Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!ccsf.homeunix.org!news1.wakwak.com!nf1.xephion.ne.jp!onion.ish.org!onodera-news!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!feed.news.tiscali.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!i61-195-247-171.us.catvmics.ne.JP!not-for-mail From: Declan Murphy Newsgroups: fj.life.in-japan Subject: Re: Tell me, Mike Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 13:15:22 +0900 Lines: 40 Message-ID: <3FD3FADA.2070203@hotmail.com> References: <3FCB56B7.F16C0ED4@yahoo.co.jp> <44845040.0312040034.103ec0c7@posting.google.com> <3FCF368C.17640883@yahoo.co.jp> <3fcfd324$0$3180$df066bcf@news.sexzilla.net> <3FCFE500.6080403@yahoo.komm> <3FD1BA0D.6169EE8@yahoo.co.jp> Reply-To: declan_murphy@hotmail.com NNTP-Posting-Host: i61-195-247-171.us.catvmics.ne.jp (61.195.247.171) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-2022-JP Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1070856737 73942638 61.195.247.171 ([139419]) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0rc2) Gecko/20020510 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.life.in-japan:8845 Eric Takabayashi wrote: > Ernest Schaal wrote: > > >>Gifu has certain advantages: It is small enough to get around by bike, the >>main park is pretty, living is cheap, the scenery is pretty. On the other >>hand, there really aren't that many resources for Western gaijin. According >>to a list posted in the city hall, there are very few gaijin from >>English-speaking countries (only a couple of hundred in a city of 400,000 >>people, most of which are either JETs or kaiwa instructors) and there are >>limited resources for Western gaijin. > > Fukuyama has nearly 400,000 people, though not nearly as modern looking as Gifu > City. > > I wonder if there are even 50 western foreign residents here. I dropped in to the city hall in Okazaki on Friday to update my gaigin card thingee. Two things caught my eye - one is a chart displayed near the entrance with the number of deaths/births and arrivals/departures. The population had jumped another 500 last month - births in Okazaki outnumbered deaths by 2:1 accounting for 220 of the increase. The rest was a net increase in internal migration. It seems to average 500 a month more or less. The other thing was that a fair bit of the increase was due to the spreading outbreak of gaijinitus, which has spread to include 2.8% of the 350,000 residents, with the number of Koreans as a percentage for alien registrations below 1 in 5 for the first time. How many of them are "westerners" isn't exactly clear. -- "Beyond the Euphrates began for us the land of mirage and danger, the sands where one helplessly sank, and the roads which ended in nothing. The slightest reversal would have resulted in a jolt to our prestige giving rise to all kinds of catastrophe; the problem was not only to conquer but to conquer again and again, perpetually; our forces would be drained off in the attempt." - Emperor Hadrian AD 117-138