by Chika Oki

Bilingualism is the positive action which tries to use two languages in our daily life or promote education of two languages. Bilingualism is popular and supported, particularly in the counties which have a lot of immigrants who speak various languages, like the United States or Canada. At the same time, however, in those countries some fears that their native language may be replaced by another language, try to promote monolingualism, and immigrants are sometimes forced to use one language. In fact, being bilingual brings many good effects. In addition, there is no precedent that one language took place of another country’s native language.

First, being bilingual make your brain smart and efficient. Some studies have proved that children who can use two languages show better and efficient performance than those who speak one language when they are asked to do complicated tasks. Also, some experts found that those who are bilingual have less risks of becoming dementia, and even infants, they show better responses if they are growing up surrounded by two languages (Yudhijit, 2012). Thus, being bilingual obviously brings from children to elderlies some physical advantages.

Second, immigrants will be able to have a good social relationship by speaking two languages. Some immigrants’ children who are forced to speak the language of their settlement have difficulty in communicating with their parents because they can’t understand their parents’ mother tongue. On the other hand, if they use only their native language, they can’t only communicate with other people but get a job. Keeping their native language is very important to protect their identity and culture, but it is also necessary to master another language to assimilate to their new environment. So, immigrants should try to master two languages positively.

The problem is how to promote bilingual education. The easiest way is to enroll in immersion school, where you can efficiently learn two languages at the same time. However, like Japan, some countries don’t have many immersion schools. In this case, immigrants should try to learn the country’s language and make their children understand how it is advantageous to be bilingual. Then, they should teach their children their native language by themselves because children are unwilling to go to special school in their leisure time, and it will promote more communication in family. In this age of globalization, the movement of people from one country to another country will never end, so bilingualism is now an indispensable idea for all immigrants.

Reference

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, “Why Bilinguals Are Smarter,” The New York Times, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html?_r=1

by Naoko Ohshima

There are 120,000 to 150,000 foreigners who are engaged in the sex industry in Japan.  They are generally admitted to the country by promotional visa or tourist visa.  The promotional visa is issued by agreement of Philippine-Japanese government.  And singer, dancer and actress who have special skill are given it, so they cannot work under working purpose other than it.  Therefore, it is of course illegal to employ Filipina who came to Japan by promotional visa as hostess which is the service industry.  Philippine pub lined up in all parts of Japan, this illegal act is practiced as naturally.  In unprincipled employer, there are even employ women as hostess, shield illegal working and threaten Filipina to do various ways.  By embarkation wages are not yet paid, they make Filipina to earn pocket money, make customer accompany and force prostitution.

It is difficult for Filipina to access to a medical institution or other public institution who are not good at speaking Japanese and what was worse, they reside in Japan illegally.  Many foreigners who are engaged in the sex industry are compelled to work with higher risk than Japanese.  However, a part of Japanese say “They come to Japan with knowledge of it, so there is nothing they can do about it.”  What if they understand it before they come to Japan, everyone all should have human rights.

In this way, you may have discrimination and prejudice against foreigners who leave their countries in search of work and women working in a bar, but we should think that it is because of Japan and Europe and American in satiation.  They have come to Japan not to do all they could for Japanese men but to want their families in their mother countries to lead any comfortable life.

To abolish discrimination against Filipina, we have to understand more those background.  Not all Filipina practice prostitution, even if there is fact that they practice it, women are not doing it because they want to.  The first thing we have to do is know that for many Filipina to come to Japan to find work as entertainer is a big bet in their life and chance of a major turning point.  I want not to look Filipina with discrimination and prejudice, recognize them as members of supporting Japanese society.

REFERENCE

移住労働者と性産業　自ら動けない女性へのアウトリーチ http://www.realiser.org/report/lifestyle/article/index.php?id=195

農村での国際結婚 http://nanakokr.fc2web.com/philippines.html

フィリピンに関わる日本のダイレクトリー http://jphilnet.org/

広げよう人権 http://www.jinken-net.com/gozonji/knowledge/0310.html

by Naoya Suizu

Language is the important factor which shows the culture.  It is shaped for a long time and continues to change constantly.  Japanese is also such a language which continued to change historically.  Japanese is generally thought as the only language in Japan though there is a little difference among areas.  But, in fact, we will notice it is a mistake when we trace the Japanese history.  In Japan, there are actions people oppressed the particular language and tried to unify Japanese language once.  I will explain the fact by showing the two examples, the Ainu and Ryukyu language.

Firstly, the Ainu language is very important when we think about language unity in Japan.  It is the language which was used by Ainu people who lived in Hokkaido once.  Ainu people lived a free life in Hokkaido through hunting and fishing for a long time.  But the people who came from Honshu, the main land of Japan, changed the Ainu way of life in Edo era. They forbade the Ainu people to hunt, fish.  In addition, they robbed the Ainu people of the lands and forced the Ainu people to begin farming.  Naturally, the Ainu language is forbidden as one of the way of their life and the education of Japanese was forced.  When time passed, the language was forgotten and gradually disappearing.

Secondly, we mustn’t forget the Ryukyu language.  It is the language which was used in Okinawa once.  Okinawa was originally the kingdom of Ryukyu and it was independent from Japan.  In the kingdom, the peculiar language, Ryukyu language, was used and the peculiar culture was developed.   But, the people from Honshu came the kingdom in Edo era like Ainu, too.  After that, they forced the people in Okinawa to speak Japanese to strengthen their power in the land.  Moreover, the people in Okinawa hoped the return of Okinawa to Japan after the end of World War Ⅱ and tried to change their language in their own to be assimilated to Japanese custom.  Although the Ryukyu language exist the shape as a dialect now, its existence is very close to a crisis.

As everybody can understand my description, Japan unified the language once. In Japan, the understanding is not enough and I think many people think Japan is the country which only has one language.  But, the Ainu language and Ryukyu language exist in Japan now.  Furthermore, these languages are declining and put in the dangerous situation.  To solve the situation, the local people continue to try not to lose these languages.  The action is needed from now on and the protection as a nation and the nation understanding are very important at the same time.  I hope these languages are taken over all the time not to be vanished completely.

Reference

アイヌ政策のあり方と国民的理解. http://www.scj.go.jp/ja/info/kohyo/pdf/kohyo-21-h133-1.pdf

沖縄ー琉球の言語. http://okirekisi.livedoor.biz/archives/cat_10014470.html

by Daisuke Matsumoto

Which do you think is better bilingual or monolingual? Of course, in the U.S. people of English-Only have objection to bilingualism because they are afraid that the primacy of English would become weaker than before. In fact, since the late 1990s, educational policy in the U.S. schools has been moving away from bilingualism, but English-only disregard for benefits of bilingualism (Dyrness 2012).

The benefits of bilingualism for immigrant children are even greater than the benefits of only speaking mother tongue or English-Only. Bilingualism brings up family cohesion and gains self-esteem and stronger cultural identity. Moreover, these days Barack Obama recommended bilingual educations (Kraus 2012). To do so, there will appear a problem how to teach immigrant children. For example, there are many immersion schools, where children are able to gain bilingual by the end of elementary school. If both you and your wife or husband is Japanese, and immigrant to the United States, you should have the children go to immersion school. Then the children can learn both English and Japanese in English. This school has a good point to study main subjects like math or science in English available in the children’s future. In addition, you’d much better have them commit Japanese school on every Saturday. Of course, things, you know, don’t always go according to plan, but, the next suggestions will make you sure that the children will get to become bilingual by the age of 12 years old. There are 11 schools of Japanese immersion program in the United States.

(Miwa 2006)

These school teachers said that we found our students are more likely to acquire both Japanese and English language with increasing cross-cultural understanding, and even develop more self-esteem through this program (Miwa 2006).

Bilingualism, you know, keep Alzheimer’s or dementia disease from aggravating. In addition to the famous effect, some scientists say that bilingualism boosts brain power. According to the study from the U.S. Northwestern University, they monitored 48 healthy students included 23 bilingual students to different sounds―how to tell the speaker’s voice from chatter’s voice. Usually monolingual persons like me would feel unpleasant, and could hardly sound the speaker’s voice in the room of noisy chatter. However, these bilingual students were much better to process only speaker’s sounds. The study also proves by using scalp electrodes to trace the pattern of brainwaves that the bilingual’s brainstem responses work higher. Through this research, you can say that the benefits of bilingualism are very powerful.

Orange zone is the brainstem (Kraus 2012)

References

Dyrness, Andrea. 2012. “English-Only Teaching Ignores Bilingual Benefits” The Hart Courant. May, 23 http://articles.courant.com/2012-03-23/news/hc-op-bilingualism-makes-us-smarter-20120323_1_primary-language-second-language-largest-language-group

Miwa, Mitsuko. 2006. “Immersion Education in the USA―A study on the prospect of bilingual education” PDF. http://www.nier.go.jp/kankou_kiyou/kiyou135-193.pdf

Kraus, Nina. 2012. “Being bilingual ‘boosts brain power” BBC. May, 1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17892521

by Sayaka Kuroiwa

Now there are many Filipinas who work as hostess in Japan. Besides some of them stay in Japan illegally. What makes them do so? One of the answers is ‘poverty’. They had little money in Philippine, so they come to Japan to earn money. They have ‘Japanese dream’. They are choosing ‘unfreedom of hostess work’ than ‘unfreedom of poverty’.

They are often despised because of illegal stay and characteristic of the work. Then, what does a hostess do? They sing with customers, play games, and drink alcohol, and so on. Most of customers are middle age men. The customers go to hostess bar to experience male superiority. Maybe Japanese superiority, too. And they go to feel exoticism. This work is not above other works in social status. But they are working to lead a rich life.

How are hostesses different from/similar to geisha?

There is a similarity between hostesses and geisha. They entertain male customers. But many people have better impression on geisha than hostesses. Actually geisha is tourist attraction in Kyoto. Why? It is because geisha has become one of Japanese traditional things, and many people regard them polite. On the other hand, hostess work often link with sex-work and human trafficking. Actually, the number of Filipinas who became a victim of human-trafficking is increasing in Europe, America, and Japan. So, in 2000, “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime” was adopted. In Asia, ASEAN set a subject to remove women-trafficking.

Should Japan create a “hostess visa”?

I think that Japan should not create a hostess visa. To be sure, I want Filipinas to be protect by law, however, if Japan do so, Japan must allow sex-industry to come into Japan. The difference between hostess work and sex-work are so obscure. If create a new visa, Japan can’t help poor Filipina women truly.  Japan should remove poverty in Philippine first. As Japanese do, Philippine should raise the standard of education of Filipinas. And Japan should help Philippine with ODA, NPO…etc. I insist that creating a hostess visa does not become an essential solution to help Filipinas.

by Sayaka Kuroiwa

Today’s Japan

Today, Japan has become an ageing society gradually, and the number of children in Japan has been decreasing. Actually, I studied the population of Japan is 130,000,000, but today’s junior high school students study it 120,000,000. Japan facing the problem, some social scientists insist that Japan should accept more migrants. If Japan do so, how our society will be changed? And what should we do?

Japanese Society

Japan has one of the most unique cultures in the world. But Japanese people themselves don’t find it. And many of them often think of their society as single-culture one. Nevertheless there are many cultures in Japan even now. For example, there have been many living Koreans and Chinese in Japan for long time. And discrimination against them has remained strongly.

But, recently, Korean and Chinese culture and many tourists come to Japan. Especially Korean singers, actors and actresses are very popular among young people. So, young Japanese people come to accept new cultures.

Transnational Migrants

Now there are some transnational migrants who maintain strong, regular ties to their homelands and organize accept of their lives across national borders. Why do they so? I think one of the reasons is that they come to find their culture clearly by touching a new other culture. I regard that affirmatively. At least, I think it is not wrong, however, it is a fact that they can’t fit into their new surroundings completely.

My Opinion

I think that migrants need not forget their culture, and they may keep their culture and accept only pleased new culture. But I think they should be interested in new cultures. Then, Japan should be ready to receive new cultures. I suggest that education system must be changed the first. Japanese children who have flexible thinking should study that there are many kind of cultures in the world. This is a peaceful way to accept other cultures and other countries’ people.

Reference
Matsumoto Kenichi. 2002. Minnzoku to kokka. PHPsinnsyo.