How do native Japanese view of long-term foreign permanent residents and naturalized citizens in Japan?

I wouldn't worry about it, virtually all my friends are Japanese, I live in a country village, with all that entails, but I get on well enough with the neighbors. I have very rarely experienced prejudice here, particularly not in the last twenty years or so. In fact I suffered more from that traveling in England as I was from London and as everybody knows, Londoners are not to be trusted! From what I have seen over the years, the main problems appears to be that westerners feel they are somehow superior and are shocked when they are treated like everybody else. Culture shock can take a lot of forms but common one is to suffer from delusions of discrimination.

Hey man, I've lived here nearly seven years, in the inaka (countryside), like you will be if you are a JET. I've run the gamut on views of Japan and the Japanese. There is a common progression: 1. The honeymoon: 3 months-1 year: you think Japan is so much cooler than your home country, and people are so wacky, and friendly, maybe you meet a girl, you are enthusiastic about new food, sumo, etc. 2. Cooling off period -after about 1 year---you still enjoy your life in Japan, not as rosy as it used to be, but you have made some friends and probably have a crew of gaikokujin that you travel around with--climb mt. fuji, go to beppu onsen, etc. You may be in a serious relationship or just playing around with the ladies. 3. Fvck Japan-2nd/3rd/4th years--Getting Visa renewals, realizing the impossibility of being in a relationship with a Japanese woman, maybe you failed the Japanese test once or twice, the summers are oppressive, and even though you may be conversationally fluent, and can use chopsticks better than Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid, people still treat you like a tourist 4. Comfortably Numb--(Me now--5+ years) The Cheapest..the first guy who contributed gets a thumbs up for honesty. Whites are treated as tourists, as guests, as outsiders. You learn to accept it, and laugh it off, and make jokes when someone makes an absurd comment. "Wow! you can use chopsticks!" "I'm a foreigner, not an orangutan." Everyone at the party laughs, and at least some of the "speaking to foreigners" tension goes away. Just get you Japanese to a point where you can be witty, and talk about a variety of subjects. And you learn honorific language, and social customs, and you will see that its different.... I don't really know how to explain this. The long-term fellows, about half are really well versed in the culture and the language, and while not accepted as Japanese, get a modicum of respect. There are some asshats left over from the booming 80's and 90's who started English schools. They can't speak Japanese and get there wives to do everything for them...Nobody respects them. And racism exists. In two main areas: the right wing political arena (LDP, yakuza, uyoku affiliated groups), and ignorant people. I've had only one occasion where I almost got into a fistfight in a public place because of the conduct of a man making gaijin jokes in front of children. I walked up to him, and though I was about 8 inches taller, he was wasted and filled with liquid courage. But his wife pulled him away from me and said "gomennasai" --apologized profusely. Someday this will happen to you--be the bigger man and walk away. Most Japanese people are not racist, and these drunken idiots WILL press charges after you kick their asses and oh yeah, the criminal justice system is also racist. So be careful. And stay away from the police, don't back talk the police, don't steal a bicycle or vandalize anything, because the police are racist too. Summing up: Japan is a place to live. More difficult than your home country, but some people are just made to be gaikokujin. If this is your destiny, you will figure it out, or you will knock your girlfriend up (I did the latter) and that's that. If you try JET and go nuts, then ramble on. And one more thing: I was never a JET but I check out their unofficial site www.bigdaikon.com a lot. There is a lot of hate and negativity about Japan, Japanese people, Japanese government and various other reasons they spend their youth in a foreign country sitting in a dark room using the internet all day. Don't let that crap influence. Find out what's good and bad for yourself. We are Americans,and Americans can make it anywhere, providing they don't wallow in self-pity and passive aggressive internet flaming. And never listen to the old-timers. They're always full of shite. Except me:)

Basically, what you have heard is true. Japanese people do not like the idea of accepting more immigrant in the future although it's certain that the population in Japan will decline because of declining birth rate. But once you immigrated to Japan, they will treat you politely as "guest". But only as a guest, not as one of them in most cases. That's particularly the case if you are an American. Asian people have similar look. So they are more likely to be accepted as one of them.

I don't know, ask my wife, she is a Japanese national (native), and when my inlaws, whom come over to our house often, and when they take us out to eat, they are always very friendly, and treat me with respect. We just moved here to retire in may.

It is great that you are looking around for different views and people's experiences. The only way to know how you may be received is to come on over....you will get your answer. In the meantime, before you come over continue reading up on what people have to say about their experiences in Japan and try asking some questions on the forums on www.gaijinpot.com But beware, you may get a ton of witty, crafty remarks for your newbness....that's just how forums are perhaps. A lot of what you experience here will be largely influenced on how you view things and how open a mind you can keep. If you attribute everything to this being disrimination and that, then eventually you will really not like Japan and its people. Learn from all your experiences here, and being new here you may step on a few toes and sometimes you won't even realize you did something wrong because of something you didn't do in business properly. People here often will not say things directly and sometimes say NOTHING but you are expected to understand and do things accordingly. If someone does you a favor in business, then don't just say thank you once. Say it, then say it again, then write them an email to provide some evidence that you DID say thank you and show them you appreciate them helping you.

I've lived in Japan, I'm here right now and I haven't felt much discrimination. The feeling of being alienated isn't about being a foriegner but being an outsider. Japanese culture is a very group oriented culture where being inside a group opens you up to a casual relationship and being outside you'll be treated like a guest, regaurdless if youre Japanese or not. And it will always be that way especially if you don't speak Japanese. Once you get a group of friends who invite you to hang out with another group of friends you'll be okay. Being from a western country has a better political situation than being from another Asian country, but that is only politically speaking I've met more than a few groups that hang out with Chinese and Koreans without thinking otherwise. If there is a hatred you will be assuming it because it isn't obvious. What tends to happen is that people from western countries are all of a sudden 'minorities' and they finally begin to understand what advantages they had in their country from being the majority that have been taken away. People will look at you, not for any reason other than that you are rare, you will be subject to stereotypes because of peoples lack of experience with forigners, you will take every strange look as something racial. But I lived here, married here, made friends here, worked here and have other ex-pat friends who did the same. You run into unique problems with being the minority but that comes with the territory. Learn the language, interact with coworkers, go to gokons and get phone numbers and you'll be AOK.

For the most part, you will always be a gaijin. Even non-Japanese born there don't get citizenship...

I myself dont mind foreigners coming here to settle at all! There was a small family, (Father and son), who i've grown up with, they were Hawaianns who grew up in NY and moved here for construction work. They seemed very nice, and now they've got citizenship and were even willing to denounce their former american nationality to settle here. They were very well respected, and treated as one of us in a way. However, recently there's been a huge influx of anime nerds who badmouth Japan when they realise it's nothing like Naruto and not everyone watches D-Gray Man. This is where you get the bad reviews and "racism" stories. In a sentence, if you respect our values, rules and norms, you will be treated just as any one else is treated.

It really depends on you. Some people never seem to lose the chip on their shoulder, and therefore experience a world in tune with that. Some people live life a bit more lightly, and they get what they get too. One thing about Japan though. It's a mirror. We're all seeing the same thing, but for some reason we all interpret differently, by our own standards. The other thing that always seems to come up is you're talking about fear of racism, yet you're being racist yourself. So many people don't see this. A typical example, "Are the Japanese racist?" It's a completely racist question. Stop seeing things in terms of race and maybe you won't experience so much racism, no?