Ken Yasumoto-Nicolson wrote:
> Travers Naran <tnaran@direct.ca> wrote in message news:<iGt5b.136054$K44.87613@edtnps84>...
> 
>>The better way to do this is look at the actual statistics of
>>international children (i.e., children who aren't considered Japanese)
>>for the last 20 years or so and then perform interpolation on that data.
> 
> Researching another bit of data recently, I found an official-looking
> figure that said 80% of Zainichi Koreans marry Japanese. As Korean
> weddings make up about 30% plus of all international weddings
> (hopefully correctly remembered from the book I read!), but Zainichis
> are a different kettle of fish from first-generation immigrants (ie,
> parents should both be pretty fluent Japanese); that I suspect knocks
> another 3/10ths off the figures.

Exactly.  When you get into the details of what constitutes official
definitions, your numbers start going wonky.  Wonky is a proper
statistical term. ;-)

> Anyway, I think the whole thing is overdone - yes, "No Gaigins" is of
> course a bad thing, but this continual "Help, help, I'm being
> repressed!" is tiresome. What fraction of one percent of businesses
> carry out this practice? I can't help feeling all this "Woe is us!"
> martyrdom is counterproductive.

I always think it sucks that anyone anywhere gets discriminated against,
and needless to say that Japanese in North America weren't treated well
during the 19th and early 20th centuries, but I doubt it's as big a
thing as Debito claims because I've read more than enough articles from
gaijin living as immigrants to Japan saying they've generally been
treated fairly as long as they adapt to the local customs.  Heck, some
of them have lived in Japan for 20+ years and said the locals treat them
as part of the "family".[1]  And as you said, if a small precentage of
businesses discriminate, take your custom (and your friends' business)
to a business that doesn't discriminate.  Economic pressure is the best
way to change small-scale injustices like this.

[1] I can't find the link now, but it was a profile in the Japan Times
of an Australian journalist who lived in a small Japanese town for
several decades.
-- 
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