Will Immigrants Go Home First Thing If Something Happens to Their Homeland?

Isolationist’s strange mindset against globalisation

I have read a slightly peculiar article that warns against Japan’s over-reliant on immigrants because these foreigners will want to go home if something came up in their own country.

It’s worth noting this article was written in 2018 when the then Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was considering how to package the country’s needs of immigrants due to a shrinking Japanese local workforce (which is still a problem today).

Reading this makes me feel funny. As a social anthropology student 10 years ago, I wrote my bachelor degree’s dissertation about the construction of national identity and the diaspora of human capital. In other words, immigration and emigration.

I was referencing the UK and France situations after the second world war, and it seems like the same debate against globalisation, happens again now in Japan, almost 70 years later.

But the world has changed. For one, it’s simply not ok to be racist. But people have many different ways to talk about differences, let’s look at this from a globalisation perspective.

Do people go home due to diplomatic conflicts?

According to that article,

If many foreign workers arriving at a constant pace take up residency in Japan, Japanese society will eventually become reordered under the premise of their rising shares in the labor market. At the same time, the possibility cannot be ruled out that diplomatic conflict between Japan and their home country or other incidents might cause foreign workers to return home en masse, severely affecting the industries that have come to depend upon them. — Masashi Kawai

Firstly, I assume that Masashi-san was thinking primarily about Chinese workers, as they have continued to constitute one of the largest proportion of foreign workers in Japan.

I can see where he was coming from, because as of 2021, Japan has shown support to Taiwan, in alliance with the US. So in the case that China ordered their people to return home (can they actually do that?), there’s such a risk.

Everything with totalitarianism is a bit unique, I agree. But that shouldn’t be the reason to not support immigration and globalisation.

Attract people with pull factors

I probably fit squarely in the label of a highly skilled migrated workforce. I moved from Hong Kong to London around 16 years ago, the biggest consideration for me when moving to another country for career reasons would be whether there are enough pull factors that attract me there in a long term.

If the pull factors are sufficient and well-balanced, and I am appreciated at this new, foreign place, I can’t really see why I’d leave. To attract foreign people into any country is simply an evaluation of the push and pull factors.

The Japanese government tried to fill unwanted, lower-skill jobs with foreign immigrants. I can see why because that’s exactly what happened here in the UK, many less-preferred jobs, from construction to cleaning, are done by immigrants. This is fair enough because these jobs might still attract immigrants after comparing the situation with their countries of origin.

However, the problem is that the foreign workers have a hard time as the working environment was particularly hostile, including overworking, exploitation, etc. This is more likely to be the reason why people will leave Japan, than the fact that there’s a diplomatic conflict between countries.

For a white-collar worker like me who wanted to move to Japan because I like the country’s history, culture and food, Japan has also created added barriers that normally won’t be expected for large economies. I am not talking about the language, but the fundamental need to differentiate between us and them.

“Us” and “them” under globalisation

From what I researched and learned about Japanese culture through ethnographies, Japanese friends and popular media, the idea of us and them is intrinsic in Japanese consciousness. It’s not just against non-Japanese, but also within. For example, clients are them and colleagues are us, Japanese or not.

It’s true that the line between us and them becomes quite blurred in a globalised society. Until a year ago, I was a Londoner who grew up in Hong Kong. For the 16 years, I was in the UK, I have gone through the stages of feeling foreign, losing the balance between my increasing anglicised cultural believes, to feeling at ease with the dual identity.

What a successful globalised society should do, is to facilitate the feeling of being at ease at the duality, rather than to force someone to identify with one, or to pre-determine that someone will never assimilate to another culture.

How to cultivate duality

Here are a few alternative perspectives on the idea of us vs. them that facilitated my dualistic cultural identification:

• City > Country: Although I now hold a British passport and live in the seaside city of Brighton, I still think I am more identified as a Londoner than a British or Hong Kong person. The legal position of a person never matters that much, it’s where we feel we belong. Like the UK, Japan is big; like London feels totally different to the rest of the UK, Tokyo and other few major Japanese cities are most likely to be like that. Things like overarching Japanese identity as suggested by Nihhonjinron are perhaps difficult to cultivate for various reasons, but the regional flexibility is much more adaptable. As such, we should focus on having people integrated into the city, rather than a country.
• Sub-cultures > City: what’s great about a metropolitan like London and Tokyo, is that it has a lot of sub-groups. I was part of the finance group in London, and now I am part of an entrepreneur/start-up group in Brighton. There are more in common when people share the same passion, this ranges from manga to rock music, and that speaks beyond ethnicity, 100%.
• Acceptance must co-exist with integration: I am for integration actually, I think foreigners who come to the UK should attempt to be friendly like the Brits, go to the pubs with workmates on a Friday afternoon, learn how to make a good cup of tea at work. But integration can’t be one-sided, it has to meet with the acceptance from the locals for the possibility of differences. This is a mindset thing, we can’t expect people to change whilst taking things for granted. It’s like expecting an American to add the right amount of milk in the tea the first time around, they won’t know how to do it!

I am not criticising Japanese but I’m writing my honest concern as a Japanese culture lover who’s keen to create my start-up there. I am doing what I can to learn about the culture, the language and everything in between, and this is what I’ve found.

It is possible to preserve a country’s traditions whilst opening the doors to foreigners. The UK had gone through some turbulent discussions 70 years ago, with racist comments all over the place (remember the Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech?).

Various countries in the world have done enough globalisation and integration work to know that freedom of movement for workers creates the best outcome in innovation, entrepreneurship and development. This is not only on an economic level but also on a humanity level.

We become better, together.

Here are more articles about the world: