Während die Popularität Japans boomt, zeigt eine neue Umfrage eine starke ausländerfeindliche Stimmung

I think we really need to start making these types of articles and studies define more specifically what they mean by foreigner and “anti-foreigner” sentiment. I am not suggesting that there isn’t an issue, but not wanting Chinese land investors buying property and not living there, driving up costs everywhere else, is not necessarily the same category of thinking as hating all foreigners.

If you asked me, an American living in Japan, if I thought foreigners “should follow the rules”, I would probably answer yes, too. There might be some debate about which “rules” we should have to follow, perhaps, but it’s hardly anti-foreigner to expect people behave like civilized human beings.

Without some clarity, this article doesn’t really paint a picture worth looking too closely at.

Edit: Apparently a lot of you guys prefer all nuance removed from the conversation. Any conversation about troubling behavior that *some* foreigners *sometimes* do must mean foreigner hate, I guess. Sorry, I have lived here long enough to know it’s bullshit. Yeah, there are people who take it too far, but some of you look at the Yahoo comments section and think it represents everybody.

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There’s really some people hear the Niemoller poem and say, ‚yeah, but it wouldn’t happen to me‘.

Japan is a victim of their own success.

it was much better when only the dedicated traveled to Japan but now that normies “love” Japanese culture (for now, until TikTok moves on) it’s getting flooded with borderline illiterate people who don’t bother researching before visiting.

I actually don’t know how much the anti-tourists sentiment and the ant-foreigner sentiment are linked.

I am clearly seeing the surge in the first one around me, but not that much of the second.

I just visited Japan. We found people were very kind, patient, welcoming, and gracious to us *because* we were polite. We used very basic Japanese words to say excuse me, hello, goodbye, thank you, please, and table for 4, please. I also learned how to say that everything was delicious. And „Shiba Inu kawaii!“ to converse with people about their adorable dogs – perfect strangers are often quiet happy to talk about their dogs using some English. We were quiet and used two hands to accept and recieve things, and pointed with a whole hand to indicate things. I grew up taking shoes off in the house because my parents lived in Korea for 3 years. And if we didn’t know, we used google translate for extra help or Google Maps to show our cabbies. We are also huge sumo fans. We even went to a 300+ year old restaurant and people were very welcoming – some really drunk guy came up to us smiling and wanted to shake hands. So, I guess it just depends.

The problem is that there are bad apples within tourists who don’t respect Japanese culture. This reflects badly on the rest. I’ve seen this first hand in Tokyo where Japanese literally just glared at my wife and I for doing nothing lol

I was raised to ‚read the air‘ or as most say ‚read the room‘, to show politeness and deference and follow a set of rules the West used to have.

I get why some Japanese are upset. I see (mostly hear) North American tourists and feel embarrassed… for them. There is no awareness of others whatsoever 🤦‍♀️

As for politics, it plays its part in fuelling uncertainty and fear in every country. Xenophobia is a fear reaction and monocultures are by nature, insular and easily frightened.

If someone visits your house, you do not expect them to insult you, jump on the furniture, and leave the toilet unflushed. It is the same when visiting another country. You are a guest, be polite and respect your host.

This sentiment was created by the mind of a foreigner! Steve Bannon is the underwriter of this administration.