the amount of gaijin
 

peace :vsign:

i only want to know from the people living in japan, the amount of gaijin in japan whether they are permanent residents or temporary residents from how often you meet or see them?

i would like to know it from people that have moved around the country a lot and not only stayed in one location but you can also give me your views on it

i feel like japan is a country that is over-crowded with gaijin that are crazed by anime and other japanese things so they come leaving their countries and living in japan so they live with these things and it makes japan unliveable due to their large amount cause around 70% of the people i know in my location likes japan and wants to go japan and even the people i meet on the internet like forums or online games and even when i pass the japanese embassy i have to find like 10-30 young people coming out of the door or going into the door and everyone i ask where would they like to live tells me they want to live in japan including all of my cousins(related to each other or unrelated to each other) and friends

so is japan over-crowded with gaijin everywhere? is the situation bad due to this? if it's only increasing day by day by now.. how do you picture it in the future? and please correct me if i am wrong with kind words and don't be rash cause i'm only seeing this from what i see happening around me

thanks to the respectful replies :ywave:

You do know that the government in Japan WANTS people to live in the countryside? That said, how does the amount of foreigners make an country unlivable, can you say the same for the US? People like to pursue things they feel make them happy/satisfied, so is it wrong for them to live in Japan for the sub-culture they like (Depends on how much reality they know on the subject)?


the little Anime craze is an very strong culture that extends to a lot of areas. Due to the fact that Japan is the homeland of such things, it does tend to attract people who want to live there by that reason alone.

In the future Japan will almost get greedy for Immigrants, birthrate is incredibly low (unless that is fixed Japan would not be able to sustain the way it is).

thank you for the reply solemnclockwork

it is not wrong that people want to live with what they like and it was not what was the matter for me, what i felt was unfortunate was i thought that japan was over-crowded due to how i see people from all over the world including the US wanting to live there which made me think (laugh if you have to :) ):

the streets, you can't walk
the shops, you can't enter
the bathrooms, you have to fight for your turn
the lands, all are taken

..and things like that, please don't get me wrong, i don't only think about myself

the reply changed my view

thanks again and hoping to get more replies ;)

No part is over-crowded with gaijin. Even at Disneyland you will see more Japanese people than foreigners.

Your use of punctuation is...interesting.

Almost none of the foreigners living in Japan live in Japan because of an anime-craze because Japan is not an amusement park. Just wanting to be there doesn't get you through the door. I have never meet an anime obsessed foreigner in japan

99.9% of those people will never live in Japan.

???
No.

What situation?
Japan will always be Japan. There is nothing any otaku can do to change that.

thanks for your reply MMM, it changed my view again

i forgot to say that i was being sarcastic, it was 5-10 people coming out or going in the embassy from time to time :)

i hope there are more respectful replies and to everyone, please reply with your knowledge not your feelings

i rarely see any foreigners except for me when i walk the streets. i saw a young australian couple yelling at eachother outside of a bar when i was walking around town (they must have thought i didn't understand english), but that was about it. japan is not overran by foreigners, even in tokyo i did not see but a hand full.

Of course the embassy and consulates are full of gaijin...that is to be expected.

i believe it must have been the accent :)

The foreign population in Japan is 1 %. Of this 1% are 90% Koreans, wich makes "gaijin" around 0.1% so the answer is no.
I have travelled everywhere in Japan and the only place ive seen alot of foreigners is Tokyo (specially Roppongi and Akihabara), Kyoto/Nara, at the floating gate and one or the other occasion. I have been travelling in the countryside or even big cities of the beaten track and didnt meet foreigners for many days.
Like stated before, many people think they want to live here, but like MMM said 99% will never do. Because Japan is not that kind of country wich:
Is like in anime
Makes it easy for people to immigrant
is 100% foreigner friendly
does have 100000 of Otakus on the streets
.....

I hope that helped to answer a bit more.

thank you very much, it was helping indeed :vsign:

I have just returned from a 5 week stay in Japan, where I encountered many gaijin every day - almost all of them fellow students at the Japanese Language School I was attending.
Other than that, I saw a few in Kyoto Station, and Tokyo and Akihabara Stations. None in Shizuoka, Mishima or Shinfuji or Fuji or Nara or ... . Gaijin seem to be very thin on the ground indeed.

Your lucky day!

Are you sure they weren't French?

Haha.. Kyoto station was my home turf;)

Non japanese everywhere.. A stroll into Starbuck's will prove that most of the time:mtongue:

This honestly seems to be a huge question. I cannot even count how many times I have been asked.

I encounter so very few foreigners that I can honestly say I probably notice and take note of every I do spot. I`d say an average of one spotting a week or two in warm weather. In cooler (cold) weather, almost never. Most of the time it`s in the direct vicinity of an English school. I drive quite a bit in my car, so this is over a huge area. If I were to stay in my direct area, only traveling by foot and bicycle - maybe I`d spot one foreigner every 6 months?

In other words, hardly ever.

Even when we visited some major tourist areas, I`d say maybe 2 or 3 obvious foreigners? I do think we saw one group of 9 or 10 students when we visited Nara.

There simply aren`t tons of foreigners in Japan. I can`t recall exactly where I read this so can`t pull up a link or be 100% sure of the figure - but if I recall correctly 80% of the non-Asian foreigners living in Japan are split between Tokyo, Saitama, and Osaka. The remaining 20% are spread over the rest of Japan. And even in Tokyo, depending upon where you hang out, you could go weeks without seeing another foreigner. Certainly no hordes wandering around where ever you go.

my view is being changed completely

what i thought before:
the gaijin are everywhere, there are anime cosplay places everywhere, you can't walk cause of the amount of people, the streets are unbearable, the bathrooms are over-occupied, the shops are crowded with people especially anime ones with gaijin, the electronics and other items only found in the country like the mobile phones are hardly in stock, the cultural restaurants' seats are all taken during the morning, evening and the night and the population keeps increasing and increasing and it is becoming a disaster :eek:

what i think after:
the country is normal like any other country, with some foreigners here and there, the condition is fine, the places like streets/shops/places are neutral, it's crowded in some places like tokyo or osaka and quiet in others, most people are very interested in the country but 99.9% of them aren't going to live there(MMM's theory :mtongue: ) and it's just fine :D

well, im happy that we changed your view to the good! Streets and places can be crowded as are the trains in the major citys if you are at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Oh besides the 1 % living foreigners i think Japan has about 2 Million Tourists a year wich is not so much considered this includes all countrys and Japans population is over 120 Million.

Japan is a very homogeneous society, perhaps 1% of the population is made up of foreigners, and of this 1%, 90% are Asian. The number of Western/European foreigners is very small, most of the foreigners you actually see are tourists and not residents.

The numbers of foreigners have been decreasing as of late due to layoffs in Japanese industry. Brazilian factory workers are being paid by the government to go home, and many of the expats who work in the financial industry have returned home as well.

The only places you'll find the sidewalks crowded with foreigners is Akihabara (where busloads of Chinese are dropped off to shop), and Roppongi, where the western foreigners tend to gravitate to. As mentioned, most of these are tourists.

There are very, very few gaijin in Japan compared to the number of Japanese people. Almost all of those otaku fanboys never make it to Japan, and if they do, it's for a visit, not to live there.

And the ones that do make it will find it bittersweet. Yes, it's JAPAN! But it's not like how it is in the manga and anime, it's real life, with all the difficulties, worries, and frustrations that involves. And yes, there is a ton of manga and anime to be found, a great majority of which is unheard of in the west! But it's all in Japanese, no English anywhere, so unless you know Japanese rather fluently, all you can do is enjoy the art, you can't really grasp the intricacies of the dialogue or story. Are you fluent in Japanese? Most of the otakus that dream of Japan are not, which means they may find all kinds of new treasures... and can't understand any of it, some times not even the title or the names of the main characters.

i really appreciate everyone's replies and i am very grateful to you all :)

As Nyorin said, It also depends on where you actually look.

Osaka city, Kyoto city, you can see many.

On the other hand, go to a country area in Nara, and you would be pushed to hunt one down!

Why don't you check the official statistics?

Issued Visa in 2008 by Mofa@Japan

Total 1,512,018
1 China 759,694
2 Thai 171,503
3 Malay 92,612
4 Philipin 75,508
5 Indonasia 59,175
6 Russia 57,964
7 India 46,782
8 Brasil 31,819
9 VietNum 23,944
10 Korea 23,110
11 USA 20,739
12 Mongol 7,824
13 SriLanka 7,579
14 Nepal 6,417
15 Taiwan 5,573
16 UK 5,549
17 Pakstan 5,526
18 France 4,441
19 SouthAfrika 4,373
20 Germany 4,240
21 Myanmar 4,227
22 Uklina 4,150
23 Vangradish 3,963
24 Iran 3,720
25 Peru 3,504
26 Canada 3,220
27 Egypt 3,200
28 Rumania 3,196
29 Australia 3,190
30 Colombia 2,929

In 2007, total 1,396,008 and in 2006, total 1,187,218.

You can refer to the original data at http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/toko/tokei/hakkyu/
(In Japanese).

So around 1% of the population...

That isn`t quite right as it`s only the number of visas issued during that year.
More accurate data would be here;
http://www.moj.go.jp/PRESS/080601-1.pdf
Unfortunately I can`t find the same document in html, but here is the same thing from 2006; http://www.moj.go.jp/PRESS/060530-1/060530-1.html

It has a nice breakdown of the number of foreigners and their countries of origin.

But still far from the "over-crowding" the OP describes in the first post.

Interesting to find Colombia listed in the top 30.

so it's still 1% or more? and couldn't read what was there in that pdf file since it was filled with dots everywhere..

Saw more gaijin then I expected in Tokyo but still it was only a handful.

As for it being crowed I think your thinking of China.

Only lines I saw were for certain things like restaurants or events and even those were few and far between.

I find Manhattan WAY more busy and the subways more crowded.

Even if you go to places when you expect to see gaijin (like a Irish Pub, MMM probably knows the Blarney Stone), there are still more Japanese there looking to meet gaijin. Most gaijin I saw or met were tourists that didn't live there.
Japan is a crowded country in the cities, but mostly with Japanese. The countryside is nice and open.

Yes, I know the Blarney Stone...most of those gaijin bars seemed to be filled with gaijin students, tourists, and new-arrivals, as well as Japanese who like the atmosphere, hearing English and cheap drink specials.

Thank you for your pointing out. I could not find the amount who are in Japan legally without visa.

The difference between yours and mine are the 一般永住者 and 特別永住者.
Do you know what the 特別永住者 is?

I see. 特別永住者 are the foreign people and their descendant who was in Japan as of Sep/2/1945.

Yes, I do.
I think that there is more difference than that though. Visas are not issued every single year for a lot of people. 3 year visas are also very common, and for students there are a lot of 2 years. So just looking at the visas issued in one year isn`t going to show you all the people who had the visa issued the year before or 2 years ago. To see those people, you have to look at how many people are registered.

My visa was renewed last in 2007. So even though I live in Japan, I would not be included in the list you posted.

MMM, can you give me a place to meet other foreigners? do you know any of these bars near saitama or easy to find in tokyo? i would like to meet some japanese looking for foreigners for language exchanging.

My list includes multi-year visa. Is it what you mention?

In Saitama, no. I would pick up "Time Out Tokyo" magazine for language exchanges in Tokyo.

There are some "English Cafe" around Tokyo where you can find Japanese who want to talk in English.

http://www.eigojoho.com/cafe.htm

Yes. Of course your list includes multi-year. But only multi-year that are issued between January and December in 2008. Multi-year visas that are active but not issued in that year are not included.

For example, look at the figures for the US on your list (from 2007) - It is 19,739 visas issued. But the number of Americans living in Japan (registered with active visa in 2007) is 51,851.

I see. Thank you very much.

if you go to all of the tourist places and red light sectors you will find lots of gaijin. I was in Shibuya last night and saw many, I would say 1 in 20 for a weekday is alot.

You will always see G'jin in places like omotesando, shinjuku, shibuya and akihabara. These are the places listed in tour guides, you will go to these places too and be just another gaijin.
In the countyside it is very different. You will be super No.1 gaijin and the whole district will talk about you and try to arrange a marriage with thier daughter or son. (sarc)

How about visa exempts
 

Approximately how many people from Visa exempt countries?

How cool is that, have we met? :mtongue: