Whispering campaign started.. Get your ID's ready..

[GomiGirl]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but out of the 1,600 illegal residents, how many were legal residents?

Errmmm.

none of them were legal which is why they are classed as illegal...

Perhaps you need to rephrase your question..

[cstaylor]

devicenull is missing the point: in order for the Ishihara brown shirts to find foreigners here illegally, they will stop every single foreign-looking person and ask for their identification cards.

Of course, the Chinese who are the big offenders won't get stopped because they look Japanese.

[Nagged]

[devicenull]

devicenull is missing the point: in order for the Ishihara brown shirts to find foreigners here illegally, they will stop every single foreign-looking person and ask for their identification cards.

Of course, the Chinese who are the big offenders won't get stopped because they look Japanese.

as long as it is cops and they have a reason to suspect, it's legal IIRC. just something that goes with the turf. whenever i go into the computer lab, i have to show my ID... all the people who work on the network and the teachers never have to... if i want to buy booze, they make me show ID, just because I am young. but everyone who looks 30 doesnt have to. just goes with the turf IMHO. unless they are relocating foreigners so they are "easier to manage"... i dont see an issue

[cstaylor]

as long as it is cops and they have a reason to suspect, it's legal IIRC

So, what was the "probably cause" for visiting GG's parents? They're not Japanese?

[kamome]

devicenull is missing the point: in order for the Ishihara brown shirts to find foreigners here illegally, they will stop every single foreign-looking person and ask for their identification cards.

Of course, the Chinese who are the big offenders won't get stopped because they look Japanese.

as long as it is cops and they have a reason to suspect, it's legal IIRC. just something that goes with the turf. whenever i go into the computer lab, i have to show my ID... all the people who work on the network and the teachers never have to... if i want to buy booze, they make me show ID, just because I am young. but everyone who looks 30 doesnt have to. just goes with the turf IMHO. unless they are relocating foreigners so they are "easier to manage"... i dont see an issue

The issue is the "slippery slope". If cops can treat any foreigner as a suspect today, what is the next step tomorrow? Ishihara's policy could be a blueprint for incrementally marginalizing foreigners and depriving them of rights.

[Big Booger]

So racial profiling is accepted in Japan

[cstaylor]

So racial profiling is accepted in Japan

Accepted? It's their only policing system... that and beating out confessions ("forensic techniques? what's that?").

[GomiGirl]

as long as it is cops and they have a reason to suspect, it's legal IIRC

So, what was the "probably cause" for visiting GG's parents? They're not Japanese?

Who knows - it was probably just a random check of all the foreigners in the area..

One one level it is not really a problem as we all have the correct visas etc and we are law abiding, tax paying citizens.. (just don't mention to my landlord the fact that I am harbouring a kitten in my apartment)

However, on another level it reeks of McCathy-ism or Mao's Whispering Campaign and this is disturbing.

Recently in a book I was reading a passage really hit home. The book was a book about three men in different periods of history in Avignon France and they were all phillosophers - one at the fall of the roman empire, one during the black plague and one during WWII. Anti-semitism in all three of these times was sadly an issue.. it was dealt with as a minor subtext throughout the story. However, towards the end of the book all of the stories merged and the statement went something like (paraphrasing):

Civilisation permits some of the most barbaric of human behaviour in history and it happens while people stand by and know it is happening and don't do anything. It also suggested that the horrendous events during holocaust were really the culmination of hundreds of years of underlying anti-semitism as the jewish community in Europe had been blamed for everything from the subversion of the Roman Empire, bringing the black plague etc. And it was almost with the tacit approval of the rest of the population. Society had become "civilised" since we crawled out of the tar pits so even if people know something is ethically wrong, the societal rules of civilised society are set up to allow morally wrong behaviour to exist and almost flourish.

Reading between the lines, the book's message was civilised society had spawned Hitler and rather than us just being able to dismiss him as a madman acting alone, society needs to take some of the blame for our unjustified prejudices against other human beings.

So.... where am I going with this.. I am not really sure. I guess I will stand on my all too familiar soap box and scream to anyone that will hear that ignorant generalisations attributed to a collective is potentially a danger.

[GomiGirl]

Actually there is a bit more about the book now that I think about it.

The anti-semitism of regular people was not an everyday issue, rather it was an underlying feeling of many people, but this was used by powerful leaders such as bishops, popes, government officials in order for them to keep power or keep the majority under control.

The jewish community usually kept to themselves but were largely misunderstood by christian population. So this ignorance bred contempt and this was used by the people in power for their own political gains.

It was easy to point the bone at a misunderstood group and tell the rest of the population that it was their fault for unrelated problems (like the black plague).

So perhaps the parallel I am drawing is that Ishihara pointing the finger at FG's in Japan for a perceived increase in the crime rate is the premise for something uglier.

How well are FG's understood in Japan.. (can you use chopsticks, can you eat raw fish, do you know how to use an onsen???)

OK shall I shut up now???

[Nagged]

OK shall I shut up now???

Go ahead & let it all out.

All of us are in the same boat here and I think that any form of oppostion to people like Ishihara and their politics is a good thing.

Even though Ishihara and the like will probably never read these comments, they are an inspiration to people who care.

I know of a young lady in this forum coming over soon from England of Chinese ancestry (you know who you are). Hope that she doesn't cop any flack with immigration here. There are also several mainland Chinese workers at my company, they're just normal human beings like everyone else. Work pretty hard too I might add. Stereotyping is for dummies.

As for illegals, well, if I was poor and wanted to make money in another country, I might be desparate enough to come here without the proper paperwork. I don't approve of theft and stuff, but you gotta eat. At the same time, there has a be a limit. Decent immigration policy should handle it but I think that this is not implemented because of a want of cheap labor. Bit of hypocrisy going on I think.

[GuyJean]

GG,

Sorry to hear your community is turning on you. They're probably just bored and need some gossip.

I had a student tell me once that she didn't mind the Indian people moving into her neighborhood, but their cooking "smelled too strong"..

As I stay here longer, I grow less and less sympathetic for Japanese housewives; no obligation to do anything really besides make babies, do housework, spoil their kids, and act like their life is so 'taihen'.. They've got it made, really. They're free to take classes at the local community center, get a part-time job, and contract diseases from fucking Jack.... box o' chocolates, life is.

As for illegals, well, if I was poor and wanted to make money in another country, I might be desparate enough to come here without the proper paperwork.

Well actually, I'd be willing to bet most FGiggers came here on a Tourist Visa and got a job. Which is ILLEGAL!

I think that this is not implemented because of a want of cheap labor. Bit of hypocrisy going on I think.

Ping Pong! Industrialized countries NEED illegals so they can get $7 vests at WalMart.

GJ

[GomiGirl]

GG,

Sorry to hear your community is turning on you. They're probably just bored and need some gossip.

Actually the neighbourhood folks are great!! We get greeted by all the shopkeepers etc.. the local fruit shop always gives me a discount or (saabisu) because I shop there all the time.

But it is because we stand out I guess that we have come to the attention of the local plod.

But I am sure they gossip (and laugh behind our backs) about the strange things we buy every week and the way we look at packages of dried sea creatures trying to work out what they hell to do with it..

but this is all harmless as it is a great neighbourhood.

however, if the government really turned on us, then I am sure it wouldn't be so harmless. It is easy for a politician/city official to turn a group of ordinary people into an angry mob by playing on their fears and insecurites..

(oh god I am now sounding really paranoid.. damn you George Orwell!!!)

[Taro Toporific]

Well actually, I'd be willing to bet most FGiggers came here on a Tourist Visa and got a job. Which is ILLEGAL!

Yep.

Let's ANECDOTAL!!
I overstayed here in Japan after China refused to give me my visa from the Shanghai Teachers College job I had a contract for. Hell, I cruised on a highly-dubious visa of the Swedish Consulate of Yokohama for more than a year.

My Kiwi biz partner was here for 10 years without a valid visa. Most of the FG in the now-downsized-to-near-zero office of Time Magazine in Tokyo didn't have valid visas in the 90s. Most those Iranians that used to sell telephone cards in Ueno didn't have visas. Basically, nobody cared up to now.

[Nagged]

Well actually, I'd be willing to bet most FGiggers came here on a Tourist Visa and got a job. Which is ILLEGAL!

You mean they didn't come here for sightseeing?

[omae mona]

I had a student tell me once that she didn't mind the Indian people moving into her neighborhood, but their cooking "smelled too strong"..

A while back, I had a boss who banned Indian food from the office because it smelled too strong. The boss was Indian.

[Robato]

I always read about discrimination....but I never experienced any of this stuff you guys are talking about. I guess because I live in a town about 20 minutes outside of Nagoya I never will?

At least I hope not. People seem REALLY great here.