/REPEAT/JAPAN: Response to Shooting Incident Reflects More Open Attitudes

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Apr 22 2002 (IPS) - The recent shooting and arrest of a Chinese student for stealing a designer bag has again fuelled charges of police bias against foreigners, but this time it has drawn a somewhat different response from Japanese authorities.

Because of the flood of sympathy by Chinese expatriates and readers after last week’s publication of the story by the Tokyo-based ‘Chinese Review Weekly’, a top chief of the police department has called for another investigation into the Mar. 30 shooting.

This may well signal a change in the police attitude toward foreigners — and reflect larger changes in a largely homogenous society that is however getting used to an increasingly multicultural mix in its midst.

Guo Xiangxuan, a writer for the weekly publication launched in 1992, argues that the shooting would have been reported in the Japanese press as yet another crime committed by a foreigner, if not for the reportage by the Chinese publication.

“Our report on the crime pointed out the issue of a prejudice against foreigners, as well as the culture gap,” she says. Gao explains that the student had only recently entered the country to study the Japanese language and was scared when confronted by local police officers.

Some say that the response to the outcry over the Mar. 30 shooting shows that foreigners are still perceived as being the cause of crimes, they have been accepted to a far greater degree in Japanese society than was thought before.

In fact, Professor Setsu Kobayashi, who teaches constitutional law at Keio University, says he is shocked to see how well the Japanese have accepted the growing number of foreigners in their society.

“Ten years ago I thought the Japanese, who were proud of their homogeneity, would never accept people of a different culture. But I have been proven wrong,” he explains.

Foreign residents in Japan now number 1.8 million of the country’s 120 million people, or a 2 percent increase from the year before. Koreans and Chinese top the list, followed by Brazilians and Filipinos, according to the Justice Ministry.

The signs of the emerging multiculturalism can be seen from the blossoming of foreign-language publications and non-Japanese signs in the streets, to efforts to help non-Japanese adjust to local society.

Shella Cachuela, editor of ‘Philippine News’, a monthly magazine published in Tagalog and English, says: “There is an increasing demand for news about home as well as information in Tagalog in Japan.” ‘Philippine News’ in fact is one of five other Philippine-language publications in Japan.

New publications in languages ranging from Korean to Portuguese are not the only the symbols of an increasingly diversified Japan.

Whole neighbourhoods in Tokyo and other big cities now display both foreign names and script — unthinkable developments a decade ago.

A walk through Tokyo’s Arakawa district, home to traditional craftsmen, shows that at least one in every 10 houses has Korean names.

Some homes display both Japanese and Korean names, reflecting the growing number of mixed marriages in Japan. Almost one percent of all marriages registered in the country involve a foreign spouse.

Reflecting this trend, the prefectural government of the southern city of Osaka launched a new booklet on stress relief for foreigners. It is the latest addition to other means of helping foreigners cope with life in Japan – such as a telephone counselling line in Spanish and Portuguese.

Even in the area of Japanese culture, foreigners are making inroads.

Sumo, Japan’s revered wrestling sport watched by the emperor himself, has hugely popular foreign wrestlers from both Western and Asian countries.

More recently, the country was taken by storm with the debut of a black American and Chinese team known as ‘The Torainins’, which wears kimono and performs traditional comedy known as ‘manzai’ in the local dialect.

In truth, Kobayashi explains, the Japanese have steadily grown familiar with foreigners in their community in past few years, accepting the different cultures and even wanting to learn more about the world outside Japan.

“The Japanese are capable of adaptability and this is because of the peculiarity of Japanese culture, which has always copied from others, ” he explains.

He was referring to the influences of the Chinese and Korean civilisations that shaped classical Japan and later to the modernisation of the country in the late 18th century, when Japanese leaders learnt from the West.

But despite many Japanese’ increasing openness and acceptance of their society’s changing fabric, experts say more needs to be done and some of the stereotypes of foreigners persist.

For instance, as the writers who worked on the Mar. 30 shooting of the Chinese student explain, it is not uncommon for foreigners to be criminalised and perceived as the cause of offenses in the country. This is even if statistics now show that this perception is unfounded.

The ratio of non-Japanese between 20 and 65 years old who were arrested for crimes to the number of people in that age group in the population has been declining since 1966, when it was close to 3.5 percent, according to a study by Koehi Hashimoto of the Institute for International Political Systems.

After dipping to about 1 percent in the late 1970s, this ratio now stands at 0.5 percent, said the study published in the ‘Yomuiri Shimbun’ last week.

“It is wrong to simply conclude that crimes committed by foreigners lead to a deterioration in public order and safety,” Hashimoto was quoted as saying.

This goes against the common perception that foreigners are responsible for crimes. An opinion poll in 2000 conducted by the Cabinet showed that the 49 percent who disapproved of foreign unskilled labour cited as their reason a fear of a rise in crimes.

But apart from the Japanese’ increasingly open attitude toward foreigners, the government has also been taking a softer attitude toward foreign nationals given the national drop in birth rates.

Takao Nakazawa of the Himeji Institute of Technology says the country must be realistic: “The labour market must be opened to Chinese and South Asians to work here which will boost Japan’s manufacturing base.”

Kobayashi agrees, saying diversity helps the Japanese adapt to an increasingly globalised world. “Japan is facing a new society and we must take a practical approach. We must stop boasting about our uniqueness and accept that we are a part of the world, just like other countries,” he explains.