans) are Chinese and Brazilians. Takefu, a small town of 70,000 south of Fukui City has 5000 Brazilians now. They had come to work in a number of factories there, like Orion TV. They speak Brazilian-Portugese and the school teachers are worried. It used to be they would send the few international children to the English teacher, but this doesn't work anymore.
Next:
>companies are firing the men and re-hiring >women as a flexible-cheap-part
time work >force. women seem to be less unemployed >now than men...
Well, much has been made of white collar unemployment of lower and middle management--especially men in their fifties. But I also remember reports about how, when the recession first started moving on down the economy, companies laid off part-timers and this meant a lot of women lost their work.
I agree with Yoshie (who also posted on the thread) when she says the men's jobs just disappeared. But if the companies are increasing part-time and temps, that doesn't surprise me.
This includes flattening management, but also the loss of male blue collar jobs too. And that demographic category of men, between 17-30, who have gone straight from high school into the workplace is most troubling. In many areas, very, very high unemployment, and things like subsidized construction is only set for more declines. I've seen estimates of up to 30% unemployment in the rural areas for this age group of men.
I'm not sure of how to compare official unemployment across borders. For example, when I was unemployed in the US I didn't count as unemployed because I had never had a full-time job long enough to collect 'unemployment payments'. In Japan, it's different. Anyone who goes to the employment office and does what they say to search for a job counts as unemployed. On the other hand, once you take a part-time job or a short-term contract one, you are counted differently and may lose payments.
Next:
>i suppose importing foreigners is a solution to >the demographic problem.
but educational >costs, the lack of day care facilities, gender
>discrimination in the working place are >problems that need to be addressed
before >bringing in extra workers.
I think Japan is ready to allow 100,000-200,000 a year in for certain sectors. Health care being one of them. But you are right, look out, forced internationalization while other parts of the population lose their social welfare safety net. It's going to be trouble. Much of the social services will be largely up to local communities and companies, now that the national government has blown its wad.
Then finally:
>> I would expect, in the next 20 years, more and more Chinese to find a
home
>> in Japan. Many already are. Everyone thinks they adapt far better here
than
>> most other groups.
>at least 1-2 millions but in what conditions ? >they adapt better probably
because they >come from the same ideogram culture and >because they are used
to low income lifes. >but even if chinese can adapt to japan 'easily' >how
will japan adapt to chinese people ? >racism is everywhere, the main papers
have >regular front pages about such and such >crime commited by
chinese-looking people >etc. the immigration law (direct translation:
>immigration control law) is a set of rules that >takes precedence in most
legal cases where >foreigners are involved. thousands of daily life >issues
are made difficult to solve because >nothing is done to make foreigners life
easier, >etc...
I myself don't think they adapt so easily. They get culture shock and feel homesick as much as any westerner does.
Not all Chinese are very good at learning Japanese, but knowing large numbers of kanji characters is a good start. In terms of spoken language, they are as different as English and Japanese, but Japanese has borrowed a lot of (often unrecognizable) Chinese vocabulary.
I think they are more adaptable because Japan is a step up for them in living conditions and social freedom. They also still stay in groups and help each other. Something I've never seen Americans, for example, do. There is something of a crime epidemic in Tokyo. And some of it is Chinese gangs doing things like muggings in the red light districts of Tokyo. But most crime here is done by Japanese and by Japanese men.
Charles Jannuzi