Comment by anon-3988
18 hours ago
> But deep down I know that I don't belong here, and that Japan would prefer to be a homogenous society without expats like me. And I hold no hard feelings toward them for that.
I think this is an important point that I am struggling to articulate. I actually like the fact that they "prefer to do things their way". When I was traveling there, it is clear that I stand out from my behavior. We might share the same skin color but I don't speak the language nor have the mannerism.
I don't fit, they don't know how to deal with me and that is fine. In fact, I would prefer it to be that way. I prefer Japan to be Japan. Of course there are societal issues that needs to be fixed but those are orthogonal to what I am talking about.
My home country, the UK, has already been through this cultural erosion which is why I respect Japan's right to defend its own. London in particular has become a place for everybody and at the same time for nobody. It's a city of people of different values and wavelengths with very little shared strata compared with Tokyo.
Funny to see this sentiment here but in the USA if a conservative-leaning politician talks about "preserving our culture" or saying that immigrants should "assimilate" they are accused of being a code-word (or even an overt) racist.
US conservatives get no benefit of the doubt thanks to years of racism and racist policy. It is clear that they are reactionaries looking to codify white supremacy.
However, American culture has moved on (a lot) from that though. For several generations, it has been described as a "melting pot" or understood through the lens of The New Colossus mounted on the Statue of Liberty.
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Completely different. American culture is immigrant centric. I am an American, and I refuse the biblical indoctrination that some wish would represent "our" culture. Why should conservatives get to dictate what America's culture is? As far as I am concerned, we are a nation of immigrants, and no one should assimilate to certain ideas. In particular, because these ideas can be weaponized. The Church can mangle with the state, because America is mostly evangelical. Free speech can exclude criticism of foreign nations (like Isra-l), because America's most affluent are Jews. Services can be refused on the basis of one's romantic inclinations. Some people end up as more free than others. So I reject this culture claim that you are defending and do not accept that these conservatives have America's best interests in their heart. They are merely choosing the rhetoric that resonates most with lower classes (as history has taught us is a strategy that worked with peasants in the days of yore), because a critique of upper classes or billionaires or those that profit from our toil is them biting the hand that feeds them.
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as an actual londoner, no, this guy is just being codedly racist too
London isn’t an example of cultural erosion—the pie has simply grown. The same applies to New York. Diverse cultures enrich London; they add to it rather than diminish it.
Absolutely absurd. Why is it people feel the need to make out that western cities are somehow magically immune from the exact same detrimental effects that they happily accept about everywhere else?
"Enrichment" is a buzzword for the insulated elite happy that they have new things on their lunch menu, somehow ignoring all the negatives that come with it.
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This is such a weird notion. Waves of immigrants have created some of the biggest most economically productive cities the world has ever seen. If Tokyo goes this route, only greatness lays in its future.
The rest is just nostalgia, and that's fine. But realistically, a big piece of Japanese culture will be well preserved in the new culture that will emerge. As it is, we've stopped lamenting the arrival of Buddhist influence on the island, so too will other immigration influences.
many “economically productive” cities are giant shitholes
some things are more important than just making line go up
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Yup, this happens to any melting pot city (Paris, New York, LA, San Francisco, etc). The downside of multiculturalism is these places become low-trust societies.
Do you dare leave your bike outside unlocked in these cities?
Bicycle theft is endemic in Japan as well.
Of course, being Japan, they also have a compulsory bike registration scheme and police can and do (not-so-)randomly stop people on the street to check that they're not riding stolen bikes.
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I am from a country in South East Asia, and its sad here as well. We have absolutely 0 connection to our ancestors from just 100 years ago. We (and me) have truly forgotten and don't have any identity beyond the surface level. We suffered from Arabification of every part of our culture.
I honestly think the original culture is pretty much extinct. Very, very few of the incoming generation even desire to uphold and rekindle that culture. In fact, it is despised.
Malaysia?
[dead]
Tangential to this but I lived in Taiwan for years and every time I saw a new Starbucks or McDonald's go up, I'd have to restrain my gag reflex.
To hell with these multinational corporations that erect their sterile altars to unbridled capitalism, resulting in the mass homogenization of culture. A culture that caters to "everyone" caters to no one.