Outside a train station near Tokyo, hundreds of people cheer as Sohei Kamiya, head of the surging nationalist party Sanseito, criticizes Japan’s rapidly growing foreign population.
As opponents, separated by uniformed police and bodyguards, accuse him of racism, Kamiya shouts back, saying he is only talking common sense.
Sanseito, while still a minor party, made big gains in July’s parliamentary election, and Kamiya’s “Japanese First” platform of anti-globalism, anti-immigration and anti-liberalism is gaining broader traction ahead of a ruling party vote Saturday that will choose the likely next prime minister.
I lived in Japan for a few years. In the entire time I lived there, there was two instances I could say I experienced discrimination based on being a foreigner
Instance 1: I had a few friends visiting that don’t speak Japanese, and we went to Sapporo. We were looking for a place to eat on the outskirts of the city, walked in a small ramen shop and were immediately told, in English, that the shop was closed (we had been speaking English among ourselves). In Japanese, I passive aggressively said, “Oh, I saw the sign saying the shop was open… sorry, I’ll leave”. It was like 6:30PM. They had their “open” sign on the door. The shop was almost certainly open
Instance 2: A bar in Shinjuku had a sign saying “No foreigners”. I popped my head in and politely asked the master, in Japanese, what was up with the sign. He sit up when I spoke in Japanese and said because he doesn’t speak English he didn’t want to deal with the hassle of customers that can’t speak Japanese
Which is to say, as a white foreigner from a high income country, the discrimination I’ve faced is public businesses that don’t want to deal with customers that don’t know the language and etiquette. Many of the other foreigners I’ve talked to had similar experiences, although outright racism or discrimination is not unheard of