"Thousands apply to be a Finn for 90 days in migration scheme"

@athousandyoung said
The "Tortilla ceiling" is so low that most Latin American mestizos have a hard time appreciating the "Bamboo ceiling". The statistics are skewed because there are many rich whites in the "Hispanic" population.

Is Duchess saying Japanese aren't Asians?

AThousandYoung has a long record of explicit anti-Asian (particularly anti-Chinese) racism,
so he presumably heartily approves of that racism when he's not zealously denying that it exists.

Note that AThousandYoung fails to make clear any distinction between Japanese
and Japanese American, which is one reason why so many Japanese Americans
were forced into US internment camps during the Second World War.

Note that AThousandYoung IGNORES STATISTICS n favor of his own biased anecdotes:

EMPHASIS:
"Based on publicly available government statistics, Asian Americans have the
LOWEST chance of rising to management when compared with African Americans,
Hispanics and women in spite of having the highest educational attainment.[8][9][10][11][12][13]"
--Wikipedia

When will AThousandYoung AGAIN claim that the only reason why (East) Asian Americans
excel on academic tests is because they are better at cheating without getting caught?

P.S. RHP automatically censors the word 'cheating' despite it having nothing to do with chess.

@duchess64 said
AThousandYoung has a long record of explicit anti-Asian (particularly anti-Chinese) racism,
so he presumably heartily approves of that racism when he's not zealously denying that it exists.

Note that AThousandYoung fails to make clear any distinction between Japanese
and Japanese American, which is one reason why so many Japanese Americans
were forced into US internme ...[text shortened]... mericans
can excel on academic tests is because they are better at cheating without getting caught?

When will AThousandYoung AGAIN claim that the only reason why (East) Asian Americans can excel on academic tests is because they are better at cheating without getting caught?

I've never claimed that. When will Duchess64 AGAIN claim that (East) Asian Americans NEVER cheat on academic tests?

The difference between Japanese and Japanese-American is irrelevant to my point.

I did not ignore the statistical study you referenced - I specifically pointed out that the methodology of those studies hides the racial background of the Hispanic population and therefore it is a poor study to reference in this context.

Stop LYING!

@dood111 said
WHAT?
Scandinavian countries are defined as Sweden Denmark Norway Iceland AND FINLAND.
Jebus, look it up.
Here I did it for you:
https://www.thoughtco.com/countries-of-scandinavia-1434588
You always gotta jump in with both feet and play the "Gotcha" game and prove anything someone says is wrong, it's like a mental disease with you.

Funny, I find almost everything you say IS wrong.

@cheesemaster said
Non white majority = shythole.

It doesn't matter where.

You know geography. So you know.

And how is immigrating Pakistani and Indian people "righting a past"?

Immigration is ruining the world.
Fix your own damn countries and stop turning mine into what you allowed yours to become.

The incredibly stupid and uneducated white people have made this country far more of a "sh--hole" than immigrants ever could. The election of Donald Trump is all the proof of that you need.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Seventy odd posts of heated debate, and nobody actually seems to have responded to the original question posed by the Duchess. She asks if Finland will be truly welcoming or merely "tolerant", and suggests that Asian tech workers maybe have reservations about moving to a relatively homogeneous society in which they will not be able to become part of an established minority community.

But could the question be rephrased? Would one expect a majority population to be truly welcoming to a minority that wished to remain part of a "native cultural community", rather than attempting to assimilate into the host community? And would the majority not be more likely to welcome immigrants sufficiently committed to the country to wish to assimilate?

When I lived in Yokohama early in this century, I befriended another Westerner (from a Nordic country, as it happens) then resident in Japan - which like Finland is one of the more ethnically homogeneous of developed countries, despite the presence of indigenous and non-indigenous minorities. Unlike me, he settled permanently there, secured long-term employment at a Japanese workplace, married a Japanese woman and now has a mixed-race son.

My friend was consistently scathing about (Western) foreigners who lived in Japan but chose not to assimilate. He learned to speak Japanese fluently, forged friendships with Japanese people, and consciously worked hard to adapt himself to Japanese norms of behaviour and conduct. He spoke approvingly of the strict laws regarding naturalisation (which at times have reportedly extended to immigration officers looking in an applicant's fridge to confirm if his diet was sufficiently Japanese!). While my friend acknowledged that racism was widespread in Japan, he felt that it would diminish if more foreign residents strove to adapt to and adopt the cultural norms of their host country. To use the Duchess' terms, he believed that Japan would become welcoming to foreigners (as opposed to merely "tolerant" ) if foreigners proved willing to embrace, rather than merely tolerate, the dominant assumptions and values of the country in which they had chosen to live.

So - is it unreasonable for Japan, or Finland, or any country to make the desire to assimilate a condition, or at least a strong plus point, when considering whom to welcome?

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Note that Japan discriminates against minorities (e.g. Koreans) who were born in Japan, physically appear Japanese, and speak fluent Japanese. How exactly did these ethnic Koreans fail to 'assimilate' into Japan?

The point about Koreans in Japan is true, yet a bit more complicated than you suggest. For many years, many Koreans in Japan were hostile to the idea of naturalising as Japanese as a (far from incomprehensible) response to the cruelties of pre-war and wartime colonial rule. So while they spoke Japanese, many of them rejected the idea of assimilation, and sought to maintain their Korean identity. Particularly controversial were those Koreans affiliated with the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) which was the body representing Koreans whose sympathies lay with the Communist North. Chongryon maintained a network of Korean-language schools which were established in part with funding from the DPRK government, and which ignored the Japanese national curriculum while teaching pro-juche ideology. So I think the answer to your question is that some Koreans failed to assimilate into Japanese society by maintaining loyalties to a hostile foreign power.

What exactly does 'assimilation' mean?
Does it mean learning Finnish?

Of course, Finland has two official languages, since Swedish is co-official. I considered applying for a job in Helsinki a year or two ago, and the advertisement stated that applications would be accepted in Finnish, Swedish or English, and that the successful candidate could teach in any of these three languages. It was further stated that the successful applicant would be expect to acquire proficiency in either Swedish or Finnish within two years, in order to participate in administrative activities.

I must confess that, had I successfully applied for this job, I would have been much more eager to learn Swedish than Finnish, firstly because it would be far easier for a native English speaker with some knowledge of German, and secondly because I would also be able to use it not only in Finland but also in Sweden (where I have friends); and it would also serve me in good stead in Norway and Denmark, at least as far as reading written documents would go.

Does it mean converting to Christianity (the dominant brand in that country)? For a long time, Westerners believed that immigrants, particularly non-Westerners, had to do that to have any hope of acceptance.

Now, of course, a defining characteristic of most of Western Europe (along with Canada, but in contrast to Eastern Europe and much of the USA) is its secularisation - and consequent relative liberalism as regards gay rights, women's rights, and so forth. Many Western Europeans are anxious precisely about the piety of their non-Western minorities, and the possible negative effects on the emancipation of women and homosexuals should these minorities become a significantly larger share of the population. Although this anxiety has been most intensely focused on Islam, it has also been provoked by the relatively conservative forms of Christianity often favoured by immigrants of African or West Indian heritage. Some people of colour who are conservative Christians have, indeed, complained that they experience hostility in Western Europe both from the right (which tends to be anti-immigration) and from the left (which tends to be anti-Christian).

As far as I can tell, most white Western expat women (who strongly prefer white or even black men) would never seriously consider a relationship or even a fling with any Chinese man (whereas white Western expat men are known for tending to pursue Chinese women)

When I lived there, an analogous situation seemed to exist in Japan, where white men with Japanese wives were much more commonly encountered than white women with Japanese husbands (though I knew one or two of the latter, and don't believe they experienced any particular ostracism). Gay relationships between white men and Japanese men were common; I never met a comparable Western-Japanese lesbian couple.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

I don't think my comments were ironic - and indeed, in a sense I was not making a comment, but posing a question. Personally, I think the answer might reasonably differ depending on the circumstances of the particular immigrant or group of immigrants (it strikes me as cruel, for instance, to demand that refugees assimilate). Moreover, the example you give is not strictly pertinent to questions about the conduct of immigrants, since the Jews of Europe were essentially an indigenous minority, established in Europe for many centuries.

My own grandfather was raised in a completely secular and proudly assimilated German family in the early decades of the twentieth century, and considered himself German rather than Jewish (he entered a synagogue for religious purposes only once in his life, for his Bar Mitzvah). He was deeply distressed when Nazi anti-Semitism obliged him to leave his country. In his later years, although they continued to reside in Britain, he and my (gentile) grandmother reverted to speaking German most of the time at home. Yet he did startle us all by requesting a Jewish funeral.