With the tourism minister announcing on Monday that the number of foreign tourists who visited Japan in the past year passed the 20 million mark, we can safely say the country is seeing a whole lot more foreigners than it used to. With that come some questions – including some potentially uncomfortable ones, such as accounts of racism.
Until now, most incidents have been mainly anecdotal and passed on through word of mouth, with no official figures on (racial) discrimination or hate speech. New laws introduced earlier this year seek to tackle some of the issues at hand (mainly hate speech against the Korean and Chinese communities, which make up about half of the foreign population), but some say they lack juridicial clout, with no penalties being set for hate speech crimes, and actually indicting someone still being rather difficult.
Other incidents that were flagged include foreigners being denied entry into hotels or restaurants or not being allowed to rent accommodation; in one slightly bizarre episode last month, an Osaka conductor 'apologised' to Japanese passengers because there were so many foreigners on his train. Confusion and grey areas abound, with a whole host of opinions usually being aired in reaction to any such events.
Enter the government's unprecedented plan: to survey 18,500 foreign residents above the age of 18 by March 2017 about their experiences with racism and/or discrimination in Japan. The questionnaire will come in 13 languages and asks if respondents have encountered any incidents of racism during their daily lives in Japan, while also requesting descriptions of the encounters.
The results will be analysed by an NPO, and supposedly taken into consideration when drafting new laws on human rights and discrimination. Reactions to the idea so far have ranged from 'finally' to those who question the government's motives – some suggest that racism in Japan is scarce or non-existent, and that the government's commissioning of the survey is actually a sneaky way to reassure foreign tourists before 2020.
What remains a bit unclear is how the questionnaire will actually be distributed: it seems participants will be selected at random from 37 places around the country – all with relatively high concentrations of foreign nationals – with the questionnaire then mailed directly to these 'lucky' few. Keep your eyes peeled on the mailbox, we'd say, and if you do get one, tell us what it's like.