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The story
A report drawing attention to the fact that the number of foreign residents in Japan has hit a record high of 4.28 million — driven in part by a growing wave of “education migration,” mostly from China — sparked a heated debate on 5channel’s Breaking News+ board. The story described families worn down by China’s brutal exam-prep culture (up at 6am, studying until midnight) increasingly choosing Japan’s more relaxed schools instead. Reactions split between posters acknowledging just how harsh Chinese education really is, comparisons to the grueling entrance-exam experiences of Japan’s “ice age” generation (those who graduated into the brutal 1990s–2000s job market), Japan’s dwindling Nobel Prize count, the large number of Chinese researchers at institutions like RIKEN, and concerns about how these students and researchers are actually obtaining study and work visas. The thread ranged from education philosophy all the way to worries about immigration control.
Last week, it came to light that the number of foreign residents living in Japan has reached a record high of 4.28 million.
One reason for relocating that’s been on the rise lately, especially among Chinese nationals, is “education.”
Amid a fierce exam-war environment where students sacrifice sleep to study starting from middle school — and still often fail their exams anyway — more and more people are reportedly seeking out Japan’s education system for being “relaxed.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
And on top of that, they're cutting worthless humanities programs even further and funneling students into STEM.
There's zero chance a country that pours huge amounts of money into cranking out tons of literature-major women every year (who still can't even speak English) under the banner of "women's empowerment" can win.
At the end of the day, even with all that effort, the ones who are hopeless stay hopeless.
That said, since they have a much bigger population, when you skim off just the cream of the crop over there, it adds up to something scary — so we can't afford to get complacent.
Thing is, there weren't even any job openings in the first place lol
Why are you using China's situation as an excuse to bash the ice age generation?
Is bashing them an excuse for anything at this point…
No wonder Japan's done for.
In elementary school it was 1 hour on weekdays and 2 hours on Sundays, though I'd been reading books since around 2nd grade — borrowing like 4 books a week from the city library, plus more from the school library.
In middle school I'd study until around 2am the week before exams, pulling an all-nighter right before. In high school I got serious in my third year — 10 hours a day total. After graduating, it was about 10 hours a day at cram school.
Come to think of it, club activities ate up most of my time as a student overall — morning practice, 2 hours on weekdays, plus practice on weekends too.
Now that I think about it, I guess I didn't actually study that much lol
"Can you fight 24 hours a day?" (a famous 1980s Japanese energy-drink ad slogan)
You're basically retracing the steps of Japan 40 years ago, back when we crammed just as hard.
Eventually there'll be a backlash and they'll swing toward relaxed, "yutori"-style education too.
With Japan right there as a cautionary tale, there's no way they'd be dumb enough to do that.
"Don't end up like Japan" is basically a universal phrase worldwide at this point.
No, that's not it.
It's all "unrestricted warfare" (a Chinese strategic doctrine of using non-military means to win).
Japanese companies bet their survival on expanding into China and handing over all their technology — they were simply backed into a corner with no other option and had everything stripped from them.
So instead of thinking for themselves, they end up just making use of what already exists.
Nobel Prizes take decades to materialize after the actual achievement. If it's going to happen for China, it'll be down the road. Japan, on the other hand, looks like it's about to stop producing winners.
There's probably some truth to that, but
in a country like the CCP's China, research has to serve the state.
In other words, it's controlled by the state, so researchers can't work freely.
The only one was Lu Xun, who won the Literature Prize.
I feel like that's about the extent of their limits.
India doesn't really produce them either.
Surprisingly, both China and India fall short.
In the sciences, that is.
With India and China, aren't they just copying everyone around them rather than developing anything original?
In science and industry, I mean.
That's only true for grad programs with no entrance exam lol
Zero of them get into Science III (Todai's ultra-competitive pre-med track).
Chinese residents in Japan have long been getting into Science I through III in droves, coming out of elite prep schools like Nada, Kaisei, and Rakunan.
Science III barely has any students to begin with, and all you do after graduating is become a doctor, so it doesn't really move the needle either way lol
More importantly, what visa are these people even living in Japan on?
Something's off here.
I bet they set up a shell company and pose as "investors."
Seriously? That's bad.
It's also weird that there are companies founded by Chinese nationals getting visas this way in the first place.
When Japanese companies do business in China, they're apparently required to set up joint ventures — which basically means being forced to hand over their technology.
There are plenty of shell companies with no real substance, and there used to be a lot of Chinese brokers who specialized in setting those up specifically to get visas.
Right. The rule is that China ends up holding 51% of the voting rights in those joint ventures.
In Japan, even bona fide national research institutes have tons of Chinese researchers working there.
(Being a national research institute, it's naturally on the opposite side from the Science Council of Japan, which has deep ties to the Japanese Communist Party.)
RIKEN, the institute that became famous because of Haruko Obokata, has 110 Chinese researchers on staff.
Won't most Japanese end up less capable than the Chinese?
I worry about the people out there saying Japan should shut down universities and just churn out more high-school grads.
It already has happened.
High schools are one thing, but there are way too many nonsensical universities.
If you're just living an ordinary life, China is actually better.
But for the top-tier strivers this thread's headline is about, it's a different story.
– [Japan National Tourism Organization website]
"China Market Inbound Marketing Strategy"
(Published April 2026)
https://www.jnto.go.jp/projects/overseas-promotion/marketing-strategy/all_china_202604.pdf
"Focusing primarily on repeat visitors aged 20–40 — the core volume segment for inbound travel — the strategy targets couples/partner travelers (a large market segment), families traveling with children who show strong interest in visiting rural areas, and high-income travelers (whose longer stays are key to boosting per-trip spending), aiming to build and expand a base of repeat visitors.
Since overseas travel among younger people is expected to keep growing, first-time visitors will be approached with a focus on those in their 20s-30s, in order to create repeat visitors and encourage trips to rural areas.
Additionally, to further boost per-trip spending, encourage rural visits, and cultivate future fans of travel to Japan, sub-targets will include groups of friends/hobby companions, solo-travel-oriented travelers, and those interested in educational travel."
(Below this, the original goes on to detail specific appeal strategies and messaging aimed at Chinese tourists.)
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Behind this report lies the sheer brutality of China’s “zhongkao” and “gaokao” entrance exams (the middle-school and university entrance exams, respectively). Studying until late at night starting from middle school is treated as the norm, and a system where failing the exam drastically narrows one’s future options is pushing people toward relocating to Japan for education. Within the thread, opinions split between those who viewed Japan’s more relaxed education favorably and those who raised concerns about the rising number of Chinese nationals from the standpoint of immigration control and visa-system operations. As one poster pointed out, with 110 Chinese researchers on staff at RIKEN alone, the internationalization of research institutions is already well underway — a reality that doesn’t fit neatly into a simple “threat” versus “vitality” binary. Some argued that the low number of Nobel laureates reflects the limits of the education system, but others countered that it’s premature to draw a direct line to the current system’s merits, since there’s typically a multi-decade lag before achievements are recognized with a Nobel Prize.
*This article is composed of excerpts and a summary from the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread ““There’s not much stress in Japan. In China I’d wake up at 6am… and study until midnight” — A middle schooler who moved to Japan from Beijing two years ago talks about “the appeal of Japanese education”.”
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