Congratulations to Donald Keene, who was granted Japanese citizenship last month with great media fanfare. At 89 years young and after a lifetime contributing to world scholarship on Japan, he truly deserves it.
Unfortunately, while receiving all the kudos, Keene demonstrated that he had fallen for two of Japan's media-manufactured myths about non-Japanese (NJ) residents: 1) that they are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in Japan, and 2) that they fled Japan (as "flyjin") in disproportionate numbers due to the Tohoku disasters.
(Japan Times)
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