Photo/Illutration Foreign nationals in the Okubo district of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward on June 15, 2023 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward residents are increasingly feeling more supportive of living alongside foreigners, according to a ward survey. 

In the survey, the number of positive opinions expressed by Shinjuku Ward residents toward foreign residents greatly exceeded the number of negative opinions, an increase from the previous survey.

Shinjuku Ward has one of the highest concentrations of foreign residents in Japan with more than 43,000, accounting for about 12.6 percent of the ward’s total population.

“It has become commonplace in Shinjuku to have foreigners living nearby, and I feel that multiculturalism is gradually progressing,” said a representative of the ward’s multiculturalism promotion division.

In August 2023, the ward conducted a survey regarding “the actual condition of multicultural coexistence” on 7,000 randomly selected residents (5,000 foreign residents and 2,000 Japanese residents).

The ward released the results in February.

There were valid responses from 21.2 percent of the foreigners and 38.4 percent from Japanese.

When Japanese residents were asked their thoughts on having foreigners living in their neighborhoods, 38.9 percent responded that it was “favorable” or “somewhat favorable.”

Responses of “unfavorable” and “somewhat unfavorable” totaled 10.8 percent, with positive responses far outnumbering the negative ones.

Younger generations were more likely to respond positively, with 54.6 percent of those aged 18-19 and 52.9 percent of those aged 20-29 doing so.

On the other hand, those aged 70 and older had the fewest responses, at 26.9 percent, but this was still more than twice the number of negative responses.

This was the third time the survey was conducted.

In the 2007 survey, positive responses totaled 21.2 percent, then 22.1 percent in 2015.

Negative responses totaled 20.7 percent in the 2007 survey and 16.9 percent in the 2015 survey.

As more foreigners took up residence in the ward, the number of Japanese who responded positively increased.

When asked to choose from a list of options regarding how they feel about having foreigners living in their neighborhoods, the most common response was “worried that garbage will not be disposed of properly” at 48.1 percent, followed by “worried about loud voices and noises from the room” at 36.2 percent.

At the same time, “exposure to foreign culture will increase” was selected by 34.2 percent of the respondents, and 30.9 percent chose “will get used to foreigners and foreign languages.”

When foreign residents were asked about their “social contact with Japanese,” 42.4 percent said they have such contact and 56.4 percent said they do not.

Of those who answered they have social contact with Japanese, the largest percentage, or 43.3 percent, said they “only greet each other.”

The most common reason for not socializing with Japanese was “no opportunity to talk to them” at 68.2 percent, and “because I don’t speak Japanese” at 21.3 percent.

The most common “problem or dissatisfaction” for foreigners was “language” at 27.4 percent, while 21.3 percent chose “not having many friends” and 16.9 percent said “procedures at financial institutions.”

Those who chose “prejudice and discrimination from Japanese” was 12.8 percent, and “Japanese are closed-minded” was 12.7 percent.

The questionnaire was written in Japanese with furigana, as well as the language corresponding to the respondents.

The nationalities of the foreigners who gave valid responses were 38 percent Chinese, 19.7 percent South Koreans, 4.8 percent Myanmar’s people and 4.4 percent Nepalese, among others.

The percentage of respondents by nationality was almost the same as the actual percentage of the population. By residence status, foreign students accounted for the highest percentage at 27 percent.

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