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This seems like a more sociological question to me, why not try /r/AskSocialScience?

Japan immigration policies, people that immigrant usually do so to find work and they are pretty racist about foreigners there. https://www.justlanded.com/english/Japan/Japan-Guide/Visas-Permits/Japanese-citizenship

Singapore was a shithole years ago. Lee Kuan Yew made it a great city today. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-12975980

Same with Korea. The South was poor as heck until the 1980s, and had a coup in 1979. Not a great place to be. You can check wikipedia for that information.