Society
A Mosque Petition, a Critic Telling People to Leave, and a Taxi Meter Argument
A syndicated column on a mosque project in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture—roughly 33,000 signatures against it, petitions filed, and rejection by the local assembly—set off a long argument about whether coexistence is possible at all. Over the same weekend a film critic posted that Japan will almost certainly perish and that anyone with a future should consider leaving, and a taxi driver described being accused of fraud by a foreign couple over the fare meter. The three ran together as a single thread about friction with foreigners, and the dominant line was that coexistence requires adapting to the host culture.