*Without public pensions or concreting mountains, rivers and shores, what money would there be?
Saturday, 27 July 2013
The next time someone calls you a 'Gaijin'...
whip it out and call yourself a 'resident'?
Japan no longer has a 'foreigner card', but a 'resident card', I discovered on getting mine renewed recently. Well done. Semantics
matter... a very little bit. Japan's still neither going to increase immigration nor the birth-rate, because old social-conservatives living in inaka sucking the tit of the state* vote LDP or worse: still doomed.
*Without public pensions or concreting mountains, rivers and shores, what money would there be?
*Without public pensions or concreting mountains, rivers and shores, what money would there be?
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More than just the privilege of being awarded the title of resident, I really appreciate that they stopped extorting people for re-entry stamps. The new card system seems a bit more professional looking compared to the last resident alien card too.
ReplyDeleteRe-entry permits... WTF was that, eh? I was here mid-nineties and had to get them. Came back three years ago and didn't, or maybe it was when I renewed since then one didn't need them. Japan wouldn't be doing any favours for 'Gaijin'. My bet this is about streamlining the department. No re-entry permits and making the visa five years from three halves the paperwork. It might also halve the two-and-a-half hour and hour-and-forty-minutes waits for my two trips, but it is more likely they'll halve staff and expenses.
DeleteThe old system of getting your residence card at the local city/town/ward office was ridiculous; whenever you moved to another town/ward/city, you had to update it (fair enough), which sometimes resulted in your new ward office having to get in touch with your old one to share information. This caused me a big hassle on one occasion. Glad it's nationalized now just due to the convenience factor.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost like they got the memo there are 2.5 million 'foreigners' here!
DeleteI rarely care about when people refer to me as a gaikokujin, but if it's said in a negative connotation (to me), I'm always quick to say "Actually, I'm a resident. I live, work, and pay taxes here—just like you do. If I'm a foreigner, give me back my taxes!" Then we usually have a laugh together.
ReplyDeleteThe re-entry permits… This was such a terribly inefficient system. I'm glad it changed.
I never heard of anyone getting a five year visa though. Three seems to be the norm, even though five is available.
I go back and forth on taking offence about 'gaikokujin' so tend to treat it situationally. Thing is, 'gaijin' is most often used by tools; 'gaikokujin' less so; something else like 'oubeijin', or no signifier at all, by a better class of person. In any case, like 'negro', which really just means 'black' (not that anyone is literally black, rather we are all shades of brown), if it has been too often abused it is the right of those called it to take offence. Japanese will say it is a word from their language so we should not tell them how to use it. Next time I hear that I guess I'll tell the 'Jap-bastards' they are right...?
DeleteSince I lost all respect for the Japanese and most of their sad excuse of a society, I also stopped caring what they say, including monikers for foreigners. Now, whenever I get a "micro-aggression" I smile to myself, and think "I'll be out here in 4 months and you have to endure this until your death, you bobble-headed buffoon."
ReplyDeleteYou guys should try it, it's like god-mode for this country.
And no doubt people need to do it in our countries. What we suffer in our months to few years here is fairly irrelevant; I'd rather see more done for the Filipino, Korean and other permanent residents.
DeleteYou are right, but what do you expect from a people who are so ignorant to still believe in long debunked theories about blood and race? Unless enlightenment reaches the shore of Japan (and not only Japan, but Japan is long overdue since it is calling itself a modern country not in the dark ages), there is very little hope that the thinking on which xenophobia and racism changes.
DeleteAs for "our countries", I get that it is important to you to point out the flaws of your home country (which is on a continent I have never visited), but it doesn't ring true with me to compare the flaws we find in the Western countries with those found in East Asia, and especially Japan. Japan has been portrayed (and done a good deal to perpetuate the myths) as "Asia's number one", on par in terms of modernity and democracy with Europe and North America. Even if you count in the Banks, PRISM, the war on terror, etc., I still think we live in the "light" compared to the figurative darkness of East Asia. Japan is still in the dark ages except for its technological advancement.
The only reason Japanese people can feel any kind of superiority is ignorance to 1) what other countries are achieving and more important 2) what the real reason behind Japan's boom after WWII is (the West propped this country up), and how little Japan could have done by itself.
I might have once agreed about which countries live in light, except: America/NATO turned out to be the unhinged aggressor in the Cold War, 'Western' countries have only 'intervened' when there is oil (Iraq, not Rwanda, etc.), America's recent abandonment of even the appearance of 'rule of law', and the 'Western countries' that went along with forcing down that Peruvian plane that did not have Snowden in it... One could go on much longer. Without insulting you, let me put it this way: if you can still have faith despite the realities, other peoples cannot.
Delete