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> but it’s no longer quite right to call it homogeneous Are you sure? Japan is maybe 99% homogeneous? I live in central Tokyo and I can go on for days and days

> but it’s no longer quite right to call it homogeneous Are you sure? Japan is maybe 99% homogeneous? I live in central Tokyo and I can go on for days and days without seeing a foreigner! > it will inevitably introduce social strains Sadly, yes. I've observed this on few occasions.

tmm84 7y ago
I work in Akihabara. I see foreigners everyday. Even in Minato-ku I see plenty of non-Japanese people running around.
- exhaze 7y ago
  Even? Minato-ku has the highest density of foreigners of all the wards, something like 20% of the population.
- GreaterFool 7y ago
  Add Shibuya (mainly around the station) and Shinjuku and you basically covered all foreigner hotspots! Those are the most non-representative areas! But go to Shimokitezawa or Gakuendaigaku or anywhere off the beaten path and foreigners will be few and far between.
  - wiennat 7y ago
    Shimokitazawa still have a lot of foreigners. It is surrounded by universities including Todai.
  - chasontherobot 7y ago
    Both of those places have a TON of foreigners, and neither one of them are central Tokyo either :p
  - Tor3 7y ago
    I've been to places with thousands of Japanese (and the occasional Korean, which can be difficult to notice) and then just me. But on the other hand I've never, not once, been made to feel like an outsider.
- glandium 7y ago
  Well, those are quite touristy...
jkachmar 7y ago
> I live in central Tokyo and I can go on for days and days without seeing a foreigner! I’m quite surprised to hear this actually. I visited Japan recently and I consistently saw other foreigners around the center of Tokyo. I think the only time I _didn’t_ see any other foreigners was when I was out in Ōtsu, but that’s sort of out there for most visitors anyway. EDIT: I should add that I tried to make a point of walking around a bit, so I don’t think I was just taking the subway to commonly visited spots.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >I’m quite surprised to hear this actually. I visited Japan recently and I consistently saw other foreigners around the center of Tokyo Of course, but those were mostly tourists?
eecsninja 7y ago
Maybe many people you see are Asian foreigners (Chinese, Korean, Filipinos, etc) and you just don't realize it. I hear Chinese spoken on the streets all the time.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Chinese and Fiipinos don't look much like Japanese if you're not totally alien to asians and consider them all the same. And even Koreans have some different characteristics, which one can tell for the most part.
sanxiyn 7y ago
How can you know? Can you reliably identify Koreans from Japanese?
- coldtea 7y ago
  It's not very difficult if you've lived in either place... (And they don't exactly have a mutual love for each other)
  - sanxiyn 7y ago
    I am a Korean (lived in Korea for >30 years) and I think it is difficult...
    - CuriouslyC 7y ago
      The main thing I notice is that Koreans have slightly rounder faces, and smoother features. Koreans also tend to be slightly taller and more robust physically. You are right though, the occasional Japanese person is going to be very hard to spot since they usually fall within the range of Korean diversity.
    - burfog 7y ago
      You need to check the hands. Korea is the country that breaks hand scanners. By that I means the sort of biometric measurement devices used for secure entry to doors. Korean hands are pretty much identical.
    - glandium 7y ago
      It's both difficult and not. It depends on the persons. There are many Koreans that are easily identifiable as Korean, and many Japanese easily identifiable as Japanese. And there are some that are hard to tell apart.
- gaspoweredcat 7y ago
  this is really not difficult as a general rule
kalleboo 7y ago
> I live in central Tokyo and I can go on for days and days without seeing a foreigner! I live in Kagoshima which has one of the lowest rates of foreigners in the country and nearly every time I go into the city centre I spot a foreigner. My daughter's (standard) daycare has at least 2 other foreign kids. Convenience stores have Chinese students working part time. 99% homogeneous still sounds about right though.
chrischen 7y ago
If you only consider only white and black people to be foreigners. I'd say that there are a lot of Chinese and various other Asian ethnicities mixed in there that are hard to tell.
- Nadya 7y ago
  They're only "hard to tell" if you don't spend a lot of time around people of Asian ethnicity. It is very rare I cannot tell a Japanese person from a Chinese person from a Korean person. Reading comments on this thread below yours, there are a surprisingly high number of people on HN who think all Asians look alike. Spend a few months in an Asian country and white people begin to all look alike while Asians become quite distinct. Also, it is quite easy to tell most tourists apart from foreign immigrants. The backpacks of gear, maps, constantly getting lost, or participating in things mostly designed for tourism gives it away.
  - chrischen 7y ago
    Well, I am Chinese and people cannot tell me apart from whatever Asian country I happen to be in. In fact, visiting Taiwan, people frequently mistake me for Japanese or Korean even though I don't say a word. And having stayed in Japan for extended periods of time no one has presumed I was Chinese before I opened my mouth. If you're a tourist, you're very likely to carry certain cultural mannerisms or clothing that give you away, but otherwise stripped down naked there's very small physical differences. If the foreign Chinese or Korean person has assimilated (learned the language), you would hard pressed to tell. Masayoshi Son, the richest Japanese person, is ethnically Korean, and he had switched his last name back to his Korean surname so that he could be recognized as a Korean. Much of what you perceive to be differences in phenotype among Asians are usually geographical or culturally acquired differences. For example many people think that Filipinos must have dark skin, or that if you have fair skin you must come from Japan or South Korea, but in reality that has more to do with how much sun those respective cultures manage to avoid, and skin-care products.
    - Nadya 7y ago
gaspoweredcat 7y ago
really? when i was in tokyo/kyoto/osaka foreigners were everywhere although ill admit in my more recent trips it seemed to be less westerners and more chinese tourists, however when i went further north to sendai and aomori i didnt see a single other foreigner
world32 7y ago
Can we please stop with the "I see lots of foreigners", "I don't see any foreigners" anecdotes!? Seriously, I expected better from HN posters. From this article we can see that there are 2.73 million foreigners in Japan: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/22/national/number-foreign-residents-japan-rose-6-6-2018-number-overstayers-grew-almost-twice-much-government-data-shows/#.XOfB7d-YWV4 https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/22/national/number... And with a population of 126.8 million people that means that 2% of the population are foreign.

tmm84 7y ago

I work in Akihabara. I see foreigners everyday. Even in Minato-ku I see plenty of non-Japanese people running around.

exhaze 7y ago
Even? Minato-ku has the highest density of foreigners of all the wards, something like 20% of the population.
GreaterFool 7y ago
Add Shibuya (mainly around the station) and Shinjuku and you basically covered all foreigner hotspots! Those are the most non-representative areas! But go to Shimokitezawa or Gakuendaigaku or anywhere off the beaten path and foreigners will be few and far between.
- wiennat 7y ago
  Shimokitazawa still have a lot of foreigners. It is surrounded by universities including Todai.
- chasontherobot 7y ago
  Both of those places have a TON of foreigners, and neither one of them are central Tokyo either :p
- Tor3 7y ago
  I've been to places with thousands of Japanese (and the occasional Korean, which can be difficult to notice) and then just me. But on the other hand I've never, not once, been made to feel like an outsider.
glandium 7y ago
Well, those are quite touristy...

jkachmar 7y ago

> I live in central Tokyo and I can go on for days and days without seeing a foreigner! I’m quite surprised to hear this actually. I visited Japan recently and I consistently saw other foreigners around the center of Tokyo. I think the only time I _didn’t_ see any other foreigners was when I was out in Ōtsu, but that’s sort of out there for most visitors anyway. EDIT: I should add that I tried to make a point of walking around a bit, so I don’t think I was just taking the subway to commonly visited spots.

coldtea 7y ago
>I’m quite surprised to hear this actually. I visited Japan recently and I consistently saw other foreigners around the center of Tokyo Of course, but those were mostly tourists?

eecsninja 7y ago

Maybe many people you see are Asian foreigners (Chinese, Korean, Filipinos, etc) and you just don't realize it. I hear Chinese spoken on the streets all the time.

coldtea 7y ago
Chinese and Fiipinos don't look much like Japanese if you're not totally alien to asians and consider them all the same. And even Koreans have some different characteristics, which one can tell for the most part.

sanxiyn 7y ago

How can you know? Can you reliably identify Koreans from Japanese?

coldtea 7y ago
It's not very difficult if you've lived in either place... (And they don't exactly have a mutual love for each other)
- sanxiyn 7y ago
  I am a Korean (lived in Korea for >30 years) and I think it is difficult...
  - CuriouslyC 7y ago
    The main thing I notice is that Koreans have slightly rounder faces, and smoother features. Koreans also tend to be slightly taller and more robust physically. You are right though, the occasional Japanese person is going to be very hard to spot since they usually fall within the range of Korean diversity.
  - burfog 7y ago
    You need to check the hands. Korea is the country that breaks hand scanners. By that I means the sort of biometric measurement devices used for secure entry to doors. Korean hands are pretty much identical.
  - glandium 7y ago
    It's both difficult and not. It depends on the persons. There are many Koreans that are easily identifiable as Korean, and many Japanese easily identifiable as Japanese. And there are some that are hard to tell apart.
gaspoweredcat 7y ago
this is really not difficult as a general rule

kalleboo 7y ago

> I live in central Tokyo and I can go on for days and days without seeing a foreigner! I live in Kagoshima which has one of the lowest rates of foreigners in the country and nearly every time I go into the city centre I spot a foreigner. My daughter's (standard) daycare has at least 2 other foreign kids. Convenience stores have Chinese students working part time. 99% homogeneous still sounds about right though.

chrischen 7y ago

If you only consider only white and black people to be foreigners. I'd say that there are a lot of Chinese and various other Asian ethnicities mixed in there that are hard to tell.

Nadya 7y ago
They're only "hard to tell" if you don't spend a lot of time around people of Asian ethnicity. It is very rare I cannot tell a Japanese person from a Chinese person from a Korean person. Reading comments on this thread below yours, there are a surprisingly high number of people on HN who think all Asians look alike. Spend a few months in an Asian country and white people begin to all look alike while Asians become quite distinct. Also, it is quite easy to tell most tourists apart from foreign immigrants. The backpacks of gear, maps, constantly getting lost, or participating in things mostly designed for tourism gives it away.
- chrischen 7y ago
  Well, I am Chinese and people cannot tell me apart from whatever Asian country I happen to be in. In fact, visiting Taiwan, people frequently mistake me for Japanese or Korean even though I don't say a word. And having stayed in Japan for extended periods of time no one has presumed I was Chinese before I opened my mouth. If you're a tourist, you're very likely to carry certain cultural mannerisms or clothing that give you away, but otherwise stripped down naked there's very small physical differences. If the foreign Chinese or Korean person has assimilated (learned the language), you would hard pressed to tell. Masayoshi Son, the richest Japanese person, is ethnically Korean, and he had switched his last name back to his Korean surname so that he could be recognized as a Korean. Much of what you perceive to be differences in phenotype among Asians are usually geographical or culturally acquired differences. For example many people think that Filipinos must have dark skin, or that if you have fair skin you must come from Japan or South Korea, but in reality that has more to do with how much sun those respective cultures manage to avoid, and skin-care products.
  - Nadya 7y ago

gaspoweredcat 7y ago

really? when i was in tokyo/kyoto/osaka foreigners were everywhere although ill admit in my more recent trips it seemed to be less westerners and more chinese tourists, however when i went further north to sendai and aomori i didnt see a single other foreigner

world32 7y ago

Can we please stop with the "I see lots of foreigners", "I don't see any foreigners" anecdotes!? Seriously, I expected better from HN posters. From this article we can see that there are 2.73 million foreigners in Japan: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/22/national/number-foreign-residents-japan-rose-6-6-2018-number-overstayers-grew-almost-twice-much-government-data-shows/#.XOfB7d-YWV4 https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/22/national/number... And with a population of 126.8 million people that means that 2% of the population are foreign.