Japan is changing, bit by bit

ARTICLE: "Enclave of Brazilians Tests Insular Japan: Nation Tiptoes Into a Multiethnic Era," by Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times, 2 November 2008.

Cool story about Brazilian-born Japanese lured back to the island for demographic reasons and to-this-day still remaining oddly enclaved.

One big neighborhood where such an enclave exists elicits this weirdly revealing comment from an aged (69) community leader:

To be honest, I never imagined in my wildest dreams that this would ever become a multi-ethnic neighborhood.

Doesn't that line just kill in irony? I mean, the butter-side-up crowd confronted by the alien nature of the butter-side-down bunch!

Oh, to have a star upon thars!

But yeah, demographic realities do that to you.

Comments

[Louis Heberlein]

Nothing new. Over a decade ago there were Japanese families in Washington and Oregon as part of businesses to buy high quality lumber for housing and furniture to be made in Japan.

The children went to private Japanese run schools to maintain cultural and language skills. When the adults returned to Japan they had to go to adult schools before they merged with domestic business and civil community.

News articles said this was just temporary process that would soon change,

[Louis Heberlein]

Taking a longer range view, I guess things are improving. When Dutch and English merchant ships first started coming to Asia for trade, the Japanese abandoned their own trade communities in places like the Philippines and Taiwan. They would not let their people there return to Japan because their culture and maybe racial distinction could have been contaminated.

Things are better now.

But don't talk about any gene or culture links with those Korean folks.