No joke, that’s my plan too. Either you end up rich, or looked after. Win-win.
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You could be thwarted by the inevitable progress of technology and forced to meekly flee the scene?
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There’s more than one side to this. I certainly wouldn’t call it “rampant,” but Ishihara was mayor of Tokyo for many years, and that guy is pretty seriously xenophobic. I had a bunch of friends in the small town I lived in who are beautiful people, and were never in any way racist towards me, but who still really liked Ishihara, so it’s not a trivial question. There certainly is xenophobia, and it’s in the political mainstream, but no, I wouldn’t call it “rampant,” and many people who support xenophobic politicians are not xenophobic in their personal lives.
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My wife is essentially from the Japanese equivalent of the Midwest (Kansai region). Xenophobia is a little bit of overkill but inherent racism and social pecking orders do factor into a lot of their thinking. Japanese people are always trying to determine their place in a given social order, being careful not to be “left out of the (social) circle”. They classify others in the same fashion, generally based on race and social class.
My in-laws never said anything bad towards me in this regard, but I am also Caucasian looking, American and married their oldest daughter. If my skin was a shade darker (or if I was of asian ancestry besides Japanese), they would have treated me with more of a type of “Minnesota nice” (seething hostility surrounded by a chirpy pleasant demeanor) than they do.
Foreigners milling around areas outside of Tokyo are becoming more common in the last decade than before. The first time I visited Osaka, I saw only a handful of American/European tourists. 2 years ago, they were ubiquitous to main shopping/dining section in Osaka (Osaka has been covered in a lot of travel shows as of late).
Work based immigration has become prevalent enough that the Brazilian population in Tokyo they even have a festival celebrating their heritage. The laws there still treat those of foreign ancestry like shit, but it was worse in years past. Especially those of Chinese and Korean ancestry, who even if born in Japan were subject to widespread discrimination.
What is really interesting as of late are the number of celebrities appearing on Japanese TV of mixed Japanese-European/American parentage. There is also a growing number of foreign born yokazunas in Sumo wrestling. 2 of the biggest names in the sport are Bulgarian and Mongolian.
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When I read the headline, I thought this was satire. Reminds of a nice song…
One little point/ addition:
Actually the problem is not about young people ‘paying’ for the pensions system. The question is whether there are enough working-age people to provide for the needs of the entire population, the ‘money’ bit is just superstructure to organize the necessary transfers (cf. Mackenroth thesis, 1952).
Well, there’s that one guy who feels like the site needs to be forcefully defended any time someone is #DisappointedInBoingBoing. If a website can have its feelings hurt, I suppose a Word document can experience joy.
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