Foreigners' population boom (2004-07-09)
The latest figures on the population of registered foreigners in Japan was out recently. The top four countries on the list are South Korea, China, Brazil, and Philippines. People from these countries help make up the 1.9 million foreign residents here. With the ever decreasing birth rate and increasing aging population in Japan, it needs more immigrants than the figure shows in order to sustain the economy.
Japan is still not all that open to accepting foreigners to its
country. There is a blatant discrimination against
non-Japanese in some aspects of life. A lot of landlords will not
rent their properties to foreigners, some adult entertainment venues
refuse entry to Chinese and some employers reject job applicants who
are not locals.
Increasing numbers of crime perpetrated by foreigners that make
headline news do not help the situation. Bad foreigners make it
difficult for locals to openly welcome immigrants without
skepticism. Perhaps
we need an image boost to let the Japanese know that there are plenty
of good foreigners out there who are part of the driving force behind
this society. KL is of course a very good example.
Back to top
