Why This Topic Landed in Japan

During China's National Day holiday, reports said Japan had dropped off the top travel-destination ranking, while a separate video of a young worker lamenting a roughly 70,000-yen (about 3,000-yuan) monthly wage for nine-hour days with three or four days off a month drew attention. Whether Japan is truly "off the list" depends on the survey and ranking; one 2026 survey put Japan fifth at 14.1%, down from first but not outside the top ten, so the sweeping claim does not hold up cleanly. The wage video comes with no clear employer, job, or location, so it says little about China's youth or economy as a whole. Even so, the two stories resonated in Japan because they fed an existing interest: relief at easing overtourism, and a reading of China's slowdown—property-bubble collapse, deflation, youth unemployment—as "retracing Japan's lost decades."

Key Reaction Themes

  • "Good riddance" (dominant on the travel story) — Most welcomed fewer Chinese visitors as relief from overtourism, calling it "win-win."
  • Mocking Beijing's grip — Many framed the drop as Xi Jinping losing control over his own citizens.
  • A cooler read — Some noted that visitors from other countries are rising, so China's tourist clout was overstated.
  • Japan comparisons on wages — On the wage video, the largest thread compared purchasing power (prices "a fifth of Japan's," so 3,000 yuan feels like 350,000 yen) and read China as retracing Japan's deflationary path; others flagged the absent social insurance and the wealth gap.

What Japanese Netizens Are Saying

Japan drops off China's holiday travel ranking

During China's National Day holiday, Japan fell out of the top travel-destination ranking, and Japanese netizens welcomed the drop as a break from overtourism.

Sources: Record China, 2ch

Comments:

  • "It's win-win."
  • "Some people here are making comments that'd tank their social-credit score. China's a hard place to live—poor them."
  • "The 'Korea ban' cut Chinese visitors to Korea by 90%, the 'Japan ban' cut visitors to Japan by 60%—over ten years the share of Chinese who do what Xi Jinping says has dropped by 30%. That's way too much lost authority."
  • "Most Japanese are probably grateful they're coming less."
  • "They say it just means the Chinese already in Japan can't recoup their upfront investments."
  • "No no, keep it up till you hit dead last, little Xi. Your people are looking down on you (lol)."
  • "Good. Better if they never come again."
  • "The Chinese side was putting huge pressure on people not to go to Japan, after all."
  • "Thanks, Shukin-pei." [Translator's note: a pun swapping Xi Jinping's name (Shu-Kinpei) for "shukin," meaning to collect money.]
  • "Go for it, Xi Jinping—don't lose to the Chinese people!"
  • "In reality, tourists from other countries are increasing, so Chinese visitors' clout was never as big as they themselves thought."
  • "I went to Ginza to eat earlier and a big group of Chinese came pouring in. Surprised there were so many—or maybe they were Taiwanese?"

A young Chinese worker's 70,000-yen monthly wage

A video of a young worker lamenting roughly 70,000 yen a month for nine-hour days drew purchasing-power comparisons and a "this is just Japan's deflation era" reading.

Sources: 2ch

Comments:

  • "Maybe that kind of era is coming for us too, eventually."
  • "Behold the birth of their 'employment ice age' generation—property-bubble collapse into long-term deflation, faithfully retracing Japan's path."
  • "3,000 yuan is 70,000 yen, but prices in China are a fifth of Japan's—so it's equivalent to a 350,000-yen salary in Japan."
  • "Beijing's 60-yen breakfast is popular, right? Times five, that's effectively a 300-yen breakfast in Japan. I see."
  • "With no jobs and unpaid wages everywhere, actually getting paid at all puts you in the better-off group."
  • "China mixes this kind of bottom tier with America-level rich people—amazing it doesn't spark riots."
  • "No social insurance—that's just garbage."
  • "They compete with AI for jobs even more than Japan does, and the US employment numbers were awful too. Japan will surely hit something similar a few years behind—an era that makes even the ice age look mild is coming."
  • "People say it's not much different from Japan once you factor in prices, but with no social security and no quality guarantees, the sense of stability is on a totally different level."
  • "The average monthly income is 20,000 yen, so even 70,000 (lol) is on the higher side. Over 100,000 and you're treated as rich."
  • "But TV kept telling us Japan has low pay and everyone's poor, while every other country has high pay and lives in elegance, lol."
  • "70,000 a month, huh. It's come this far already. It used to be about 10,000."
  • "It really resembles Japan."
  • "More precisely, it resembles old Japan in the deflation era. lol"