Japan has been very popular mainly because of anime and manga. It's where Godzilla comes from. It also has been praised for keeping its religion and culture of the well-born. It is important to know the history of a country if you are going to use it as an example for the West. One thing that the West is not able to do is learn from past mistakes, the history of native land occupation, slavery, and war are clear examples. It is all still present one way or the other.
You won't find a diverse crowd in Japan but there is a reason for that if you look into the history, which I didn't get in high school. Japan has a history of discrimination of their own people not because of the way they look but which families they were born into. There was/is a division between classes (Minority vs Majority). There was preference given to one group and rights taken from the other (education, jobs, etc). One group is treated as deplorable/untouchable, the other was the star of society. Both groups were forbidden to interact with each other in a serious manner. Doing so for the stars of the society would devasting. For the less-fortunate group, they were forced to believe that they were good for nothing criminals. The government could easily control both groups until the less-favored group started to organize themselves and find ways to sustain themselves through low ways: they were known as the Yakuza. They created their own way of life and transformed the weapons used against them as shields. They gained ground and were suddenly not an insignificant minority anymore.
One reason why Japan is not able to accept large scale multiculturalism, (having people from other countries with several backgrounds and beliefs and giving those people the opportunity to live with their religion), is because it will be difficult to categorize and control people.
What happened? Learn more in below video:
What they had is similar to a caste, hereditary social classes in Hinduism that restrict the occupation of their members and their association with the members of other castes.
But as time goes on, the internet has become prominent in providing information from the outside world. Young people are curious and go to visit other countries and learn from other cultures. Unlike in India, many young people choose to live in a foreign country. Leaving Japan with an old age problem. If the majority of the country is of a certain age and unable to reproduce on a large scale. There is going to be a problem with the future generation living and carring out the traditions. There is enormous pressure on the small scale of young people to have sex and reproduce. You may want the first but not the latter when you're 17/18.
Till this day the government is still struggling with the Yakuza. But now looking back one can conclude that Japan created their own demons. What would have happened if instead of destroying their self-worth, the government would have supported and uplifted that minority group? They would have contributed to society
Unfortunately, we see countries in the region copying this unfortunate playbook and applying it to minorities successfully:
- The Uyghurs in China
- The Rohingyas in Myanmar
In other cases, the local government has no direct involvement but has to fight against foreign governments/groups that want to suppress the minorities with their own ideology.
There is a lot to understand before starting to make general statements about what we should do, who we should take as an example, etc. Even though it may look good on the surface there is always an underlying story to hear and understand before jumping to conclusions.