Allowing Change in Foreigners' Identities as a Key for Greater Japanese Soft Power

It is often quite amusing to see online (and real-life) comments about foreigners living in Japan.  For the wide-eyed newbies a couple of years into their residence in Japan, the full-hearted embrace of Japanese society is still quite palpable.  They speak of how clean the streets are, how good the services are, and how convenient the public transit can be.  But when one checks in forums full of old-time Japan residents a decade or more into the country, a whole new different picture emerges.  In comments laced with open cynicism, the old-timers criticize the lack of change of a country that treats them as exotic animals to be gawked at endlessly.

The polarizing opinions of the newbies and the old-timers present a complex, bipolar picture of Japan's image among its foreign residents and even those who are still thinking about coming to the country, for a visit, or to live.  There is no denying the impressiveness of the country's convenience culture that makes life so much more comfortable than many other places in the world.  And there is certainly a great amount of appreciation and admiration for the cleanliness and safety, especially among those raising children.  But for those who have been here long enough to take them for granted, they no longer define Japan for them.

Instead, as it should be, their definition of Japan as a society has become more related to their personal interactions with members of the society, beyond the superficiality of material comfort that no longer satisfies their emotional connections with Japan as a country.  It is here that Japan falls short, way short.  Hence the forums are full of complaints about how people are incapable of treated as equals, and as foreigners, they are expected to behave crassly, commit social faux passes, and all in all, naturally be incapable of being accepted as a normal member of Japanese society in terms of their personal values.

The inability of foreigners to become Japanese has been written about on this blog practically since its inception eight years ago.  But the topic comes up more and more often today because the country is gradually and reluctantly accepting the fact that, in the near future, many permanent residents and even citizens will be born and bred in foreign countries that have little commonalities with Japan.  But if those foreigners, who have invested so much time of their lives into this country can have such negative opinions about how they do not fit in, then it is difficult to imagine Japan able to get all the foreign residents it needs.

The problem can ultimately be summed up as a shortfall of soft power in Japan that attracts long-term residents who are willing to permanently contribute to Japanese society.  Even as they feel comfortable in Japan, foreigners, denied their status as members of the same Japanese society by Japanese people, eventually come around to the belief that whatever comforts that Japan has is ultimately not theirs, but only those people who are ethnically Japanese and also born and bred in the country.  They, as Japanese people around them make them feel, can never consider anything in Japan "theirs."

The disillusionment of such long-time Japan residents with Japanese people preventing them from acquiring a truly Japanese identity is the very lack of Japanese soft power in comparison to traditional immigration destinations, whether it be the US, Canada, or Australia.  To be sure, in many cases, life in Japan can be much more comfortable, but in countries where a foreign-born population make up a large percentage of the overall population, the foreigner has a very real hope that, in the not-so-distant future, they have the ability to participate in public discussions for how to solve society's most urgent issues.

The same simply cannot be done in Japan.  It does not matter whether a foreigner has lived in the country for ten, thirty, or fifty years, the fact that the foreigner looks different and was born in a different country are good enough markers for the Japanese to conclude that the foreigner's opinions on important social issues are not to be taken seriously, for the simple reason that he cannot and never will understand the Japanese mentality.  It is that feeling of being excluded from any meaningful public discussion on the overall direction of the country that is the root cause of the complaints coming from long-time foreign residents in Japan.

There is no easy solution to the soft power gap noted above.  The fact that the Japanese populace is refusing to accept foreigners as members of their society means there is no viable political solution in a democratic setting.  Perhaps the gradual decimation of the Japanese population through low birth rates can trigger more genuine and frank discussions on the topic, but such discussions are meaningless if foreigners cannot participate equally to decide their own future in Japanese society.  No wonder such a depressing situation is sparking so much negative commentary among foreigners living in Japan.