The migrant culture of Japan and your relationship with it

41 comments

1. English media in general is mostly written by US men… because that’s the largest native English-speaking demographic.

   I would also be very careful of painting the “migrant culture of Japan” like that, because the vast majority of foreigners in Japan don’t speak English (and hence might as well be invisible to English media and especially user-generated media like social media) and aren’t men. The unspoken assumption in English media about who a “foreigner” is in Japan couldn’t be further from the truth of what an average foreigner in Japan is like.

2. Really depends on the circles you’re in. I work in the public sector, affiliate with American and international diplomatic groups, and am then drinking buddies with clerks in environmental accounting. These are western-educated people, generally left or left-adjacent, and aside from discussions on how to materially counter China, it’s very much a peace, love, and understanding attitude towards the above issues.

   However, the fact that there are recently so many test cases of applying left/liberal policy positions in Japan shows the fact of the matter is that it’s still a conservative place.

3. > Does it frustate you that English speaking media here

   So your hope is Japan times today or whoever, suddenly gets resources and inclination to do Guardianesque deep dive exposes of the trainee system?
   For their readership of English speaking Japanophiles and bitter mono-lingual expats.

   Well. That’s not gonna happen until ALTs get folded into the trainee system sometime around 2035.

   A better question might be am I frustrated with the lack of main stream Japanese media giving attention to the plight of foreigners. Especially economic migrants. It’s getting slightly better. Still a mountain to climb.

4. >Personally, I find that a lot of issues/opinions/outlooks are viewed through an exclusively conservative lens – particularly from content posted by US men

   For example?

5. What do you mean by conservative? Social issues? Economic issues?

   I’d expect that any “expat” community of highly paid foreigners would generally lean towards the economic right just because they get taxed more, so that sounds about right. As for social issues, if anything I’d say that western immigrants in Japan are much more socially liberal than their Japanese coworkers, or at least in the accounting/consulting industry.

   I have even less experience with the English teaching community, but they seem a lot more socially and economically liberal just for being relatively recent college grads with lower paying jobs.

   Can’t say much about the English media, though. I don’t really bother reading English media about Japan. Western media in English, Japanese media in Japanese does it for me.

6. My country has one of the biggest foreigner community in Japan, at least by number. The majority consume media in our native language and or Japanese. Because of that, we couldn’t care less what demographic English speaking media caters to.

7. Shingetsu News Agency is a good left-wing news outlet for English speakers

8. Are you talking about forums? Media? Chats? Can you be a bit more specific?

9. for reddit yeah.

   But I am not from a English-speaking country nor a white male so in real life not so much

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   HOWEVER, the conservative lens part – I think it is dominant almost everywhere in real life unless you actively select your community

10. There are multiple migrant cultures in Japan that don’t intermingle very much, we are pretty far off of a melting pot here. Just to ramble a bit:

    * The Vietnamese are the new wave and they’re vibing, looking to build opportunities and just doing their thing. A couple of Vietnamese colleagues have told me stories, big party culture and a lot of drinking and unfortunately, they feel very marginalised by mainstream Japan.
    * The Sinosphere is huge and long-established here with in-group tensions particularly between mainlanders and HKers/Taiwanese. Anecdotally, it seems some members of the Chinese community in Japan really resent the recent influx of Vietnamese.
    * Koreans do their best to just fly under the radar, tend to learn Japanese the quickest and integrate well, especially with the existing Korean community here.
    * Westerners in Japan aren’t necessarily a united migrant culture. There are racial, values-based, economic and generational gaps within us too. Second year JETs don’t really mingle with business folks who arrived in the 90s. Westerners are privileged and recieve a lot less shit than other groups.

    >Do you find that the above culture is steered by any one particular group?

    There isn’t a single migrant culture and there won’t be much unity between different groups without a huge societal shift. That said, because westerners tend to be wealthier, have media outlets like the Japan Times and are generally the most accepted by the quite conservative Japanese people; I would argue that they hold somewhat more societal influence than other migrant groups.

    I don’t think the above is a great situation by the way. I would love to see these bubbles break down and for their to be a more collective immigrant identity in Japan but I don’t envisage it in my lifetime. Westerners definitely have a huge in-group bias and don’t really give a shit about Chinese or Vietnamese community issues in my opinion.

11. I think you are asking if English-speaking or “western” expats are dominated by one group?

    I don’t think so. I think the “western” expats are a mixture. Also, there are subsets of expat groups. ESL teachers and corporate don’t really mix. Military and ESL or corporate don’t really mix.

    US men? I only know one or two. Most expats I know are from Australia, UK, Canada, and France . I also know a few people from the PH. And I’m American myself.

    As some others mentioned, there is also a whole different group of people you probably don’t know, who are generally Asian and generally more integrated and speak Japanese reasonably to very well.

    Conservative? I don’t know where this is coming from. I’ve seen it several times on reddit but it simply hasn’t been my experience. I’m what we call in the US an independent. My boss from NZ is incredibly liberal. I have 1 American friend from Seattle also very liberal. One other who is conservative.

12. I didn’t know there was such a culture. Apart from a couple of visiting friends from the UK, I haven’t met anyone from Europe or the USA to speak to while here. I am obviously missing something. So, obviously, not being aware of it, I can’t say it is “steered”.

    As to English speaking media, is this things like the English pages of (say) the Mainichi Shimbun? I assumed it was a translation of Japanese material, rather than being specifically targeted, but I guess that is naïve of me perhaps. I don’t read it very often though.

13. Living a couple hours bullet train ride away from Tokyo, and touching a lot of grass as they say, don’t really feel the presence of any unified “migrant culture.”

    Sure there are more Chinese, Koreans, and Filipinos than any Western group, but even among English speakers it seems that there are just tons of overlapping groups of friends more than a “migrant culture.”

14. Each and every immigrant community has its own agender and hustles (look at the Philipino mafia for example) in order to fight against a system that is designed to work against us at every turn.

    Honestly don’t give a shit what English media says as they have their own agender to feed bullshit to the outside world about life here.

    We don’t need to be more inclusive with each other as the Japanese Government and society already has done that with the lovely title of “foreigner”. Plus each community has their own biases against each other.

15. This is a pretty weird position in my view.

    Do you think Japanese language media in the US will accurately represent all migrants to that country? Do you think the Indonesian language media here will care about American immigrants? All media outlets are created with a target audience in mind and then their content is defined by that target.

16. I’m not sure exactly where you are coming from. I will, however, address the opinion about US men being catered to by English media. Not so long ago this country was controlled by US men right after WW2….the occupation. That lasted until 1952…which was immediately followed US businesses pouring into the country and run…yes, predominantly by US men. You can’t blame the Japanese media for playing up to this important demographic…even though it has been gradually changing. The Japanese media, in any language, has always been as conservative as Japan politics…which has had a single political party running the show since the war. So, to answer your question…I would put forth that the state of the media in regard to foreigners and everything else is primarily historical. But things are changing…though the pace is slow.

17. I don’t read English media unless I need to show it to someone else (or someone sends it to me). Haven’t noticed much leaning in terms of actual news, but this sub is full of those types.

18. English speaking media being socially conservative in a socially conservative country?… Frankly, I’m puzzled and shocked /s.

    Not clear if you are complaining about media being posted or being consumed. They are two very different things.

    I’d leave intersectionality back in the US.

19. Not American, don’t give a shit.

20. More precisely, content posted by straight white US men.

21. ” steered by any one particular group”

    No. US men (and women) are a tiny, tiny minority of migrants/immigrants/expats in Japan.

22. LOL US men!

    I have never heard this before.

23. I feel like a lot of the English media regarding Japan is the absolute opposite of conservative 🤔

24. I find that a lot of issues/opinions/outlooks are viewed through an exclusively conservative lens – particular from content posted by UK women.

25. I don’t consume any media in Japan so I’m unbothered. I don’t believe there is any way anyone is benefiting from consuming said media.

26. Imagine moving across the world to hopefully follow a dream, and then still consuming news media. Couldn’t be me.

27. I am American and when it comes to English-speaking Westerners in Japan, the narratives are heavily driven by white people. Not so surprising considering white people are the majority in the US would would be a majority of Americans overseas.

    I do agree that a lot of American men in particular, seem more conservative. This means praise for “traditional” values where the wife stays home and takes care of the children. Many assumptions about western women. Many positives about how birth and children are great (despite not having to deal with being pregnant themselves). Conservative doesn’t necessarily mean “openly hates Asians or black people.” When I am around white American men, I pick up on an undertone of assuming women are below them and that women should be fighting for their seed (like back in the good ‘ole days).

    And a lot of people are essentially recreating a racial hierarchy in Japan among other westerners that places a premium on whiteness.

28. Have never thought about this tbh

29. I enjoy (in both senses of the word) my white male privilege and recognize no “othering” label like migrant on my person.
    Civis Romanus Sum.
    “migrant” is not a positively charged term, it should be neutral but it isn’t. Therefore I can’t relate to something called “migrant culture” because it doesn’t connect to how I perceive my situation.

30. Just depends who you hang out with. There’re actually more Koreans and Chinese too but you probably don’t associate with them and they’re not on an English forum

31. It comes down to reachability. It is why almost every non-American English speaking YouTuber converts everything into freedom units. They will reach a bigger audience doing so and have a higher potential for financial gains. I always thought it was weird when Chris Broad would use USD, lbs, and miles and what not but it’s because his biggest audience are Americans. Like how Lebron sold his soul to reach the Chinese market.

    This can be mitigated somewhat by using search tools, for example, your own countries search domain on google would help, staying away from US centric websites, or finding niche groups within, you can play with including and exluding certain words that have a different spelling in US English like color, tire, humor, labor, honor. The thing is the more US content you consume the more its going to be recommended to you until you tell the search engines otherwise. There might also be just not a lot of content from your home country so you could produce some but it’s a big time commitment.

    All that being said, US centric content is not the majority for foreigners here. Everything else is just invisible to you. My fiancé is Vietnamese and there is so much stuff out there for her here in Japan. Probably more than I have in English. There are small legit Vietnamese boutiques selling Sotbank 3 GB a month yearly sim cards for like 10,000 yen that you would never be able to find in English. There are tons of services and information that I was not aware of because most of them are only available in in Vietnamese or Chinese.

32. This sub is beginning to turn into /r/im12anthisisdeepexpat

    Living in a country isn’t and shouldn’t be your entire personality and identity. There’s no “expat culture” whatever that is. It’s not like the US and similar countries where immigrants group together into geographical areas and have defined cultures that reflect their ethnic and national identities. Anglo immigrants in Japan don’t congregate into a neighborhood and create a culture – the only immigrant culture of that sort I’ve seen is Japan-related Reddit and its some of the most insufferable culture a lot of the time (not always of course); let’s just act like normal people.

    ​

    >Personally, I find that a lot of issues/opinions/outlooks are viewed through an exclusively conservative lens – particularly from content posted by US men.Does it frustate you that English speaking media here appears to cater towards their demographic and could be more inclusive?

    What are you on about? Most English-language articles by the likes of Mainichi, Japan times etc write articles with a certain progressive slant that is attractive to the majority of English speaking immigrants which tend to be the opposite of conservative. Do you really think if they were “conservative” in the western sense they would write constant articles about LGBT rights (nothing wrong with that) in Japan even when the same newspapers write nothing about it in Japanese the same day (of course)? They know their audience and its certainly not “conservative white men”.

33. I don’t engage with the “community” or any meejah it may produce.

34. Which English media would you class as conservative? Japan Times? Daily Yomiuri? NHK?

    I’m asking because none particularly struck me as right or left, I can’t honestly say I’d noticed either way.

35. Don’t want to link a pdf, but according to the Japanese government in 2022 there were:

    71,355 Europeans in Japan

    69,000 North Americans (54,000 U.S.)

    2,300,000 Million from Asian countries.

    Most monoglot English speakers are just blissfully unaware of those around them. Then you can divide that group into English teachers who also seem blissfully unaware of English speaking foreigners outside English teaching.

36. Meh? I came here to live, thus studied, and read most of my news in Japanese when it comes to Japan. It’s easy to do this without any language skills in this day and age, so you’re not forced to read a conservative’s POV.

    There are cringe articles about Japan from both sides, though.

37. Yeah non anglos as sick of Americans discussing their stupid politics in Japan and thinking that they are the middle of the world even in the migrant community in Japan (spoiler: you are not)

38. The discussion is dominated by Western foreigners because they’re who speak English most and who have the biggest media representation. In reality Westerners are a small piece of the tapestry dominated by migrants from countless countries. Most communities from different nations aren’t intertwined and speak different languages so there’s not much communication.

    Basically there’s a massive privilege gap between white westerners, then non-white westerners, then given way less respect are migrants from within asia. And within the westerner bubble, you won’t really pick up on that.

39. I don’t think there is a single migrant culture – even amongst white people from the “Anglo sphere” if you can call it that. What I mean by that is people from Australia, New Zealand, uk, Ireland and us etc. I think we’re a very tiny minority amongst all of the other migrant communities and we don’t tend to interact much with people from Vietnam, China and South Korea etc. that are significantly larger expat communities. There probably more likely to speak Japanese too. We don’t see their media because we don’t tend to speak their languages. I think the English side of the media is probably just a drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things.

    When I speak to other members of the “expat” community, particularly those from Europe. Or Africa and Asia too. I feel we all kind of have that “international mindset” that connects us. It’s hard to put into words what this is. In my experience the people that have that mindset tend to be professionals/ students that I know, rather than the English teachers. I feel we mingle more with people from other communities. We all tend to be more liberally minded than conservative, very open and eager to make international connections and friends. I haven’t met many conservative people here. Actually I haven’t met anyone openly conservative, come to think about it. No one really seems to discuss politics in my circles. We tend to talk about our favourite restaurants and movies instead.

    I don’t read the English media much in Japan, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it mainly catered to Americans, they are the biggest English speaking group here after all. That would just make sense. But if your after left wing points of view you can definatey find them if you look. Personally I feel the mindset between average British and American person is quiet different. But we have enough in common that it wouldn’t really feel to different to me to consume media content created by them? Even if that view point doesn’t align with my own I can somehow understand their way of thinking. I tend to consume Japanese media instead as I’m trying to improve my language. Personally I’m not really a political person either. The NHK seems largely a political like the bbc so I’m happy with that. I hate politically charged news where you have someone banging on about the left, woke this that or the other. Or someone screaming about the “the right” and how dumb they think conservatives are. It’s exhausting.

    The English teachers on the other hand, sometimes treat me like my presence is ruining their Japanese experience 😂

40. I think it’s sadly somewhat segregated into (let’s be honest here) racial/ethnic groups that would be called “expats”, groups that would be considered “immigrants”, and groups that would be considered “migrants” with not so much interaction between the three.

    I think this system is gross though and I try to do my best to dismantle it in whatever way I can.

41. No, nobody cares. You’re biased because you’re a native English speaker so you don’t have access to the online communities and news sources that exist here and post everything in Chinese, vietnamese or portuguese.