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I asked AI how to lose weight

https://healthpalai.netlify.app
1•GainTrains•51s ago•0 comments

Introduction to Digital Filters

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/filters/
1•ofalkaed•1m ago•0 comments

WASM the Hard Way: Porting the Chicory Compiler to Android

https://blog.evacchi.dev/posts/2025/07/11/wasm-the-hard-way-porting-the-chicory-compiler-to-android/
1•evacchi•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Heim a light weight FaaS platform for any language on any cloud

https://heim.dev/
1•Silesmo•2m ago•0 comments

AI is already sipping coffee at your desk

https://www.careersumo.in
1•neocortex666•6m ago•1 comments

Belkin shows tech firms getting too comfortable with bricking customers' stuff

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/07/belkin-shows-tech-firms-getting-too-comfortable-with-bricking-customers-stuff/
1•speckx•6m ago•0 comments

Nearly 800 killed at Gaza food hubs and aid convoy routes since end of May

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/11/killed-gaza-food-hubs-aid-convoy-routes-since-end-may-un
2•NomDePlum•7m ago•0 comments

The Machine Stops by Oliver Sacks

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/11/the-machine-stops
1•RyanShook•10m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Instant ChatGPT PDF export with a 'ssyoutube'-like hack

https://www.pdfchatgpt.com/
2•karfly•13m ago•2 comments

Silicon Valley tech CEOs becoming Trump's hostages. Be afraid

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/07/11/max-taves-silicon-valley-leaders-trump-hostages-meta-google-amazon-apple/
3•speckx•15m ago•1 comments

Fuel Efficiency Standards Are Dead, the V8 Will Live Forever

https://www.jalopnik.com/1909835/fuel-efficiency-standards-fines-dead/
1•rntn•15m ago•0 comments

Nearly everyone opposes Trump's plan to kill space traffic control program

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/nearly-everyone-opposes-trumps-plan-to-kill-space-traffic-control-program/
2•consumer451•17m ago•0 comments

Edison a Dictator and a Pharmacologist

https://substack.com/home/post/p-167761857
1•snats•17m ago•0 comments

Neanderthal Bone Grease Factory

https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2025/07/11/neanderthal-bone-grease-factory/
1•chmaynard•19m ago•0 comments

The COW Programming Language

https://esolangs.org/wiki/COW
1•wizardcat•20m ago•1 comments

Researchers develop new tool to measure biological age

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/researchers-develop-new-tool-to-measure-biological-age/
1•bookofjoe•21m ago•3 comments

Kimi K2: Open Agentic Intelligence

https://kimik2.com/
1•BruceWok•22m ago•1 comments

Repo to Markdown

https://repo-to-markdown.com
1•ent101•22m ago•0 comments

Show HN: FaceGrid – I built a tool to generate AI face grids for your pitch deck

https://facegrid.juleslemee.com/
1•jlemee•26m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I built a app to monitor your competitors and get only high-signal info

https://champsignal.com/
1•maximedupre•27m ago•0 comments

I Outline Everything

https://literallythevoid.com/why-i-outline-everything/
1•FigurativeVoid•29m ago•0 comments

Tulpa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa
2•libpcap•30m ago•1 comments

We have computation because of weaving

https://maalvika.substack.com/p/we-have-computation-because-of-weaving
1•animadot•30m ago•0 comments

So Microsoft Deleted Some of Our Packages from Nuget.org Without Notice

https://aaronstannard.com/microsoft-delete-nuget-packages/
4•ghuntley•30m ago•1 comments

How AI has changed developer relations

https://medium.com/@jkim_tran/how-ai-is-changing-developer-relations-79aecffe638e
2•jennifer-trin•31m ago•0 comments

Events vs. Privacy

https://blog.avas.space/events-vs-privacy/
1•speckx•35m ago•0 comments

Pentagon Lifts Drone Restrictions, Sending Shares of Defense Stocks Higher

https://www.wsj.com/business/pentagon-lifts-drone-restrictions-sending-shares-of-defense-stocks-higher-e2640351
1•sandwichsphinx•35m ago•0 comments

'Give a positive review': NUS-Yale Researchers Put Hidden AI Prompt in Paper

https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/give-positive-review-hidden-ai-prompt-found-academic-paper-nus-researchers
1•seagullz•35m ago•0 comments

OM System OM-5 II preview

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/om-system-om-5-mark-ii-initial-review
1•PaulHoule•37m ago•0 comments

Ground Truth Ambient Occlusion

https://github.com/GameTechDev/XeGTAO
1•klaussilveira•38m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/210/
145•speckx•6h ago

Comments

tonyhart7•5h ago
they suffering from success
4fterd4rk•5h ago
It's like The Bear. Ohhhhh no I've opened a restaurant and now there are customers aaaaahhhhh this is horrible ahhhhhhhh
FirmwareBurner•4h ago
Anyone who's ever worked in customer support will tell you that dealing with customer regularly sucks balls, even worse if they're foreign and don't know the local language, customs and etiquette so they annoy you and your local patrons while thinking they're entitled to because "we spend money here and support your economy", or even more worse if they're foreign and also intoxicated or acting up for the camera (social media streamers).

Hospitality is already a low margin business, so if you're a small business owner and need to deal with the customers yourself instead of via hired work, why would you want that extra hassle of dealing with annoying foreigners unless it's purely for milking them dry with huge markups for it to be worth it?

anonzzzies•4h ago
I am in Spain (where people, imho wrongfully, think tourism is ruining everything) and I dont see the issue; my wife and myself make enough in the summer to not have anything to do the rest of the year. I have IT businesses which I scale back to run the pub in summer for 3 month. I don't really care about whatever they do as long as it is not fighting: the more drunk and loud they are, especially guys with girls, the more they will just basically order anything of whatever price. And many of them. And yeah, some drinks and food locals would never ever buy so we mark them up 10x. Do not see an issue with that: it is not hidden and locals dont pay less for the same product: it is on the menu, everyone can see it, it's just not popular while for some groups of foreigners it's the first they ask. Welcome please!
sorcerer-mar•3h ago
Based on your other comment where you say "innit," I suspect you're not Spanish?

It sounds like you're a Brit who opened a pub in Spain for other Brits to get sloshed at. Is this wrong?

jerlam•3h ago
My impression of these Japanese small businesses is that many are run purely as lifestyle businesses and making more money isn't the point. They're run for the owners to feel a sense of accomplishment and ownership and give something back to the community. There is no desire to close the business and go on vacation, especially if it means being very aggravated when they are opened.
ozim•3h ago
This sounds like best description.

I think it is hard to explain to HN crowd whose most would like to run business to make most money possible in shortest time period and would not understand running business that just pays its bills and gets owner ramen profitable unless it is just a point on path to becoming unicorn.

sunaookami•4h ago
Way to miss the point. Most foreigners in other countries can't behave.
anonzzzies•4h ago
Well it is a job innit? Most my well paid CTOs and tech contacts I meet cannot behave either. They always have to be rude that I am just a small fish, misspell my name every time to be funny or lazy or whatnot etc. I don't care, pay the bill within 14 days, cheers.
sunaookami•3h ago
They don't have a problem with customers, they have a problem with foreign customers that often can't behave. Being c-suite doesn't give one a free pass to be an asshole. I suggest reading the source that the linked post is an answer to: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/kyoto-japan-tourism-...
anonzzzies•3h ago
I have issues with them too (rowdy pub clients and rude c suites), but I fear, after 5 decades alternating in both these jobs, I cannot avoid them, so, I learn to play them and make more money than they came in to spend.
guywithahat•4h ago
Yeah that was sort of the vibe I got too. I understand the point of the article, that regular customers are a nicer customer base than tourists, but it sort of has a pretentious "most tourists aren't worth of Japan" hypothesis to the article which feels silly once you think about it in a broader, economic scope
vachina•4h ago
I guess it depends on the local culture. Japanese relationships are probably a lot less transactional but more “knowing your customers”.
pj_mukh•2h ago
Yea this was major de-growther vibes to me. A couple of small businesses getting swamped just means you don't have enough small businesses. It's true that generally there aren't enough small businesses.

I'd like our productivity gains to free up people to pursue their weird jazz-coffee bar fantasies and start more businesses. That's a better world to me than the the one OP is trying to get us to retreat to.

There's lots of terrible things about social media but its ability to spread the wealth of attention to small businesses is probably the best thing about it.

Bad tourists? FINE THEM. I realize the Japanese don't like to see their relationships as transactional, but they have foreigners there and managing their behavior via transactions is totally fair to me.

P.S: I know, I know I have recently been to Japan and seen its over-tourism first hand. I also don't know a country better equipped to get a handle on it and gasp scale.

vagrantJin•5h ago
Fascinating.

I have no idea what the fascination with Japan, I must have missed something.

sorcerer-mar•5h ago
Nah you're probably just cooler than everyone else
onlypassingthru•5h ago
A beautiful set of volcanic islands with extremely polite natives, rich in art, culture and history and practically zero crime is not for everyone.
password54321•4h ago
They didn't turn sell their soul to communists and globalists. Turns out cultural integrity and national identity matters.
beering•2h ago
A big part of their success today is embracing globalism, beginning with the Westernization effort in the Meiji era and continuing into the present era with top Japanese firms becoming multinational, eg Nintendo/Sony of America, Toyota opening plants in the US, etc.

Communism, on the other hand, seems to have led to more isolation in the Cold War era, and is also another way to cultivate some interesting cultural identity, although not necessarily the culture you want.

password54321•2h ago
lol, yes by globalists I was totally referring to whether Nintendo is national or international.
platinumrad•1h ago
Oh, I guess you were talking about Jews then.
missedthecue•27m ago
Very successful cultural exports in the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s. Now the kids who grew up in that era are young adults and have some money.

There are many low(ish) crime, polite, picturesque destinations, rich in art, culture, and history, but Kazakhstan never exported anime.

CalRobert•5h ago
Maybe travel is just too cheap and easy? I like the democratisation of globe trotting that has happened but it certainly has had negative consequences
beezlewax•5h ago
Yes! Let's make it only for the rich or better yet, why not just the oligarchs?
ecshafer•5h ago
Is the pollution and co2 production worth it so more people can take photos in front of things? Maybe it is, maybe it isnt.
graemep•5h ago
> Is the pollution and co2 production worth it so more people can take photos in front of things?

Taking photos in front of things is not, but that is not the only reason people travel.

simgt•5h ago
Or also for the "middle" class but as an expensive treat that would have been chosen over something else, like it used to be. After all the environmental cost of a 20€ EasyJet ticket isn't nothing.
CalRobert•5h ago
That’s a fair counter point, but I’m just saying that it did have negative consequences and we might want to consider it. It’s kinda crazy you can sometimes fly 6000 km for less than a few round trip train tickets between London and Edinburgh.

I wonder if Americans’ pitifully short vacation allowance paired with high incomes is an issue. If you’re going to Japan for a week you’re likely to only hit a few top attractions, I imagine.

bananalychee•4h ago
Perhaps it would help to frame the problem as domestic travel being too expensive as opposed to international travel being too cheap. By the way, overtourism is not a "there's too many Americans/Europeans who can afford vacations" problem, most tourists in Japan are from nearby East Asian countries. In fact, the share of tourists to Japan who come from the US and Europe has declined in recent years.
anovikov•5h ago
Well, problem here is that airlines are under control of national regulatory agencies while flying internationally. Sure, a mandate of say, drastically improving comfort levels by making something like an old-style business class seat (38" pitch recliner, 4 abreast in a narrowbody) the absolute allowed minimum - could work: it will make passengers happier, reduce air rage, and lift prices to the level that somewhat curbs overtourism. But it's impossible to introduce because if one nation does so it will simply make their airlines uncompetitive abroad.
CalRobert•5h ago
Taxing aviation fuel seems like a reasonable start.
anovikov•5h ago
Same problem here. "Just give airlines of nations that don't tax fuel, a boost at the expense of your own ones".
armada651•5h ago
How far do you want to take that? The oligarchs can fly back and forth to Japan every week, should the air fare be so cheap that everyone can do that?
parpfish•5h ago
I think the more interesting story here wouldn’t be the “over tourism” of the globally desirable internet-famous locations— It’s all the little regional resort towns and tourism destinations that are now ignored.

All over the US are locations that used to be the place where a people would go for a three day weekend or summer getaway. But now they are ghost towns because the cost of travel and the algorithm have reframed travel as global and not regional.

Like… Niagara Falls used to be “the” honeymoon destination for couples in the northeast. Now it seems like every honeymoon is in a beachy tropical location and the falls have been gutted economically

CalRobert•5h ago
I understand this is what happened to UK beach towns when flying to Spain got cheap
clait•4h ago
And quite possibly also because UK beach towns are generally sad and cold (except for Cornwall and Devon for two weeks per year), compared to Spain’s? Signed, someone living in the UK.
CalRobert•4h ago
No argument there!
harimau777•4h ago
This is something that I feel doesn't get discussed in a lot of these sorts of discussions (overtourism, local food, etc.). Reducing your carbon/social footprint by consuming locally is MUCH more enjoyable in some locations than in others.
parpfish•3h ago
if you find your local region unenjoyable, change your local region
harimau777•3h ago
Often that's not an option. E.g. due to where family lives, where you can find a job, or simply not being able to afford to move.
Danieru•2h ago
Your plan to address the decline in British beach towns is to depopulate the UK?

Seems a bit extreme just to avoid a plane ride.

parpfish•3h ago
but that's kind of the problem.

people insist that they need "the BEST", so they hop on a plane to get the picture-perfect locale that they see online at the expense of hollowing out anything that is merely "pretty good".

dividefuel•3h ago
Isn't this what pricing is for? The "best" places can raise prices because of the high demand. Then the "pretty good" places in comparison wind up being a good value option.
harimau777•4h ago
A lot of those tiny locations all over the US are in red states. Lots of people aren't going to want to go to locations where public infrastructure has been hollowed out and discrimination is legal.
Macha•3h ago
I think the point of is that every state had its decent share of local tourists going to local attractions. It's one thing if the blue state travelers who were traveling in the first place are now traveling somewhere else, but it's also an impact that there are also less local tourists in these states than there have been historically, because even the local tourists are now traveling elsewhere.
Der_Einzige•3h ago
Either I get "Southern Hospitality" AKA decently outwardly friendly people (if you're white) and people who actually donate to charity or I get good infrastructure and legal weed, but people who are anti-social and would piss on the homeless if it were legal.

You can't win. This is why folks travel in the first place.

DaSHacka•3h ago
> and discrimination is legal.

Do you have proof of these red states re-legalizing discrimination, or repealing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and/or Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990)?

I failed to find anything about this supposed upheaval of established legal statute after a quick google search.

harimau777•3h ago
https://www.iowapublicradio.org/state-government-news/2025-0...
vkou•3h ago
You're saying that large parts of red states aren't hostile to, say, LGBTQ people?

Why do they keep electing people who are, and passing legislature that is, then?

tartoran•2h ago
> All over the US are locations that used to be the place where a people would go for a three day weekend or summer getaway. But now they are ghost towns because the cost of travel and the algorithm have reframed travel as global and not regional.

I find that local travelling within the US is often more expensive for the quality they offer and travelling outside the US may cost the same but give you a better experience, or at least novel.

_fat_santa•4h ago
IMO it's not that travel is to cheap, it's that social media has created "hot spots" around the globe.

Take a random example: 5 cute coffee shops around Paris, all of them have that Parisian vibe that tourists are looking for but one of them had an influencer walk in and make some content. Now that one shop is all over the internet and tourists are flocking to it, creating huge lines and overwhelming the business, while the other 4 shops sit at roughly the same level of popularity as they did before.

The problem I see isn't that travel is democratized, it's that people are lazy at planning their trips and just go on social media and find these "hot spots" instead of actually doing their homework or heck even a little exploring around the city.

And I get it, planning a trip and actually doing your homework is hard, it's much easier to get on TikTok and have the entire itinerary planned in one afternoon than spending weeks researching spots on your own.

steveBK123•3h ago
Yeah I argue with my wife about this. She lives her lists, and trawls her social media feeds for stuff.

I prefer to have a loose agenda of which neighborhoods are interesting, pick one and wander it for an afternoon. Odds are we will find lots of interesting things.

We usually meet in the middle and do a mix. More and more she admits in retrospect to having stressed herself out with building and following an agenda.

anon-3988•3h ago
> The problem I see isn't that travel is democratized, it's that people are lazy at planning their trips and just go on social media and find these "hot spots" instead of actually doing their homework or heck even a little exploring around the city.

The problem is people are shallow. People are _actively_ seeking the queue. I know because I know people that are like this.

They want to be part of the queue because...I am not sure why. To take a quick picture at a very specific angle to avoid the crowd? To make their followers think they are doing something great? To make them jealous?

It is as if beauty have to be told and highlighted to them. They need a signboard that says "this is pretty, take a picture here!". They are not able to appreciate the minutiae of life.

Of course, I am sounding mighty superior here, but I don't think I am wrong.

dumbledoren•3h ago
'Globe trotting' has been 'democraticized' only for the top income earners from the high-income countries. The rest of the world is not able to globe trot. Combined with digital nomadism, golden visas et al, this 'democratization' is a new form of colonization in which the high CoL countries' people can literally buy out poorer countries' most desirable regions or set themselves up as an aristocratic elite on top of the locals.
GuB-42•1h ago
It used to be the case, now the majority of the people in high-income countries and the high earners of medium-income countries can globe trot, it is a massive increase.

As for the "colonial" aspect, Japan is not exactly a poor country. It is, in fact, a rather expensive destination (a bit less now because the Yen is cheap) and you will certainly not be seen as an aristocratic elite. You will be respected as a guest because that's how Japan works, but there is a line and it will become very clear if you ever attempt to cross it.

I think that "colonial style" tourism is on the decline, simply because the world is developing and what used to be poor countries now do very well by themselves. They will still accept your money though.

arh5451•5h ago
I'll agree certain locations are getting "instagram famous" and really ruining it for the locals, but I don't think they are worse off because of it. Just let people flock to the one picture spot, they did it before social media, and now there are just more of them, nothing new here.
lbreakjai•4h ago
If anything, the tourists queuing to buy the latest novelty doughnut are not taking up space somewhere else.
refactor_master•5h ago
“If you can’t afford to spend a month touring Tōhoku you shouldn’t be traveling”.
johngossman•5h ago
Another is the numeric ratings on reviews on various restaurants and shops. The top scored places are often overwhelmed. An AirBNB operator (in the US) told me she much prefers one of the two bakeries near her, but her guests go to the other one because "it had a better Yelp rating." It was 4.5 vs 4.4 aka random.
paulgerhardt•5h ago
Missed opportunity to talk about the locals creative responses to this.

One cafe in Tokyo is asking customers to leave negative reviews on Google and Trip Advisor to prevent over exposure (it mostly works but made me curious enough to visit).

Another specific $10 Michelin guide ramen restaurant only lets you order from a vending machine outside using a payment method you can’t access as a foreigner (one needs a physical JCB card or QUICPay - EPOS/Suica/Pasmo/Cash etc wouldn’t work).

A matcha place I like only lets you order from the real menu after you’ve unlocked enough visits from a punch card.

A resort slightly off but near the beaten path markets itself as an onsen but that’s maybe 4% of the amenities. That said, they’re serious about “no entry” if you have tattoos.

And a few more of the seedier bars just have the (time honored) “no foreigners” sign out front.

wichert•5h ago
Vending machines outside is pretty much the standard for ramen restaurants. Most of them will take passmo/suica, which most foreigners are also likely to have since it is also used for all public transport.
tanjtanjtanj•5h ago
I’ve been to this restaurant. They take cash as payment so I don’t think they are trying to dissuade tourists. Also, just a short few years ago I would say less than 10% of restaurants took any form of electronic payment.
franciscop•4h ago
I've been 10 years on-and-off, and 10% sound way too low _if we include_ Suica/Pasmo. Credit card is another story and I'd agree.
NalNezumi•5h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/funnysigns/comments/1getgra/a_resta...

Edit: The red text at the bottom says: この日本語が読める方は、 ご入店くださいませ = "if you can read this Japanese text, please come in"

Edit 2: just the original reddit post link then

mrln•4h ago
The link is dead
imp0cat•4h ago
It's not.

However this is easily "beaten" by using circle to search -> translate on your smart phone.

abcd_f•4h ago
After "beating" it with a translator, take a hint and don't enter still.
DaSHacka•3h ago
Xenophobia: :(

Xenophobia, Japan: :)

bee_rider•4h ago
I guess the trick will be less effective to the extent to which people try to work around it. But,

1) most people wouldn’t bother to translate something with a fake translation right above it

2) why do people want to go places they aren’t welcome? It is good to let the locals have some things…

Tainnor•1h ago
To be fair, that's not a very difficult sentence to read for someone who has studied a moderate amount of Japanese. Doesn't mean you could actually order food.
Pooge•1h ago
But if you can't read Japanese, you would enter because you don't understand the sign in the first place...
bryanlarsen•5h ago
> And a few more of the seedier bars just have a “no foreigners” sign out front.

Those have existed long before tourism to Japan became common. Those signs were there when the vast majority of foreigners in Japan were English teachers and soldiers. Many tabehodai (all-you-can-eat) and most nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) places had them.

Pooge•5h ago
> nomihodai

I think this is for economic/profit reasons.

I am not a strong drinker at all but I can drink 4-5 [X] sour but my Japanese friends were already well intoxicated with 1 or 2 beers...

freeopinion•4h ago
At 100kg, I never noticed that I ate more than my 65kg friends, but it still made me feel questionable at a tabehodai.
VWWHFSfQ•4h ago
> no foreigners

It's such a contrast to USA, where I doubt that such a thing would even be legal. And also the bit about no tattoos. That's lawsuit city.

diggan•4h ago
> That's lawsuit city

Aren't private businesses in the US allowed to deny access to their premises for any reasons? Seems like a weird thing to get sued over, I think in most places if you own the local, you get to decide who goes there, unless it's a place for government or similar.

VWWHFSfQ•4h ago
> deny access to their premises for any reasons

Definitely not. This kind of discrimination is explicitly prohibited by federal civil rights law (Civil Rights Act 1964). It protects people regardless of their national origin (in addition to their skin color).

diggan•3h ago
"National origin" is what country you are born in right? So banning non-US residents would be OK it seems?
HelloMcFly•4h ago
You may deny entry based on your own criteria provided you are not discriminating on race, color, religion, national origin, disability status, veteran status, age (more wiggle room here) or other state-specific traits (sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, etc.).

I don't think there's any place in America that would be illegal to bar entry based on the presence of tattoos.

keysdev•4h ago
But no shoes, no shirt, no service is quite common.
raydev•1h ago
Sure, but you can instantly go put on some shoes and a shirt if necessary.
diggan•3h ago
So it would be legal to bar non-US residents then? "Residency" seems different from all the criteria's you listed.
BobaFloutist•2h ago
Residency inherently includes national origin, since if your national origin is the US you're automatically a resident.
diggan•2h ago
Yeah, but the opposite isn't true, my national origin can be Swedish but I can reside in Spain, so banning by residency isn't banning by national origin, seems like a way to ban foreigners (non-residents).

Edit: Actually wait

> since if your national origin is the US you're automatically a resident

This isn't true is it? If you're born in the US but you live (100% of the time) elsewhere, you're no longer a resident, are you?

BobaFloutist•2h ago
Ok, but you're a citizen, which is a higher status than a "permanent resident."

Actually, you fully can discriminate for or against local or state residency. I think national residence would be harder, though to be fair you're absolutely able to not hire non-residents.

Frankly the biggest barrier might be that as actual residents would get mad if you asked for proof, and if you didn't test everyone it would likely be an open-and-shut racial (or maybe national origin if you tested on the basis of accent) case.

diggan•2h ago
> Ok, but you're a citizen, which is a higher status than a "permanent resident."

That sounds like a immigration/social hierarchy/importance rather than something that matters in discrimination contexts, what exactly you mean with "higher status"?

If a bar bans non-US residents, if a US-citizen+Spanish-residency tries to enter, then it shouldn't matter if they're US citizens or not, because the criteria is residency, not citizenship. Or is there like a priority/order for OK/not OK discrimination criteria?

BobaFloutist•1h ago
Now that I think about it a better quibble is that you probably can't get around anti-discrimination laws by posting a sign that says "No Canadians or Americans that have spent too long in Canada."
deaddodo•3h ago
You can deny entry on a non-discriminatory basis. E.g., a bar can kick out an individual Black American for being a nuisance or otherwise troublesome, they can't kick out a black guy for wearing blue (unless it's a blanket ban and reasonable, such as it being a theme bar) or being black.

This is why the signs are always phrased as "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone/any person".

As with most things though, this is just the minimum federal regulation and states will handle how far they take it differently. There are jurisdictions that wouldn't touch a "no tattoos" policy with a ten-foot pole at the risk of a lawsuit. While there are others that are more lax.

bitwize•4h ago
Among Japanese, tattoos are almost exclusively worn by yakuza members. The shop owners don't want any trouble or criminal activity on their premises.
zeroonetwothree•4h ago
Denying to an individual for any reason is ok but excluding entire groups is generally frowned upon or straight up illegal.
TimorousBestie•4h ago
> It's such a contrast to USA, where I doubt that such a thing would even be legal.

The sign itself is probably protected speech.

As for the policy, it is probably also legal here. Private businesses have broad rights to refuse individual customers without stating a reason.

Fabricating a legitimate business reason to deny service to a particular group of customers is usually trivial, as well. Proving it was fabricated for discriminatory reasons can be difficult.

autobodie•4h ago
>without stating a reason

That part is key. If they do state a reason, it could become a civil rights issue. The sign alone might not be enough to make a case, but it's a very good start.

deaddodo•3h ago
> Private businesses have broad rights to refuse individual customers without stating a reason.

They don't have to state a reason. The entire foundation of the common law system is to have a court decide intent; not be technically bound by your words.

It would only take showing a continued behavior of denying people in a discriminatory manner (e.g. 10% of your visitors are foreigners, but 95% of the people barred entry are in that group) to fine/sanction/shut down the business.

TimorousBestie•3h ago
> They don't have to state a reason. The entire foundation of the common law system is to have a court decide intent; not be technically bound by your words.

Yes, I agree. It becomes more difficult to infer intent without a stated reason.

Practically speaking, I think most civil rights lawsuits that are decided in the plaintiff’s favor are very, very explicit cases of discrimination. Someone was called a slur, someone was refused service violently, someone had racist iconography scrawled on their property. Yes, fines and sanctions then. Well, sometimes.

The ones who are clever about it never get to that stage. They don’t put up a sign saying “no foreigners,” they put up a sign saying “we speak english here,” “proud to be an american,” and etc. Confederate flags, military paraphernalia, the usual soft threats against the other.

Foreigners in particular are going to find it very difficult to interact with our justice system. A civil rights case that goes to trial is going to take much longer than the typical tourist visa allows. It’s going to be prohibitively expensive for the typical tourist to procure the services of a skilled lawyer.

deaddodo•2h ago
> The ones who are clever about it never get to that stage. They don’t put up a sign saying “no foreigners,” they put up a sign saying “we speak english here,” “proud to be an american,” and etc. Confederate flags, military paraphernalia, the usual soft threats against the other.

These are going to be in places that are not heavily touristed even by other Americans. You're talking about places in the deep south; or in some survivalist community in Wyoming/Montana/etc. Not in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.

So there's no one to complain. If someone did, they would most certainly face some legislative action.

> Foreigners in particular are going to find it very difficult to interact with our justice system. A civil rights case that goes to trial is going to take much longer than the typical tourist visa allows. It’s going to be prohibitively expensive for the typical tourist to procure the services of a skilled lawyer.

There's two cases where foreigners would complain:

A) they are on a visa, in which case they have the capability and are available to do so (and tend to be a pretty outspoken group considering the trouble they went through to get the visa in the first place).

B) they are visiting friends/family, in which case the friends/family will complain due to discrimination their loved ones faced.

You're using extreme examples to prove it could happen, because you're being disingenuous (imo). No one is doubting it could happen, racist/exclusionist stuff happens all the time. The people in this thread are saying it's not a norm, and (more importantly) that it's not legal. It's quite easy to prove a trend of discrimination, especially if your bar is clad in known racist/nationalist-adjacent paraphernalia.

Or, in other words, just ask yourself this: there are racists and nationalists in LA, SF, Denver, NY, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, etc....so, if it's so easy to skirt the legislation, why do we not find these sorts of bars in places that people actually go to versus insular communities where people are unlikely to raise a fuss?

TimorousBestie•1h ago
> These are going to be in places that are not heavily touristed even by other Americans. You're talking about places in the deep south; or in some survivalist community in Wyoming/Montana/etc. Not in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.

It is really hard to dispute the myth that “America” only consists of a few large cities, à la Death Stranding. Unfortunately, the whole country is not as enlightened as LA, SF, and NYC.

International tourism is also not limited to these cities. NPS alone attracts millions each year. Although, I understand the fees for foreign visitors is increasing soon.

lofaszvanitt•3h ago
You have to protect your culture. USA has a 250 year history while Japan has 10x of that.
sosborn•3h ago
Those signs have nothing to do with protecting culture. Most of the time, they are simply a naive defense against dealing with a population often doesn't speak Japanese very well.
gruez•3h ago
>USA has a 250 year history while Japan has 10x of that.

Is that supposed to imply that Japan has more culture, or that it needs more protection because it's 10x longer? Even if Japanese culture is 10x longer than American culture, it doesn't necessarily follow that there's less of it. Pop music and hollywood music might not be considered "culture" by snobs, but they're still culture, and arguably more plentiful and pervasive than Japanese culture.

vehemenz•2h ago
This is nonsense at worst and incoherent at best. I really don't even know where to begin, but I'd suggest a history book.
steveBK123•3h ago
Indeed, and as I frequently say.. those who thinks US is the most racist country in the world should visit 5-10 other countries and report back.
tayo42•1h ago
The US is building modern day concentration camps for immigrants. Maybe the country isnt actively killing the out groups right now like a handful of other countries but I'd say the racism is extreme and up there.
missedthecue•42m ago
But the immigrants aren't racial or ethnic outgroups per se. Many are incidentally Latino, yes, but so is the current Secretary of State.
krapp•20m ago
It isn't incidental. Trump's entire political legacy has been marked by his bigotry against people from, as he called them, "shithole countries," and remember how badly wanted to wall off Mexico, but not Canada. I believe this is explicitly an attempt to purge the US of its nonwhite immigrant population, possibly out of fear of "white replacement" (which Trump has alluded to believing more than once.)

Not to Godwin (but kind of to Godwin,) the Nazis put plenty of non-Jews into camps, and some Jews even collaborated with Nazi Germany. That doesn't mean the number of Jews persecuted by the Nazis was incidental.

SoftTalker•2h ago
"Has tattoos" is not a protected class. You're free to ban tattooed people from your place of business if you like.
seanmcdirmid•5h ago
Snack bars (the seedier bars you talk about) have always had a policy of no foreigners. In fact, I think it’s just in the standard snacks bar sign template.
timr•5h ago
I have been to many snack bars. They're everywhere, they're not "seedy", and nearly all of them are open to anyone.
NalNezumi•4h ago
Many places also (used to) have sign saying 一見さんおことわり which roughly translate to "first time visitor not allowed". A little bit up to interpretation but usually in the scope of:

* store only for patrons, but welcome if you come with patron.

* anyone welcome but if you're only coming once (tourist etc), please don't (destroy the vibe).

For obvious reasons foreign tourist couldn't get this so many places just put up a "no foreigner" sign. You'll still see local foreigner sometimes hang around those places though

GolDDranks•4h ago
I've been to many snack bars, and once in my almost ten years in Japan, I found one that didn't welcome foreigners.
WangComputers•5h ago
"they’re serious about “no entry” if you have tattoos"

That's nothing unusual in Japan, even Japanese people in Japan can't join a gym or get car insurance if they've got tattoos. They're serious about that stuff for a reason.

AnotherGoodName•4h ago
I suspect a blind eye would be turned if it’s pretty obviously not a yakuza tattoo right?
imp0cat•4h ago
I wouldn't think so. It seemed to me that most places were quite strict about it.
dagw•4h ago
It's fairly unusual to strictly enforce it on foreigners. Every place I've been with a no tattoos policy generally overlook tourists with smaller unassuming tattoos.
Jcampuzano2•3h ago
I went to Japan for about a month as someone with tattoos. I didn't have many issues out and about but I was told in the gym and I could not have them showing.

I just wore sleeves over them and although less comfortable than my normal gym attire it was fine.

I was denied access to an Onsen because I honestly forgot about the tattoo thing for a while but was able to find one that was tattoo friendly. They were not mean or anything they just informed me it was policy. Completely understandable given the history.

My tattoos are very noticeable though. Like you would never miss large forearm tattoos, so it's probably hard for them to overlook for them and let it slide even for a foreigner

antonkochubey•3h ago
>or get car insurance

eh? there's a stripping-down room in insurance offices?

do you have to submit nudes if you're buying insurance online?

guardiangod•3h ago
I was in a Shikoku hotel's public bath a couple month ago, and a guy with full on Yakuza back (and arms) tattoo came in to shower. No one batted an eye. Granted no staff was present, so no one enforced the rule. I also did not try to get a glimpse of his pinkies.
timr•4h ago
I don't know about the Ramen place (I can't believe that they wouldn't take cash?), but I agree with you that more places are doing this kind of "two markets" stuff -- it's even becoming official, in that now there's officially sanctioned "foreigner pricing" for certain temples, shrines, and parks. There's also Google Maps and Yelp vs. Japan's local version (pretty much any review on the former two are useless, and hopelessly biased by clueless tourists).

I'm of mixed minds. I really miss the days when it was possible to be welcomed pretty much anywhere as a foreigner and have almost universal expectations of high quality, scam-free experiences, but those days are pretty much gone now. Foreigners are lining up for mediocre tourist traps because of something they saw on TikTok or Instagram, and there are business people who are willing to take advantage of that fact.

It's also really difficult to serve your local clientele when tourists "discover" your establishment. I have a friend with a restaurant that has become known amongst foreign tourists, and it's nearly impossible for the locals in the neighborhood to visit now. I was talking about it with him a month or so back, and while he seemed happy to have the money -- and therefore unwilling to change the situation -- he also interacted with the tourists in a completely different way. He had a back-channel reservation mechanism for locals and people he knows, but it still requires advance planning for a place that used to be a casual, walk-in experience.

amluto•4h ago
> I really miss the days when it was possible to be welcomed pretty much anywhere as a foreigner and have almost universal expectations of high quality, scam-free experiences

How long ago was that? It was certainly true in fairly large portions of the world, but there are plenty of places where, for as long as I can remember, you could pretty much expect to be scammed regularly. In many cases those scams would be for trivial (to visitors from wealthy countries) amounts of money, but it nonetheless often seemed like a large fraction of local economies would be driven by scamming tourists.

I think that the real recent change is that the “beaten path” of touristy areas has gotten larger.

imp0cat•4h ago
In Japan? A few years ago the experience was completely different.
amluto•4h ago
Not Japan. Plenty of other countries, though.
timr•3h ago
> How long ago was that? It was certainly true in fairly large portions of the world, but there are plenty of places where, for as long as I can remember, you could pretty much expect to be scammed regularly.

To be clear: "scamming" is still thankfully uncommon in Japan. Getting ripped off in the tourist-trap way is the new development.

I don't know when it started exactly, but I lived there around a decade ago and it was rare then. The prices around tourist spots would always be elevated and world heritage sites often had a line of crappy souvenir shops, but you didn't see the same kind of fake "wagyu" and the like that you see everywhere today.

esperent•4h ago
> it still requires advance planning for a place that used to be a casual, walk-in experience

So, much like every restaurant that becomes popular, anywhere in the world?

timr•3h ago
> So, much like every restaurant that becomes popular, anywhere in the world?

No, but thanks for the spot-on imitation of an entitled foreign visitor. The insinuation that somehow it's the local people's fault that they don't want their quaint neighborhood restaurants to become McDonald's is indeed part of the problem.

Many restaurants in Japan (my friend's included) are quite obviously one-man, standing-room only operations. They weren't designed or intended to accommodate big groups of people, pulling huge rolling suitcases, ordering off menu, getting offended when the proprietor doesn't offer vegan/gluten free/snowflake options, and tons of other nonsense that goes along with serving tourist hordes.

I realize that you can't un-make the baby, and that Japan's government asked for this, but a lot of locals are still upset about this kind of stuff and I have empathy. Tourism inevitably turns anything authentic into a high-volume, Epcot-center version of itself. That might be fine if you're visiting, but it sucks if you live there.

rwmj•2h ago
I wonder what the end state is here. Will there be a backlash (or more of a backlash, as there's a bit of one already) against the Japanese government's policy? Something worse?
biztos•2h ago
Indeed, I’ve seen a lot of “visit Japan” ads lately.

But the thing I worry about, having never been there, is that I might get some good recommendations for out-of-the-way spots where there would be few if any other tourists, and take the time to go find them, only to be denied entry because I’m a foreigner.

timr•2h ago
> But the thing I worry about, having never been there, is that I might get some good recommendations for out-of-the-way spots where there would be few if any other tourists, and take the time to go find them, only to be denied entry because I’m a foreigner.

Yep, that's the part I hate, too. The locals put up completely understandable roadblocks to preserve their own culture, but those roadblocks end up making the whole situation hostile and unpleasant for anyone who is not known to the locals.

Since you've never been, let me just say this: most tourists are utterly clueless, so just not being clueless goes far. Blend in, imitate the locals' behaviors, try to speak the language, eat what you're given, etc., and you'll be fine. For now, at least, relatively few places ban foreigners outright.

crab_galaxy•2h ago
I got the two fingers making an x sign a handful when I was in Japan. It’s really not a big deal and it never felt malicious. You just move on, though it does kind of suck when you’re hungry!
lovich•2h ago
Nah, that’s just discrimination. It’s bad when anyone does it
strbean•1h ago
> No, but thanks for the spot-on imitation of an entitled foreign visitor. The insinuation that somehow it's the local people's fault that they don't want their quaint neighborhood restaurants to become McDonald's is indeed part of the problem.

This seems a little unfair. I think the parent was talking more about restaurants in big cities.

In Tokyo, lines down the block are extremely common, and the lines are primarily Japanese people, not foreigners. Maybe there are Japanese tourists visiting Tokyo, maybe they are Tokyo locals. But it happens with or without foreign tourism.

cultofmetatron•4h ago
> I really miss the days when it was possible to be welcomed pretty much anywhere as a foreigner and have almost universal expectations of high quality, scam-free experiences

you can still have that. I'm a fulltime traveller. the key is to stay in a place longer. I usually stay in a country for at least a month. that gives you time to meet and actually get to know locals. thats how you get invited to the really cool spots and get a view the daytripppers and resort goers don't get.

ddejohn•4h ago
> you can still have that

... if you're a full-time traveler that can afford to stay for months at a time. For the rest (the vast majority) of us, the GP comment is what we get.

timr•3h ago
Yes, I agree that it's a better way to travel if you can do it, but most people can't [1].

That said, even for short-term tourists, Japan used to be kind of a miracle in terms of the quality and service you would get for the money. I know it sounds like hipster whining, but that time is in the past.

[1] My snobby hot-take is that if you can't travel this way you shouldn't do recreational international travel at all, unless it's to go to a luxury hotel and sit on a beach or something packaged like that. But I realize that this will not be a popular opinion.

impendia•2h ago
I used to live in Japan in 1999-2001, and I was just there again for a month this summer.

Anyway, I disagree with you: Japan is still a miracle in terms of the quality and service you get for the money. I saw this many times over.

Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.

The article mentions Yamaguchi, Toyama, Morioka, etc., and I definitely agree -- there are tons of places off the tourist beaten-track, and any of them is worth a visit.

On my recent trip I was in Kobe, which unlike Yamaguchi etc. I expect the average HN reader has heard of. But even there, there was little trace of overtourism.

Alex Kerr lamented all the way back in 1993 (in his book Lost Japan) that Kyoto had essentially lost its soul. And if you go to the areas most commonly seen on Instagram and TikTok, that's probably partially true. But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you!

timr•2h ago
> Anyway, I disagree with you: Japan is still a miracle in terms of the quality and service you get for the money. I saw this many times over.

I assume you mean "relative to other places" here, and in that sense, I agree. Japan is not yet entirely Epcot Center.

> Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.

Right, exactly. Except that I'm seeing this spread like cancer -- which it always does. Sort of like gentrification, the "authenticity seeking tourist" leaves Senso-ji a few blocks, and then before too long Kappabashi is no longer a functioning street of restaurant supply stores (instead becoming a dead zone of "japanese knife" and matcha retailers), and so on.

> But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you

Yeah, I lived in Kyoto a decade ago, and I say that to my Japanese friends, too. The thing is, even vs. 2-3 years ago, the number of those authentic places is dramatically fewer. People have been complaining about tourism in Kyoto forever, but they're also not wrong.

Tainnor•1h ago
The time of the year probably matters too. I didn't find Japan to be terribly overcrowded when I went this February. Certain areas (and the minuscule Kyoto buses) were, but that happens in every tourist location.

I also went to places like Beppu or Kagoshima where I barely saw any tourists.

eska•1h ago
In Beppu you’d mostly find Korean tourists who come by ferry, rather than the wrecking ball tokyo-osaka-kyoto tourists.
XenophileJKO•44m ago
Yes, Shikoku and Kyushu are both very pleasant from my experience. Shikoku felt the least visited. In Matsuyama, I saw only a handful of western tourists and even those were mostly blended families probably visiting relatives.

It was really pleasant. I keep trying to move farther off the beaten path on each trip.

SoftTalker•2h ago
I fully agree, whirlwind "see the major tourist attractions" sort of travel where you visit someplace for a couple of days or a week is not very interesting to me.

Honestly travel in general is not very interesting to me. It's expensive, inconvenient, commoditized, cliche. But especially that sort of travel.

I can see taking a break to go somewhere warm if you live in a place with long gloomy winters. Or going somewhere to visit family, or to do something that just isn't available where you live (skiing or fishing trip or something like that). But going somewhere to just look around? Not attractive to me.

tayo42•1h ago
It's nice to break out of your routine and experience something new for a few days.

Just hanging out in a walkable city for a few days is nice change from driving everywhere in the suburbs. I couldn't live in a city though.

strbean•1h ago
Even if you're only going somewhere for a week, you don't have to see all the major attractions. You also don't have to plan every moment and research what restaurants to visit etc.

You can set out to discover cool stuff on your own. Walk around a non-touristy neighborhood until you see a restaurant full of locals dining and eat there.

mr_toad•1h ago
You’re basically saying that only extroverts are allowed to be tourists.

Fuck that.

throwaway3b03•4h ago
> I can't believe that they wouldn't take cash?

What's so hard to believe about that? Lots of places in the Netherlands don't accept cash (probably out of convenience).

Jach•4h ago
If you know anything about Japan it's very strange that a place wouldn't take cash. Post-covid (and a lot of that thanks to Olympics preparations) a lot of places in Tokyo have advanced to taking things other than cash.
timr•3h ago
You're not going far enough: before Covid, finding a place (excluding conbini) that took a credit card was rare. Credit cards are common now, like you say, but nearly any business will still accept cash.

I think I've encountered at most 1-2 restaurants in Japan that don't take cash, and none that don't at least accept credit cards.

steveBK123•2h ago
Yes as recently as 2010s Japanese travel as a westerner was mildly stressful managing your cash balance.

Taxis, conbinis and restaurants all wanted cash.

Lots of ATMs (majority even) don't take western ATM cards, so you need to look out for JP/7-11/Citi? ones.

Delicate balance of keeping enough yen so you don't run out / have to go out of your way ATM hunting but also not head home with $100s in yen you don't need.

bee_rider•4h ago
It is almost a paradox or something; what makes a lot of places is the local clientele (or the long term visitors). Plus, the tourists won’t support the business during the off season (although I’m not sure if Japan really has an off season).
SapporoChris•3h ago
Some of the restaurants have ticket vending machines outside the shop. This avoids the need for a cashier inside the restaurant. It also mostly avoids the process of staff taking your order. Purchase your meal ticket from machine outside, hand ticket to cook as you enter, and take your seat.

Most of the ticket vending machines do take cash, but if they wanted to eliminate tourists then that would be an easy change to make.

timr•3h ago
Sure, of course. I've just never seen one that didn't take cash or credit card.
me_smith•2h ago
On my last trip to Tokyo, I went to one of the Ramen restaurants that had a vending machine to order food. The machine, unfortunately, did not give us any change. I felt bad trying to explain to one of the employees because we both couldn't really understand each other. He eventually understood and gave us the exact change we did expect. After that experience, I wouldn't blame them for wanting to make the change and limiting tourists.
supportengineer•3h ago
Is there any place you can go to avoid Scam culture? Anywhere at all? It seems pervasive.

I would like to think there is somewhere in the United States, maybe in the Midwest, or West Virginia, there has to be someplace where there are decent hard-working Americans, who are not trying to scam each other.

os2warpman•2h ago
>maybe in the Midwest, or West Virginia

My family is from the "decent hard-working" part of mid-America and I am the only one without a felony so whenever one of my relatives dies, I get their guns. It used to be the crime of choice was check fraud but now it's simple burglary and drugs.

I as a non-gang, non-dealing, tall middle aged white dude am safer in Baltimore than I am at the local gas station full of tweakers in "real" America.

West Virginia has the highest, by a lot, percentage of people on social security disability because their state doesn't have good welfare benefits. All of the decent folk figured out how to scam the government out of disability payments by lying about back and stomach pain.

In Wyoming County West Virginia >33% of all adults aged 18-64 are on disability. These aren't broken down coal miners they are normal, healthy, unemployed people.

My county? 6%.

The only parts of America where people aren't trying to scam each other are uninhabited.

smelendez•2h ago
If you go as a tourist to a place in the US that doesn’t get a lot of tourists, like a small Midwest city, people will happily give you recommendations of things to see and do. The same if you go in a neighborhood bar or coffee shop in a big city neighborhood that’s not overtouristed.

Nobody will try to charge you the tourist rate because there isn’t one. There may be scammers and shady merchants operating in town but you will not be their primary target.

KerrAvon•1h ago
West Virginia is a deeply red state; I don't think you want to go there to avoid scams. It's pervasive in the US because the political leadership is all now scam culture, all the time. Trump is, at core, a corrupt, subliterate, small-time real estate huckster. Everybody he's surrounded himself with is either an insincere grifter or severely mentally ill. And they're running the federal government and the red states, and trying to destroy the state governments of the blue ones.
chasd00•6m ago
Those places are all over the US but just not very interesting. Ft. Davis (or maybe Alpine) Texas is what you're describing but no one really goes there because it's just a small town with people working and living their lives as best they can. There's nothing to attract any outside attention really. I only know that area because of my wife introducing me to Marfa TX which does a little bit of tourism because of the Judd foundation.

I fell in love with that part of Texas and the people. My wife and I were married in Marathon which is in a ~75 mile radius of the towns i listed above

scoofy•1h ago
I remember when Four Barrel Coffee had blown up in SF. I lived in the neighborhood, and learned, there was just an entrance in the ally behind the building for locals. No sign, just a way to skip the line.

I have no idea if it’s still there, but I thought it was a super clever way of doing things.

gtowey•1h ago
I think it's worse than that. I'm starting to think that there may not really be an ethical way to be a tourist in a foreign country. Especially coming from a high cost of living area to a lower one.

Just being there puts you in economic competition with the locals. You can spend more on everything than everyone else and that raises their costs too. Especially housing and food. Those fancy resorts take all the prime real estate and Airbnb means locals have to compete with the tourist rental prices.

And there is more and more people traveling all the time so some areas are just overloaded -- as in the article here.

Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average as a tourist, but the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.

KerrAvon•1h ago
It's not quite that simple. Your tourism money is valuable. It's a huge influx of money into the local economy. They don't want it to go to zero.
jorvi•1h ago
It literally is quite that simple. I can tell you from experience via friends and acquaintances that tourists are crushing the locals out of Barcelona and Amsterdam. And I expect the same to be true of Warsaw or Berlin.

And its not just tourists. ASML has completely destroyed the housing market in the Brainport region. They're planning to hire 20.000 more people, but with The Netherlands currently being in one of the most severe housing crises in the world, these expats just end up pushing everyone out of the local housing market because they can overbid on houses / rental properties so much.

ASML has woken up to this and is underwriting affordable housing developments, but only at a clip of 1500 per year. So yeah, the locals are not exactly happy, even if it is good for The Netherlands and EU as a whole.

Frankly, I expect the next decade or two to be about harsh protectionism. People are really, really tired of globalisation eating the world.

majormajor•1h ago
> Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average as a tourist, but the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.

I think this is definitely not true.

And I think oversaturation generally happens because most people don't think that, or think about it at all. They have a checklist of spots to hit, photos to take, things to eat, and they follow it. They'll put up with huge lines, crazy prices, etc. Overcharging isn't terrible for everyone local, of course, but the crowding certainly changes a place. Often not better for most locals.

If you're trying to be respectful I think that rules out following those huge crowds usually. Like, seeing the Mona Lisa is usually a shitty experience, but at least its in a controlled environment. Visiting a trendy vacation spot like Barcelona, on the other hand, is hitting the whole town and frankly ... maybe not that interesting or novel. There are other places out there, many not even that far away from the hotspots. Though you also need to rein in any instinct to show off any other finds or places online, let the local place you enjoyed become deluged.

lazyasciiart•15m ago
How do you say it’s not true and then immediately follow by suggesting people just shouldn’t go to Barcelona?
returningfory2•39m ago
I think there’s a zero sum fallacy in play here. For example you say “Those fancy resorts take all the prime real estate” but many resort towns in Mexico like Cancun were literally invented out of thin air for international tourism. The alternative reality is not “Cancun for the locals”; the alternative reality is no Cancun.

In general we have the ability to expand the amount of available housing/hotels/etc. to meet increased demand. It’s not a zero sum game.

deaddodo•4h ago
> That said, they’re serious about “no entry” if you have tattoos.

This is not uncommon in Japan, in general. Usually it's more of an anti-Yakuza/riffraff regulation than an anti-foreigner one. It just so happens to kill two birds with one stone, in some cases.

returningfory2•3h ago
Indeed, but in my experience many of these places have an unspoken sub-rule that the tattoo rule is not enforced for foreigners.
jayd16•3h ago
Seems like if you smile and act friendly and dumb and American you get a lot of slack along with the Japanese shopkeeper version of an eye roll and a headpat.
androidoka•2h ago
This is a part of the issue, knowing the rules but nonetheless not following them. And then — culturally unaware — thinking it's ok because nobody says anything.
BobaFloutist•2h ago
I mean "don't have a tattoo" isn't really a rule you can follow based on a sign very easily.
ponector•2h ago
But somehow you can follow rules with signs like "women(men) only". I bet it's easier to follow no tattoo rule.
BobaFloutist•2h ago
I mean you can't quickly remove a tattoo or change your gender based on a sign.
eska•1h ago
You can still get a private onsen room.
deaddodo•2h ago
This rule applies to most confucian/communal East Asian societies with individuals from the West. People aren't idiots, they realize cultures differ, so they're willing to give some slack; especially, with a culture they're somewhat familiar with through media (the US, for instance).

With Japan and Korea (especially the latter) towards Americans, there's also a soft-unspoken rule (that sort of goes both ways) due to the relationship those countries have fostered towards each other. A Brit/German/Italian/etc who spends more than a short visit in Korea/speaks Korean will probably start being taken to the side for flouting cultural norms like age-deference, polite speech, etc to be informed of their cultural mores (usually phrased with an indication that they also come from a structured society, they should understand that this is the way it is); while this will rarely happen to the same group of Americans. In some cases it's the "dumb/naive American" effect, but it also has to do with the larger relationship between the two countries.

returningfory2•36m ago
I struggle to believe this. How can the average Korean tell the difference between a white American and a white Brit?
vorpalhex•3h ago
We were told by our onsen host that as long as we made a genuine attempt at covering our tattoos, the onsen didn't mind (given that we were obviously foreigners). Making an attempt at covering was still required (and we used high end stage makeup that was waterproof).
mock-possum•3h ago
Ugh the ‘no tattoo’ discrimination thing really bugs me.
varispeed•2h ago
I remember this. Wanted to order something from a vending machine and had no clue what to do. I went to a nearby hotel and asked person at the reception to help. They actually agreed and bought the item I wanted and didn't want cash for it. Made my day.
keysdev•1h ago
Its about time we do that. This look online for good local places to go needs to stop. You either live there for some times and discover the place by getting to know the locals or yeah you just do not get to know the place.
dvdkon•1h ago
Where does that stop, though? Should people only ever explore their own city? Most people will only be able to move once every few years.
okdood64•1h ago
> And a few more of the seedier bars just have the (time honored) “no foreigners” sign out front.

Eh, even some non "seedy" ones have it. It's common enough.

patrickscoleman•1h ago
Even as a foreigner who speaks Japanese, I frequently got the "we're closed" and crossing the hands in an X response while locals continued eating. Sometime they'd laugh and I'd hear "gaijin" (rude slang for foreigner) as I walked out.

But plenty of places were super warm and friendly after the initial apprehension if you speak Japanese and read some kanji. Worth the effort!

keiferski•5h ago
There are a ton of articles about over-tourism in Japan lately, and after thinking about it for awhile, I think you can boil it down to two things other than the obvious (the yen losing value, etc.)

1. The extreme success of Japanese culture via media, specifically abroad. This wasn't just a thing that happened accidentally, it was in some sense planned for decades. See for example the Cool Japan initiative: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan

I haven't been to Korea, but I imagine that their tourism numbers have dramatically increased in the last decade due to k-pop, k-dramas, Squid Game, etc. – all of which have been deliberately used to promote the country's culture abroad.

2. Japan is one of the few countries in the world which has navigated modernity without essentially just becoming Westernized. Sure, there are many Western chains and technologies there, but there are also tons of social practices, attitudes, and other things which are very different from the Western world. Or at least they have the appearance of being very different to Western eyes.

This is why there are constantly weird thing in Japan articles on Reddit and HN: it's a place that has managed to navigate its own path in the modern world, rather than just adopting the typical neoliberal homogeneity route.

shigawire•5h ago
>neoliberal homogeneity route

I'm not sure how Japan is not neoliberal or how this label relates to their culture. I think you are conflating neoliberalism with western pop culture more broadly?

keiferski•5h ago
Maybe neoliberal was a bad word choice. I basically just mean that many “modern” places in the world have the same generic look to them, whether you’re in Dubai or New York or Warsaw. Japan also has these places, but somehow they are a bit more uniquely Japanese than in most other places (for example, the phenomenon of salarymen.)
Tijdreiziger•4h ago
Warsaw and New York absolutely do not have the same look to them. (Haven’t been to Dubai to compare.)
keiferski•4h ago
I didn't say the cities look the same, I said many modern places in them do. And yes, for example Hudson Yards looks quite similar to a typical mall in Warsaw (e.g., the main one by the train station.) There is nothing about either mall that screams "this is a unique place."
Tijdreiziger•3h ago
I don’t think many people judge cities by their malls.
matthewdgreen•5h ago
I visited in 2007 and 2024 and the weird is still there, but some of the “this place is at the absolute cutting edge of cool and tech and weird” is gone. The most disappointing thing was seeing how much of the cutting edge “PC” and electronics culture was gone from Akihabara (presumably it all went to Shenzhen) and how everything sold there is just older gaming systems (did not stop us from purchasing a beautiful Nintendo Famicom.) I’m sure there are some interesting things happening that will be cool in a decade, but it’s definitely a slightly different place.
seanmcdirmid•4h ago
The e-markets in China have also reduced a lot. The rise of online shopping killed made them less necessary for their original purposes.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK•4h ago
The weird thing in Japan for me was a book store in Tokyo, filled by men at 2am, all reading comics books.
Jach•3h ago
There's a meme that Japan entered the 2000s in the 80s and then just stayed there.

My first trip was in 2017, but even between then and the second trip in 2022, I could tell Akiba lost even more of its electronics culture. I was there last December and helped someone build a PC. At least for "standard" stuff you can get by, though for sourcing many things the best solution was often, somewhat sadly, Amazon JP. For things like GPUs you had to double-check you're buying new, not used, because shops will display both sometimes in the same case. All prices were somewhat more than what it'd cost to import from the US + pay taxes on that. (Except for canon camera batteries, I picked up an extra one on one of my trips and was surprised how much cheaper it was.)

For another of my own purchases, I needed to get some extra laptop RAM to finish a graphics project locally as my home machine I was remoting to was acting up. It was a struggle finding any place with them in stock at all, in or outside Akiba, and then those in sizes greater than 4 GB. And when I did, I still had to talk to someone at the counter, who pulled out a shoebox of assorted brands and sizes. Just so bizarre compared to almost every other component from HDDs to SSDs to USB sticks and more being on public walls/racks to pick over -- at worst there'd be just a rack of tags and you select the product by tag and the person at the counter will get it when you check out. Didn't have that at all for laptop RAM. I found a place at last that had a single 16 GB stick I could use, which at least helped me make progress until Amazon could get a second one to me and let me stop toeing the edge of maxing out my memory.

skeezyboy•2h ago
Japan is certainly Westernised, hentai notwithstanding.
tartoran•2h ago
Japan is westernized in some ways but it managed to keep something original to Japanese culture that you can't find otherplace.
Karrot_Kream•53m ago
Strongly disagree with #2. I think every foreigner who visits the big Japanese cities gets charmed by its quirky land use and small shops, but the reality of Japan is that most things are owned by conglomerates and that depopulation means that increasingly blue collar work is being done by immigrants (sound familiar?) Japanese lifestyle resembles America from the 2000s in broad strokes. China and India still have a lot of their older culture present. Indians often dress in clothing that's recognizably non-Western in every day situations and both countries have food cultures that are pretty different from the West.
NalNezumi•5h ago
The problem isn't small businesses. Japan already have millions of hard to find gems that even the locals don't know, because the owners barely market things (runs on local patronage) and those are still doing fine outside the tourism craze. And those places can be quite direct about not wanting the one-off tourist; When I was an exchange student in Kyoto we were told off from a couple of places, which wasn't an issue.

The "small businesses" being swamped are rarely those kinds. They want that extra income but can't really serve it, and often realize that one off selfie tourists just generally have little respect for rules and end up trashing the place,(or the surroundings, not necessarily because bad intent but cultural differences) causing ire from the locals.

dfxm12•5h ago
...small business purpose quickly shifts into: Being a community hub for a core group of regulars.

If you want to be a members' only club, be a members' only club. I understand concerns with Venice sinking or a tiny train station being overrun with anime fans, but Kyoto is and always will be a popular tourist destination for many reasons.

bryanlarsen•5h ago
Tourism in Japan is still pretty low compared to traditional tourism hot spots like Paris or Rome. As is usual, it's the relative change that is significant rather than the absolute numbers. The change from "almost none" to "some" affects a place more than the change from "a lot" to "even more".
shusaku•5h ago
I was thinking similarly, because you go to a famously tourist packed city like Paris and find nothing by local shops. But concluded differently than you: the article is just wrong.
seanmcdirmid•5h ago
I don’t think that’s true if you add in Chinese tourists, which are like 80% of Japan’s overseas tourist mix, it is china’s #2 overseas tourist destination after Korea (adjacency has a lot to do with that). France is #23, while China is the largest and fastest growing market for overseas tourists.
pilingual•4h ago
That's not true. https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/us-trips-to-japan-surp...
bryanlarsen•4h ago
AFAICT, Germans & Brits outnumber Americans in Paris and Chinese outnumber Americans in Tokyo. So American numbers aren't particularly significant, IMO.

But seanmcdirmid in a sibling comment is likely correct, and I'm possibly wrong.

zarzavat•48m ago
Hmm. As a Brit I would not consider a trip to Paris to be "tourism". It's just a trip over the border. Yes they speak a different language there but it's a language that I was forced to study in school. No doubt Germans feel the same way.

Going to Spain on the other hand would be tourism. I don't speak Spanish, it's not a neighbouring country, you arrive in an airport, etc.

If an American or a Chinese person goes to Paris I feel they likely have different motivations and itinerary than a Brit, Belgian, etc who is taking the train possibly only for the day.

makeitdouble•4h ago
Tourism in Japan is fine if concentrated in central Tokyo or major cities for instance. You can try to flood Shibuya or Ginza with tens of thousands of tourists everyday it won't be much of an issue.

Tourists spilling over on less prepared and smaller places is the real issue IMHO. Seeking "authenticity" while not being local/integrated understandingly generates friction at scale.

ragazzina•4h ago
> Tourism in Japan is still pretty low compared to traditional tourism hot spots like Paris or Rome.

Tokyo has more international tourists than Rome and is the third city destination in the world.

https://www.euromonitor.com/press/press-releases/december-20...

bryanlarsen•4h ago
That's a list of where people want to go. Further down in the article is the list of cities where people actually go. Tokyo isn't in the top 10.
pm215•4h ago
It also felt to me to be weirdly concentrated in particular small areas. I spent a few weeks in various places in northern Japan which varied from "very quiet" to "tourists but not too many"; but in Tokyo, Akihabara was absolutely heaving with tourists (in a way it wasn't five years ago). And even in Tokyo just getting a little way away from the hotspots you could find beautiful but quiet places still. So I agree with the author's suggestion to go to parts of the country that aren't the tiny fraction of super-famous locations or social-media sensations.
returningfory2•23m ago
I feel like tourist places are “weirdly concentrated” as you put it. When I was Florence the center was obviously super busy, but walking only 15 minutes in one direction there seemed to be almost no tourists around (of course, the area I was in didn’t have any sights). It made me think that maybe there’s a bias to the feeling of overtourism because people think about the one part of the city where all the tourists are.
guardiangod•3h ago
Rome had been the center of the western world for 2000 years, and Paris for 400. You can't compare those "well-trodden" cities to Kyoto, which was relatively secluded from tourists until the invention of jet airliners.
rwmj•2h ago
I was in Rome a couple of summers ago (not as a tourist) and it was pretty crazy how many tourists there were. You could hardly walk along the streets in the centre. I wouldn't want to live there as a local, or ever be anywhere which is "not quite as bad as Rome".
boogieknite•5h ago
my favorite food from my visit was a mochi stand in Fujisawa station. it was a station of tables and had a sign that said MOCHI all over it

i wanted to give it a review but it didnt exist on google maps and it was even in a blind spot of Google street view inside Fujisawa

been thinking for a few years how crazy it was that my favorite place on our 10 day trip was completely invisible online in 2024. havent checked back recently but now i hope its still invisible online

hamandcheese•5h ago
> Only psychopaths love Manhattan because of Duane Reade.

That may be true in Manhattan, but Japan has amazing, lovable chains. The fact that you are never far from a 7-Eleven, Family Mart, Coco Ichibanya, or Ichiran (and they are often open late if not 24 hours) is one of my favorite parts of Japan.

seanmcdirmid•4h ago
And the shopping is pretty good. A Muji flagship store just has a lot of things to buy that you aren’t going to find in a downtown Portland or Paris Muji.
slillibri•3h ago
Don't forget Yoshinoya, Sukiya, or Cafe Gusto.
jerryliu12•5h ago
Have to say that I'm shocked that the local government hasn't cracked down on the Mario Kart stuff.
timr•4h ago
They're starting to ban it. Japan's wheels of government move slowly, but they tend to be effective when they do move.
agnishom•5h ago
I am not sure I understand the argument the author is making. Is this what they are saying? [Overtourism is bad for small businesses because it encourages them to cater to tourists, and therefore to chase global trends rather than to serve the taste of the local community]

I am sure many of them would be a little upset, but I don't understand how this counts as "hurting" small businesses?

skeezyboy•4h ago
he thinks there are businesses out there that do it for the love, and somehow dont need customers or revenue to survive. and ill have to dig my heels in when he says they arent doing it to get rich.
franciscojs•4h ago
I'm on the same boat. On one hand it seems tourism is a bad thing, on the other it recommends places that are little known to tourism... oh well
prokopton•4h ago
I’ve lived in Nagoya for 20 years and Kyoto’s unbearable to visit anymore. I loved it twenty years ago but I have no interest in wading through the tourists from overseas.
piazz•4h ago
> Another visitor was spending a leisurely week in Morioka alone before heading to Fukuoka for a few months.

Oh hey, that was me! Small (internet) world, huh :)

franciscop•4h ago
I find Japan a bit strange about these "making profit" topics. I still don't fully grasp how it's possible so many of these business that "poured much of their life savings into opening these places, taken out loans" don't rejoice and raise their prices (a bit? a lot?), making them able to do this thing they are doing, much better. Heck invite the regulars to the 2nd drink with that extra money that is coming in now if you want, or give them a discount.

Here there is the opportunity of a lifetime, and many Japan business are straight out rejecting the money that comes pouring in. Meanwhile Japan economy is the worst it's been in 40-50 years, and virtually every week there's articles about the bleak future. It's too frustrating seeing articles complaining about how business are closing down with no money, and at the same time how these people trying to give them money are being rejected.

Background: living in Japan 5-10 years, I'm from Spain so it's not "in my blood" to think about profit also, but heck it's just too surprising some times.

PS, I'm for reducing tourism overall here actually, I'm just baffled at Japanese rejecting money.

blibble•4h ago
> Here there is the opportunity of a lifetime, and many Japan business are straight out rejecting the money that comes pouring in.

because not everyone cares firstly about money?

the article is quite clear, the woman wanted to open a business to serve her friends and locals

now she can't do that, and is understandably upset

herdrick•2h ago
From the parent comment: "Heck invite the regulars to the 2nd drink with that extra money that is coming in now if you want, or give them a discount." That could even be revenue neutral, if she wants it to be. Why not try that?
johngossman•4h ago
I was just thinking about restaurants. The iconic French or Italian restaurant is larger than the iconic Japanese izakaya with 10 seats. And unlike the tapas bars of Spain, it isn't expected you'll move on to the next place or take your food outside.
lbreakjai•4h ago
These sorts of critics always struck me as elitist and pretentious. If reminds me of those kids gatekeeping music genres and claiming you couldn't call yourself a fan unless you listened to the most obscure album of the most obscure band.

Just a fashionable way to say you've been there and done that, and that you're above the hoi polloi.

Popular cities, and popular attractions within, are popular for a reason.

sorcerer-mar•3h ago
> Popular cities, and popular attractions within, are popular for a reason.

Reasons which typically don't include "can sustain infinite visitors"

tourismscourge1•2h ago
Like Tour Eiffel, London Eye, Brooklyn Bridge, places with incalculable aesthetic value that nothing have to do with Hype
zeroonetwothree•4h ago
This argument seems to be heavily tinged with xenophobia. Local customers good, foreign ones bad? I can understand if it was specifically about the volume…
gspencley•4h ago
Not only that, but these business owners are actively complaining about an influx of business.

I get it if your goal is not necessarily to make as much money as possible and just wanted to create some small, local, "underground" thing. As a small business owner myself, I can think of a few different ways you could accomplish that in spite of massive attention. I mean you can have certain days of the week where you're closed to the general public but patrons with a loyalty card can get in or something. That's just one idea; point is there are solutions.

So I tend to agree with you - this reeks of "we just don't like foreigners. They're ruining our business by being foreign."

My wife and I are about to open our first brick and mortar business and it would be our dream come true to get popular on TikTok and to be a tourist destination. Even though we are a small business in a trendy neighbourhood doing something rather niche that is [hopefully] going to attract a loyal local following.

Argonaut998•3h ago
So what? They’re right. Japanese are a million times more civilized than us foreigners/tourists.

They also have a vastly different culture with many possible faux-pas that one can make, which all tourists inevitably make, which they hate. I think they are unfair about this however

tourismscourge1•2h ago
Xenophobia is an invalid argument only if your IQ has two digits
quibono•1h ago
Reading this thread and some of the replies reminds of the whole “world vs Japan” memes.

Wanting to preserve the local culture is racist and disgusting UNLESS it’s Japan doing it. I wonder why Japan’s so special

peterldowns•4h ago
I walked the Kumano Kodo after reading Craig's essay about it. I like to think I was one of the 15% he talks about here. One of these days I'll go back to Japan and I'll make sure to go to Morioka.

My favorite line in this article:

> I’ve come to see overtourism as a kind of natural disaster. How can you get angry at the earth for having an earthquake?

reedf1•4h ago
I would like harder evidence that Japanese business owners hate high-spending tourists. From my personal experience small business owners have at least appeared to very much appreciate my custom. There is a sordid history of Westerners defending Japan from itself - I'm not saying that is happening here, but I would like to see more systematic evidence.
olalonde•4h ago
Seems like a long winded version of "No one goes there anymore anyways, its too crowded".
cedws•4h ago
I live in Tokyo at the moment. I get the overtourism thing, because after you've been here even just a little while (months) you start to have a disdain for tourists that do tourist things. Like breaking the rules, being a nuisance, swarming parts of the city.

I don't know what can be done about it though. Japan's economy is in trouble, and the tourist money helps and hurts at the same time. It creates tax revenue, yet inflates prices for locals. Japan's stumbling economy is a factor in itself of the tourism influx due to the weak yen.

In the next few decades I fear Japan is going to go through a difficult period of cultural erosion. It needs foreign workers and at the rate they'll be entering, they won't integrate to the level that the Japanese people want.

I'd like to think I'm one of the "15%" that the article describes - I go to great lengths to integrate despite not speaking a lot of Japanese. But deep down I know that I don't belong here, and that Japan would prefer to be a homogenous society without expats like me. And I hold no hard feelings toward them for that.

anon-3988•3h ago
> But deep down I know that I don't belong here, and that Japan would prefer to be a homogenous society without expats like me. And I hold no hard feelings toward them for that.

I think this is an important point that I am struggling to articulate. I actually like the fact that they "prefer to do things their way". When I was traveling there, it is clear that I stand out from my behavior. We might share the same skin color but I don't speak the language nor have the mannerism.

I don't fit, they don't know how to deal with me and that is fine. In fact, I would prefer it to be that way. I prefer Japan to be Japan. Of course there are societal issues that needs to be fixed but those are orthogonal to what I am talking about.

cedws•3h ago
My home country, the UK, has already been through this cultural erosion which is why I respect Japan's right to defend its own. London in particular has become a place for everybody and at the same time for nobody. It's a city of people of different values and wavelengths with very little shared strata compared with Tokyo.
anon-3988•3h ago
I am from a country in South East Asia, and its sad here as well. We have absolutely 0 connection to our ancestors from just 100 years ago. We (and me) have truly forgotten and don't have any identity beyond the surface level. We suffered from Arabification of every part of our culture.

I honestly think the original culture is pretty much extinct. Very, very few of the incoming generation even desire to uphold and rekindle that culture. In fact, it is despised.

SoftTalker•2h ago
Funny to see this sentiment here but in the USA if a conservative-leaning politician talks about "preserving our culture" or saying that immigrants should "assimilate" they are accused of being a code-word (or even an overt) racist.
dfxm12•55m ago
US conservatives get no benefit of the doubt thanks to years of racism and racist policy. It is clear that they are reactionaries looking to codify white supremacy.

However, American culture has moved on (a lot) from that though. For several generations, it has been described as a "melting pot" or understood through the lens of The New Colossus mounted on the Statue of Liberty.

m_a_g•1h ago
London isn’t an example of cultural erosion—the pie has simply grown. The same applies to New York. Diverse cultures enrich London; they add to it rather than diminish it.
vunderba•2h ago
Tangential to this but I lived in Taiwan for years and every time I saw a new Starbucks or McDonald's go up, I'd have to restrain my gag reflex.

To hell with these multinational corporations that erect their sterile altars to unbridled capitalism, resulting in the mass homogenization of culture. A culture that caters to "everyone" caters to no one.

peab•3h ago
I get it too. I visited japan recently and in the main touristy spots (tokyo and kyoto), it felt like there were more westerners then japanese. I felt bad.
dumbledoren•3h ago
> Japan's economy is in trouble, and the tourist money helps and hurts at the same time. It creates tax revenue, yet inflates prices for locals

I lived in a successful major tourist region from its inception to maturity. You are incorrect in saying that it creates tax revenue: The Tourism sector generally gets tax breaks and subsidies, so it ends up eating up tax revenue to enrich whatever oligarchic structure or family dominates the landscape. Moreover, in any mild temporary crisi,s it risks collapsing and forces the government to bail it out by spending enormous amounts of money.

Tourism is like a tick that sucks away the productive forces and resources of a country - it diverts both budget (tax breaks, subsidies) and educated manpower away from actual goods and services production, provides sh*t jobs to those employed in tourism, causes inflation and CoL rise across regions and even the entire country. If you want to cripple a country's industrial and technological power, the best thing to do is to push tourism on it.

zarzavat•1h ago
> And I hold no hard feelings toward them for that.

But isn't that why Japan ended up like this? Every country needs either immigration or babies, and Japan chose option C: neither. And now the decision has been made for them, a very high dose of immigration is required.

It's like ignoring a cavity and eventually needing a root canal.

Xenophobia is simply an unworkable idea, like eugenics and other discredited beliefs. Or at least it needs to be paired with a religion that encourages having kids.

TrappedInCorner•59m ago
I find it amusing when Japan wants to be a homogenous society everybody respects their right to have that opinion. But when a european country voices the same wish, everybody loses their mind.
dudeinjapan•4h ago
I'm the CTO & Founder of TableCheck, the booking system used by 10,000+ restaurants in Japan. My two cents: the issue isn't simply "too many tourists" but rather over-concentration at a few hotspots, a domestic-first market, low English proficiency (ranked #87 globally, a notch above Afghanistan), and a culture deeply focused on orderliness and not causing inconvenience for others.

That said, nearly all hospitality owners in Japan I work with now recognize the importance of inbound tourism--critical for a country facing a 30% population decline by 2070. When I started TableCheck ~12 years ago, many places avoided non-Japanese guests--not always from "racism", but often a fear of miscommunication and dissatisfying guests. That mindset is rapidly fading: venues that don't capture inbound guests' revenue simply won't survive.

Happy to answer questions!

dividefuel•3h ago
Do you sense there's still a reluctance to serve foreign guests, and that it's largely done out of necessity but not out of innate desire?
dudeinjapan•1h ago
No, I really don't. Chefs and restaurant operators chose their profession out of a genuine desire to share cuisine and hospitality experiences with as many people as possible, and the vast majority genuinely appreciate meeting international guests who share their love for food. I've even heard Michelin chefs go as far to say that they feel their culinary art is more appreciated by international guests than the domestic audience.

In Japan there is a "system" ("kata") for everything, and in addition, there is a concept of hospitality called "omotenashi" which means something like "the host will anticipate the all guest's needs" (you can think "omakase"--meaning "chef chooses"--is a facet of "omotenashi")

To illustrate these concepts: I had two friends visiting from India who were religious vegetarians, they had asked me to book a traditional Japanese restaurant but almost everywhere I called used "dashi" (fish-based soup stock) as a core ingredient. I asked if dashi could be removed, but nearly every restaurant refused as they "didn't think it would taste as good"--I tried to explain my friends really wouldn't know the difference, to no avail--the system is the system, the goal is "omotenashi".

Language tends to be an issue as well, but many restaurants will say "We don't speak English and we don't have well-translated menus, but if you want to try it anyway we'll welcome you." Another example here: Tokyo Disney gives a VIP tour only in Japanese, and you have to pay extra for an English translator. I asked them why they can't just have the English speaker gives the tour; the answer was "Because the tour is in Japanese." The system is the system.

So it's easy to mistake this "omotenashi" insistence to follow the system as "(intentionally) not catering to foreign guests", but it has much more to do with "quality control" like you might find in a Toyota factory.

Are there a handful of close-minded bigots in the Japan, who refuse non-Japanese speakers/non-Japanese people? Sure, there are in any country. You are not likely to encounter them on a trip to Japan--in 17 years living here I really haven't encountered many--and if you do, just take your business elsewhere.

valenterry•1h ago
> critical for a country facing a 30% population decline by 2070

Tourism doesn't help with that. And this decline (if it do happens) will impact the countryside more than the places where most tourists go.

dudeinjapan•1h ago
I can say that this fact of population decline (and population aging) weighs heavily on the Japanese psyche, especially in the business world. The hottest topic for our customers in sales discussions is definitely "attracting inbound tourists".
_fat_santa•4h ago
I live in Colorado and we have a similar issue (though not nearly to the scale of Japan). The line about getting "TikTokked" really struck a chord because there have been a few places that have fallen to the same fate, spots that the locals only knew about are now filled to the brim with both locals and tourists from out of state.

My rule now is when we travel somewhere, we look to see what all the viral places from TikTok, and then we don't go there unless the place holds some incredible cultural significance (ie. The Louvre, Sagrada Família, etc).

What we found is cities are usually filled to the brim with the kind of spots that get "TikTokked" but only a few select places actually go viral and attract all the attention. When you use the "viral places" as a guide of where NOT to go, you end up going down some paths that lead you to some really special experiences with practically no other tourists around.

Freak_NL•3h ago
> […] unless the place holds some incredible cultural significance (ie. The Louvre, Sagrada Família, etc).

Honestly, I give those a pass too. I don't want to go to Barcelona and exacerbate the problem of overtourism (same goes for Venice). Paris is doable of course, but there too I wouldn't consider the Louvre right now. Not with its employees holding strikes because of the overcrowding!

It's a big world, and there are plenty of places where I am welcome as a tourist. The experience is better in any case; I hate crowds.

blackguardx•2h ago
I also live in Colorado and have noticed the same thing lately. A state park near me gets slammed with tourists but there isn't much to do there unless you like hiking up steep trails or rock climbing. Most folks seem to drive in, walk around for 30 minutes, and then leave.
johngossman•4h ago
A good, nuanced piece, especially if you read the footnotes. I'd add that some businesses aren't set up for seasonality as well as others. Pretty much every country has beach towns full of shops and motels that close in winter. But a lot of the small businesses the article is talking about are open year round and depend on locals. If you can't get into your local 4 months out of the year, it probably isn't your local anymore
tourismscourge•3h ago
Cities are not amusement parks
steveBK123•3h ago
Visiting Japan in 2025 definitely had a different vibe than my 2010s visits. First of all, so many more foreigners, and multiple western languages overheard nearly anywhere I went.

And clearly some locals fairly annoyed by it, such that some weren't interested in engaging with a basic level Japanese speaker/listener like me.

I have basic enough speaking/reading/(and less so listening) ability to previously navigate smaller cities with little English speaking, pick a restaurant / order some food, make small talk with taxi drivers, and entertain middle aged locals who don't see a lot of westerners.

I also saw a lot more restaurants that had extremely limited set course only menus for non-japanese speakers, and no patience for someone with non-fluency to try the Japanese menu.

This trip I felt I could not get out of Tokyo fast enough. Parts of it just felt like every other tier 1 global city, and a passive aggressive unwelcomeness that wasn't to the level of Barcelona, but clearly different than 15 years ago.

speak_plainly•3h ago
I just got back from Japan, and even though it wasn’t peak season, the effects of overtourism were immediately apparent.

The main driver seems to be social media, obviously not unique to Japan but is really blatant. Tourists were chasing selfies and videos at iconic locations they’d seen online, rarely venturing beyond those well-known spots. This creates heavy congestion and puts strain on specific neighborhoods and landmarks. In the West, TikTok appears to be the biggest influence; among Chinese tourists, the app Xiaohongshu (Rednote) by plays a similar role. The result is a tourism culture shaped less by genuine interest or curiosity and more by curated photo ops.

Japan faces unique challenges in managing the surge in tourism. Despite the modern and cosmopolitan feel of its cities, the culture remains markedly different: socially conservative and culturally illiberal. Xenophobia and racial bias are not uncommon, and nationalist political voices have increasingly framed tourists as scapegoats for a range of domestic issues. At the same time, the country lacks sufficient infrastructure to support the growing number of visitors. In Kyoto, for example, the city’s bus system is frequently overwhelmed…you could almost argue that separate systems for locals and tourists are needed.

Many tourists also appear unprepared, I admittedly was completely unprepared for the weather. Japan is not an easy place to navigate culturally, and some visitors behave with surprising ignorance or entitlement, especially at temples and shrines. There’s a tendency to treat the country like a kind of Disneyland, an exoticized backdrop for social media content, rather than a living culture with its own rules, rhythms, and expectations. This contributes to growing resentment, particularly in a society where individuals are often viewed in terms of the groups they represent. One tourist’s behavior can easily become a reflection on all.

There’s no easy solution. But it’s clear that both travelers and destinations need to rethink their relationship. Tourism should be approached with more awareness, humility, and a willingness to engage with complexity, not just consume it.

silisili•3h ago
> The result is a tourism culture shaped less by genuine interest or curiosity and more by curated photo ops

Well said, but definitely not unique to Japan. Sadly, I notice this almost everywhere I go anymore. It's also why you read about someone falling down a cliff or waterfall taking a selfie once or twice a year now.

I don't have any idea what the solution is, but it definitely makes most sights worth seeing less enjoyable now.

speak_plainly•3h ago
The cynic in me thinks that destinations/countries are going to have to pay an influencer tax and have a strong social media policy that works to direct/redirect and educate potential tourists. Japan needs to start spreading tourism a bit more evenly across the country. They could probably work with hotels to use pricing to even out visitors. But you’re right, this is a huge problem that goes well beyond Japan.
absove•3h ago
In my experience everyone believes they're part of this 15% of travelers interested in the local culture and not one of those stupid NPC going through the motions so the distinction this article is drawing between good and bad tourism completely defeats the point it was trying to make.
Argonaut998•3h ago
I felt awful about being in Kyoto last year. Had I known how bad it was for the locals I would never have went. I can’t imagine how frustrated and angry if my home town was the same. The infrastructure can’t support the number of tourists unlike Tokyo. Locals can’t even get a bus without them being completely full to the brim all the day long.

It’s 100% social media. It’s the most vapid thing in the entire world. It makes tourist destinations theme parks with zero regards for the locals.

djoldman•2h ago
> So why do people open small shops? For any number of reasons, but my favorite is: They have a strong opinion about how some aspect of a business should be run, and they want to double down on it....That singular thing can drive an initial impulse, but small business purpose quickly shifts into: Being a community hub for a core group of regulars. That — community — is probably the biggest asset of small business ownership. And the quickest way to kill community (perhaps the most valuable gift for running a small business) is to go viral in a damaging way.

> Pour out a cold brew for small shops with giant lines of transient tourists.

> "James told me about another friend who owns a cocktail bar in Kyoto that was TikToked. She had recently stopped by and found him in tears. The only reason he opened the bar, he said, was so locals and friends like her would come. Now, all he had were customers he couldn’t talk to."

One possible interpretation of TFA is that "small shops" only want to allow certain people to enter and not others.

I wonder if some form of private club would be more appropriate.

keb_•2h ago
I've traveled to Japan twice in the last 6 years; once pre-pandemic in 2019, and again in 2023, both times in the Fall. It is unbelievable how tourism has exploded there in such a short amount of time, and I thought it was bad in 2019. Areas that were quiet and mostly traversable in 2019 were impossible to navigate with the crowds four years later.

I've been to other big touristy hotspots like Rome and Venice, but overtourism in Tokyo/Kyoto was more noticeable to me, perhaps because of the culture (loud groups of tourists entering quiet orderly establishments). I recall in 2019 going to teamLab Tokyo, and there was a large group of Western tourists who had removed their shoes and were lying on the ground in the mirror room.

dataviz1000•1h ago
Meanwhile in Vietnam, I couldn't walk down the street without people offering me tiny stool (seat) at their table, beer, and nem chua, fermented raw pork. Currently in Peru I have a tab in two different shops in the neighborhood I'm staying, because most locals pay with Yape app and often don't have change, which I need to square up before I leave.

In Japan, outside of Osaka, the center of Kyoto, and Shibuya, most shops would refuse to serve me. One thing is obvious, with the declining population, they really need my dollars! They have a lot of cheap foreign labor from the Philippines and Indonesia who are locked up in the factories for 6 months and not allowed to leave the property until their work visa ends. (As an American, I might not be able to criticize that.) As a person who was a chef in 1 and 2 starred Michelin restaurants for 11 years, I think I'm qualified to say the food in Japan is mediocre at best compared to Vietnam, Thailand, and especially Malaysia. Do you know what really hurts small businesses in Japan? Me saying here to skip Japan and visit Palawan Islands, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, or do the 11 day bike trek around Taiwan where all the small businesses will show you great appreciation for being there.

jlaiwejrlij•35m ago
Social media is why we can't have nice things

I left Austin in 2020 and the social-media-powered tourism boom there from 2010 on was insane. In a decade, the entire east side of the city went from low income black and hispanic families to airbnbs and sterile cinder-block condos and bars. Downtown went from old dive bars and music venues in old brick buildings to high-price-but-not-high-quality residential high-rises and FAANG skyscrapers. South Congress went from kitschy shops and local restaurants to glass and steel instagram food factories. All the things I loved about it in the early 2000s are gone.

1024core•24m ago
> but in my opinion, the most rewarding point of travelling is: to sit with, and spend time with The Other ...

I didn't grow up with grandparents, so I have a natural affinity for grandmas. Some of my most cherished moments have been interacting with old ladies in places like Cinque Terre, Portofino, Brussels, Tokyo, NYC etc. I like to walk around the neighborhoods, off the beaten track, and if I get a chance to interact with an old lady, even better.