According to a recent Tokyo Metropolitan Government survey, 25 percent of foreigners living in Tokyo left Japan temporarily after the March 11, 2011 disasters. That survey seems to imply that many foreign residents did indeed become "flyjin," a pejorative term coined from "fly" and "gaijin" or foreigner. The survey, however, also confirms that the vast majority of foreigners in Tokyo stayed right where they were — in Tokyo.

At the time, some Japanese and foreign media, as well as the governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, inflamed the controversy by exaggerating the extent of foreigners leaving the country and impugning their motives for leaving. They suggested that in tough times, only Japanese would endure. That quasi-nationalistic suggestion should be set aside for a more dispassionate evaluation of what happened in the aftermath of the disasters, and why.

The survey found that among those who briefly left, nearly half were foreigners who lived in Japan for less than three years. The shorter the time a foreigner lived in Tokyo, the more likely they were to leave after the disasters.