06-13-2007, 05:17 AM
Occam's Razor - "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one."
That's generally how it goes in Japan. Take a gaijin and a Japanese person with equal skill and equal attitude regarding a job position. The Japanese person is often likely to be hired, unless its a job such as teaching English or translation.
I know a few guys in the translation industry in Japan, and what I hear from them is that Japanese tend to be very difficult learners of English. In other words, it's easier for a foreigner to become completely fluent in Japanese than it is for a Japanese person to become completely fluent in English. That said, most of the well-paid translators in Japan are foreign, and they translate from Japanese to English.
Getting down the point, any job that involves
A)Teaching English
B)Doing translation work (whether it be patents, academic journals, manga, etc)
C)International activities
D)Academics + related jobs
will be easier for a gaijin to get than other jobs. With other jobs, you may have a tougher time, because Japanese companies want Japanese workers - there's no communication problems, there's no having to deal with 'unexpected gaijin behavior' and so on. Can gaijins get jobs that don't involve the above categories? Sure they can. It just might be a little harder to get than if they were in America, and their Japanese skill would likely have to be top notch.
I would also like to add that the vast majority of the Japanese public generally accepts what happened in Nanjing, as well as the comfort women issue and all that. It's the bigheaded, conservative politicians in Japan that are being so stubborn on those issues, and thats why the media covers it so often.
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