What connotation does the term "gaijin" have for you ?

[Mike Cash]

My colleagues were speaking in Osaka-ben, underestimating again that fact that I could actually understand them. Maybe they were right, BUT I was on a different contract, 40 hours a week instead of 50; 10 (?) days paid holidays instead of zero, two days off a week instead of one....

So many foreigners in Japanese companies have exactly that sort of arrangement, then scratch their heads and wonder why their Japanese coworkers "include them out". There's no "maybe" about it; they're exactly right to do so and who can blame them?

you guys know that when it come to work conditions foreigners are treated differently!

I know nothing of the sort. I am employed under the exact same conditions as my Japanese coworkers, perform the exact same tasks, and receive the exact same pay/holidays/etc.

I also know that all the foreign employees who p1ss and moan about not being treated equally in the workplace would turn their noses up at the thought of having to work under the exact same conditions as their Japanese cohorts. Yet they're perfectly comfortable going on and on about how they felt excluded or even discriminated against.

I know people who have been here for ages and are completely well intagrated. No one thinks of them as foreigners. I would like to state the same about Japan...

Try finding foreigners who would volunteer to live and work among the Japanese on the same conditions as the Japanese do, and then you will be able to state the same about Japan. Not all of the blame falls on the shoulders of the Japanese; foreigners do a wonderful job of holding themselves apart all on their own.