Experiences – Life – Inspiration 🇨🇭🇯🇵

Lately, something feels different on Japanese social media.

Words like “too many foreigners,” “jobs being stolen,” and “crime is increasing” appear more often.

Not shouted, but repeated.

Not always angry, but tense.

Fear has a quiet way of spreading.

I do not want to argue with that fear.

I want to understand it.

And maybe place it into a wider perspective.

Because perspective has a way of softening things that fear makes sharp.

Two countries. Two very different realities.

Before living in Japan, I lived in the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, foreigners and people with a migration background are part of everyday life. Around 1.5 million people living there do not hold Dutch nationality. That is roughly 8 to 9 percent of the population. If we include people born in the Netherlands to immigrant parents, the share rises to well over 20 percent.

Immigration there is rarely a headline.

It is the background noise of daily life.

Now I live in Japan.

Japan has about 3.8 million foreign residents in a population of roughly 125 million people. That is around 3 percent of the population.

Three percent.

Most foreign residents come from nearby Asian countries such as China, Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, and Nepal. The majority are working, studying, or training, often in industries already struggling with labor shortages.

Yet the emotional tension I sense online in Japan feels stronger than what I experienced in the Netherlands.

That contrast stayed with me.

Where foreigners actually live

Another detail that often gets overlooked is where foreigners live.

In both countries, foreign residents are heavily concentrated in urban areas.

In Japan, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Aichi, Osaka, and Saitama account for a large share of the foreign population. Many rural areas see very few foreigners at all.

The Netherlands shows the same pattern. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, and Eindhoven have far higher concentrations than smaller towns or villages.

This concentration creates an illusion.

If you live in or near a big city, it can feel like foreigners are everywhere. If you live outside those areas, you may rarely encounter any at all. Neither experience reflects the national picture.

Visibility shapes perception far more than numbers do.

Tourism quietly changed the equation

There is another factor that strongly influences how “foreign” Japan feels today.

Tourism.

Japan has experienced record-high tourism numbers since reopening after the pandemic. In 2024 alone, nearly 37 million international tourists visited the country, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Projections for 2025 go even higher.

These visitors are not spread evenly across the country. They concentrate in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Hakone, and other popular destinations.

Tourists are highly visible.

They fill trains.

They crowd streets.

They stop suddenly.

They misunderstand local rules.

They behave differently.

This can be exhausting for locals.

But tourists and foreign residents are not the same.

Tourists are temporary.

Foreign residents live, work, pay taxes, and adapt over time.

Emotionally, however, these two groups often merge into one word: foreigners.

Frustration caused by overcrowding, noise, or bad behavior from short-term visitors slowly turns into resentment toward long-term residents who had nothing to do with it.

The distinction disappears.

The emotion remains.

When “many” is a feeling, not a number

Fear rarely starts with statistics.

It starts with daily experience.

Seeing large crowds every day makes it feel like something is out of control. But tourism flows and long-term immigration are very different realities.

Japan can welcome millions of tourists in a single month and still have only three percent foreign residents overall.

When those two realities blur, perception drifts far from reality.

Soon, “I see foreigners everywhere” feels true, even if the numbers barely changed.

About jobs and the fear of being replaced

The fear of losing work is real. Especially for younger generations.

Gen Z in Japan grew up with stagnant wages, rising prices, and an uncertain future. Stability feels fragile. When the future feels unstable, competition feels personal.

It becomes easy to look at foreigners and think, they are taking something from me.

But tourists do not take jobs.

And many foreign residents fill roles that already lack workers.

Japan’s population is aging. The workforce is shrinking. Entire industries already struggle to find enough people. Construction, caregiving, hospitality, agriculture, logistics.

A shrinking workforce cannot be protected by exclusion.

It can only be supported by participation.

Crime, numbers, and selective attention

Crime is another concern often mentioned online.

There have been more recorded cases involving foreign visitors or residents in recent years. This is not surprising when the number of people entering the country rises sharply, especially short-term visitors.

But numbers without context can mislead.

When viewed relative to the total population, the vast majority of crimes in Japan are still committed by Japanese nationals. Among cases involving foreigners, many are minor or non-violent offenses, such as shoplifting or administrative violations.

One incident involving a foreigner travels fast online. Nationality becomes the headline. The individual disappears.

When a Japanese person commits a crime, it is seen as an individual act. When a foreigner does, it often becomes a category.

Fear grows when we stop seeing individuals and start seeing groups.

Countries with longer immigration histories learned this lesson the hard way. Linking crime to nationality creates anxiety, not safety.

Statistics rarely travel as fast as stories.

And fear rarely waits for context.

What Gen Z might actually be afraid of

I do not think many young Japanese people are truly afraid of foreigners.

I think they are overwhelmed by change that arrived all at once.

More tourists.

More English signs.

More unfamiliar behavior.

More pressure on housing, transport, and wages.

Foreigners become a visible symbol of that change.

Change becomes the target.

The anxiety underneath remains unnamed.

Japan does not have a foreigner problem.

Japan has a transition problem.

A transition from homogeneity to global visibility.

From predictability to exposure.

From inward stability to outward connection.

The Netherlands went through this decades ago. Loudly, messily, and with resistance. Japan is going through it more suddenly, compressed into a shorter time span.

Perspective does not erase fear, but it can soften it

Three percent is not an invasion.

Millions of tourists are not immigrants.

They are different realities creating different pressures, often blamed on the same people.

Foreign residents are not evenly spread across the country.

They are concentrated where work, study, and opportunity exist.

Just as they are in almost every country on Earth.

Fear thrives in isolation.

Perspective grows through comparison.

Sometimes, simply knowing the difference between tourists and residents, between visibility and numbers, is enough to slow the fear down.

I do not write this to dismiss anyone’s concerns.

I write it because I have lived on both sides.

And from that place, the contrast is too clear to ignore.

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