[Vigilanteman]

. . . permanent residency, is virtually non-existent for anyone not of Japanese ancestry or with a Japanese spouse.

Not anymore. If Japan deems you useful, permanent residency can be approved. Both my brother and family and daughter and family have it with no Japanese ancestry.

The fact that four generations of our family have worked in the country, learned the language and respected the culture was helpful but not the key determining factor.

[katana]

Interesting. I probably should have written "citizenship" rather than permanent residency as a foreigner. But perhaps even that has become more feasible. And I meant no mass immigration of foreigners disinterested in assimilating, as is happening in Europe and here, would ever be permitted.

My language and cultural instruction in graduate school, intended to equip us to do business in Japan, emphasized how different their "way of thinking" (Nihon-no kangai katawa totemo chigaimas) is from ours, or really any one else's. A foreigner, gaikokujin, will always be such. But useful and respected (and respectful) "strange" (henna-gaikokujin foreigners who can adapt and more or less assimilate were welcome even in my day.