Visa Stays are Extended for Those With Japanese Skills
Charisma Man–click for full picture
Here is another reason to learn another language (specifically, Japanese): If you should ever want to stay in Japan, your language skills can get your a 5-year resident visa instead of just 3. The article mentions that it’s based on a “certain level of language proficiency,” which hopefully is a realistic one.
I think this is calls for a huge sigh of relief for foreigners living in Japan, especially since security has been tightened in airports, where to get into the country you need to be fingerprinted and have your photo taken. A lot of people–especially those who may come from countries with fewer ties to Japan–complain about how hard it is to get into Japan and stay there.
Despite this, in a country where all sorts of measures are taken to ensure that Koreans born in Japan are never made into citizens (regardless of how many generations the family has been there), I find it ironic that there is a push to encourage foreigners to come and make their stay. In fact, many people in Japan–such as Okinawans, the Ainu, Brazilians, and other races–are discriminated against just because they aren’t “ethnically Japanese,” despite living in the country all their lives.
Rather than patting themselves on the back for nudging open the door for foreigners just a little bit wider, the Japanese government needs to re-examine its own issues with race. A guy shouldn’t have to work schlock jobs just because he is Brazilian and wasn’t able to get the education he needed to move up in the world. A woman shouldn’t resort to prostitution because she is Malaysian and is refused normal jobs. There is still an incredibly embedded sense of “you vs. us” mentality, where “gaijin” (the sometimes-derogatory slang word for “foreigner”) is thrown about casually, lumping all non-Japanese together.
While I’m happy to see that the Japanese government is at least making some kind of effort to persuade those interested to come and live in Japan, it can hardly be looked at as a significant improvement in the way Japan sees other races. Improvement will come when everybody who lives in Japan are provided equal opportunities to succeed, and not hindered by their lineage. At this point though, it still seems like wishful thinking.
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