Hi to all,
is the first time i write in the forum. So hello to all.
I write to add my particular point of view and excuse me if i make mistakes in english, im not english speaker.

Im former spanish citizen (but half italian half spanish with double nationality), and i stay japan 2 times for some months and now i will go for more long stay (my wife is japanese).

I was surprised about how the japanese people are ignorant about the rest of the world in general (i stay in tokyo not in a rural area). They have very fix ideas about gaijin.

1)all caucasians are anglosaxon, wrong, lot of people around the world doesnt speak english and have nothign to do with america or england. We are also spanish, portuguese, italians, germans,switzerlands, east europeans. So japanese have admiration about the anglophonic world. Sometimes they ask me id i ride with bulls or i sleep all day...i reply them that if i see a bull they can be sure i will run like a demon far from it and that if i sleep all the day probably i will not have money for stay in japan and have my own house in spain already payed. Or if they see me speaking italian they think im a man that stay joking all the day and eating pizza.

2) they think that their language is unique and so difficult to learn. I still dont know a japanese even with really high level (i find teachers of italian in japan that teach the language over 30 years that make very very basic errors) that cant coniugate and use correctly the verbs of the neolatin languages in all the tenses.

Anyway i think is not fault of japaneses as persons, they re polite and i never had any trouble with them during my stay in japan. All people i meet in the street or new friends was so interested speaking with me and asking me lot of things about the mediterranean region and culture and was allwais happy to practice with me my poor japanese language skills.

The problem is the education system, the isolation of the country and the hierarquical structure of the japanese society where the old is the best and the boss. this makes that the old ideas and style survive and the yougn people adopt the old ideas and customs and perpetuate it.

As is easy to see is the prelude of a decadent system. beigining from the shrinking population, typical of a modern developped country, the lose of the family values and the high value they give to the success. Is like to say to see how the water of a lake go down under the sun and no new water come from outside rivers.

They are failing to manage the inmigration matter. Sincerely (and i dont want to offend anybody) lot of the gaijin i see around tokyo are really henna gaijin, losers that even people of their same country dont want there.
Japan actually is atracting a very low profile foreigners and this will create more problems and more racism. Due to the obvious increment of criminality and probelms between nihonjin and gaijin.

Other problem is that the government doesnt have any will tointegrate foreigners, or have no idea from where to start. But is soo easy THE LANGUAGE, if a gaijin learn the language, can be usefull for the japanese society and be productive and integrate. But almost all the language courses are in the hands of private institutions with really expensive courses that not all people can to pay. When in other countries like spain, that is supposed to be not advanced like japan, the government put lot of free full time courses for all the foreigners in all the cities. Is a well know curious phenomenon that when an inmigrant become totally integrate in a country become more "nationalist" than the people that was born there. Like here in spain where people inmigrated from Andalucia (poor but beautifull region) to Catalunia (more rich and advanced region with its own language different from spanish) these inmigrants become more catalans than catalans!

I think japan will change and advance a lot when will try to "japanize" more the foreigners.

I think japanese are good persons if you take one by one. As one famous man say "take all the persons one by one and they normally are good and intelligent and with goodwilll, take after all the same persons all togheter and they can be handled like a group of sheeps"

jajaja they re not good or bad...they re just japanese...and sometimes victims of they lack of open to the rest of the world....but they also have lot of good and admirable values! not all is bad!

ciao!!!