I haven’t seen much about the backlash against foreigners in the news lately, but that’s not going away any time soon.
okay, what purpose does this serve in New Zealand? I can see why Korea would have a statue like this, and various other places in Asia, but I don’t see how New Zealand was involved in this….. basically it’s like New Zealand is saying this to Japan…..
Would New Zealand be happy if Japan erected a statue about Māori population were still displaced, had their lands confiscated, and faced attempts to suppress their culture and language, resulting in severe modern socioeconomic disadvantages. though they still face disparities in education and income.
Or a statue about Aborigines in Australia they Suffered extreme marginalization, often treated as sub-human by early settlers and facing greater erasure in the initial stages of colonization.
Could Japan erected a statue about australian aborigines?
I imagine that New Zealand has several immigrants from places like Korea, which are well known to have been major sources of the Japanese comfort women
I don’t think the Japanese empire got that far. It was less than 100 years ago, so the information isn’t very hard to find, and we know that they were raping and enslaving women everywhere they went, including the Pacific Islands. They just didn’t rape their way down to the pacific Islanders in New Zealand. But they were working on it.
Also, Australia and New Zealand are technically different places. Like China and Taiwan, if not more so…
It IS some Korean society in New Zealand putting that statue up and not say, New Zealand’s government.
Okay, given to New Zealand by the Korean Council, so I guess it makes more sense that the Japanese government would get upset
Yeah, but you can understand why the Koreans would also be upset, right? Lest we forget, as Hapan remilitarizes, what happened not long ago.
It isn’t like New Zealand was colonized in 1943…
It seem Japan is pushing some legitimate businesses away. This is really unfortunate.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/04/30/foreign-business-managers-visa-survey/
Under the [new] stricter criteria for business manager visas, applicants must have ¥30 million ($187,000) or more in capital, up from the previous ¥5 million. The applicant’s company must also employ at least one full-time worker who is either a Japanese national or someone with stable residency status such as permanent residency.
Japanese language ability will also be taken into account, with prospective business managers required to demonstrate proficiency equivalent to at least level N2 on the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). Business owners currently in Japan must clear those criteria, or have a plan in place to clear them, when they renew their visa.
“The ¥30 million capital requirement is especially a high hurdle,” the survey stated, adding that only about 1% of roughly 140,000 companies established in Japan in 2024 had capital of ¥30 million or more, while 95% had capital of less than ¥10 million.
Guy
I had a business manager visa here in Japan but gave it up because even under the previous, easier regime Japan was a difficult place for a foreigner business owner to do business. For example, it was very difficult to get a business bank account even if you had a business manager visa. It was also very difficult to find a landlord willing to rent commercial/business space to a foreigner. Taxes and fees were also burdensome and only increasing.
Many foreigners with business manager visas – mainly from China – didn:t care about business bank accounts or the lack of access to commercial space though because they weren’t really engaged in business activities. They only wanted the business visa for residency purposes.
So why not go after the noncompliant guys, instead of making the rules nearly impossible for some of the legitimate business operators?
Guy
The Chinese are culturally much more similar to the Japanese, and harder to spot in a crowd, so not surprising if things are harder for those of European descent . One wonders how the Africans and Indians are doing there…
Indian I know fit in well, wear suits, speak Japanese, lots of them in Tokyo.
The shop owners running into trouble with the capital requirement change are in some cases Nepali running curry shops. They are doing their best, they simply don’t have this amount of yen sitting around.
Guy
Maybe Japan doesn’t want this type of investment. Investment size, and creation of local jobs are pretty high in any country’s priorities when it comes to investment migration
Family run curry shops, with low profits and no local jobs really don’t cut it. Especially if they have kids that need to be educated etc.
My guess is the recent upsurge of xenophobia in Japan is why officials chose to take a chainsaw to the problem.
My man they still pay taxes, they help feed the community. I don’t understand why these people need to be targets for reform.
Guy
Interesting
Clearly they just need more sexpats like that one guy on Forumosa who’s always bragging about how much sex he had here. 
I think the elephant in the room here is the internet. Prior to the internet the primary ways people had available to fill the void in the evening were family life and t.v. Now the internet is like a cornucopia of endless content and opportunities for realtime human interaction that’s only getting better with each passing year. And with smartphones you can access the online world every waking hour. You can see how smartphones have supplanted the need for familial interaction by observing families all but ignoring each other’s presence when out in public.
10% of people at 30… Then they go on to say the surveys didn’t include gay/lesbian sex.
I wonder what percentage of the population is gay?? Once you subtract that, would the adjusted figure become insignificant?