Author Archives: japansociology

English Education by ALTs

Posted on by

In Japan, English education was first introduced at the nation’s primary school level in 2002 as a means to promote global understanding. Now, the language is compulsory for fifth- and sixth- graders under the revised teaching guidelines that were implemented in April this year. Under these guidelines, the goal of English education at primary school is defined as helping children “become familiar” with the language, mainly through listening and speaking. Therefore, no official textbook subject to the screening system has been produced, and teachers do not grade but just evaluate their students. In line with this goal, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry has encouraged primary schools to take advantage of ALTs in the classroom. According to a survey conducted in 2008 by the ministry, 67% of English classes at primary schools were taught by ALTs. In principle it is the responsibility of local governments to secure ALTs. However, it is difficult for them to assign one ALT to every school because of the financial burden of hiring such assignments. Faced with this situation, the ministry has changed its stance over the use of ALTs. It now encourages homeroom teachers to conduct English classes, and merely says it is “certainly effective” to include native speakers in the classroom, but that they “should play a supporting role” for homeroom teachers. At the same time, the ministry has distributed to primary schools CDs and other audio materials featuring authentic English pronunciation so that primary school teachers can teach English lessons even when no native-speaking assistants are available.

On the other hand, the financial trouble has caused another serious problem of bad labor condition of ALTs. There are three ways for ALTs to work here; direct employment by local education committee, JET program which is promoted by the government, and hiring by temporary agencies. Among those, last one is worst for ALTs. Dispatched ALTs can be fired without any particular reasons, and their salaries are lower than other foreign workers. Sometimes they suffer from illegal contract between temporary and local education committee. It is said that not a small number of ALTs go back because of this bad situation though they love Japan.

In my opinion, Japanese government and local government should do their utmost to assign ALTs to as many classes as possible. I think it is exactly important for small children to communicate with people from other countries. If children can make themselves understood in English to people from abroad, such actually experiences can help them develop an interest in the language. Moreover, we should arrange the condition of not only securing but also accepting ALTs in Japanese society. One of my friend, who is a 22-year-old man from England, wants to become ALT and is about to do from next year. His dream will come true. I’d like more and more people like him to come to Japan to teach us the joy of learning the language and culture.

By Chisato Morito

Hierarchy in Social Minority Groups Vol. 2: Why Do People Separate Themselves?

Posted on by

My last blog post, Hierarchy in Social Minority Groups Vol. 1: The Structure of Separation in Lima and Tokyo, proved that minority groups tend to create hierarchic structure in their community and differentiate people. By showing the examples of Japanese-Peruvian immigrants and Chinese immigrants, this blog post explains the reason why people make hierarchy and separate themselves.

First of all, many Japanese-Peruvians established their community, and there was discrimination against peasants, Okinawans and the poor in the associations. However, they were also inferior to upper-class immigrants and Japanese embassy or mainland Japan. For example, in Peru, “upper-class, high-ranked Japanese Peruvians, such as the owners of major corporations and former President Fujimori, tend to stay away from community activities” (473).

In addition, the Japanese embassy in Peru and mainland Japan were also in superior position to the Nikkei community. Takenaka argues, “Japanese-Peruvians have always kept a subordinate position to Japan since the beginning. The hierarchical relationship reflects the nature of financial assistance that Japan has extended to community associations…” (477). Therefore, the whole picture of hierarchy is divided into three major groups: upper-class immigrants and Japanese embassy on the top, middle-class immigrants, association members, in the middle, and the poor at the bottom.

Next, Chinese immigrants in social dance party labeled themselves by education and region. However, they were also discriminated against by upper-class immigrants. One Northeasterner did not socialize with other Northeasterners in the dance party because he thought “Reberu (level) are different” (663). In the dance party, they were superior to the Fujian people and others, but even the Northeasterners were discriminated by high-class immigrants.

Both Japanese-Peruvians immigrants and Chinese immigrants were subordinated, and therefore, these community members discriminated against people and made hierarchy within the community. In general, all human beings always want to stay in advantageous status. But when they find someone in superior positions, they make hierarchy within their community and discriminate lower-class people for many reasons, such as lack of education, region and socioeconomic status. By creating hierarchic structure, people can stay on the top of social pyramid. This is the reason of hierarchy and separation of social minority groups.

Works Cited

Farrer, G.L. (2004). The Chinese Social Dance Party in Tokyo: Identity and Status in an Immigrant Leisure Subculture. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 33 (6), 651-674.

Takenaka, A. (2003). The Mechanism of Ethnic Retention: Later-Generation Japanese Immigrants in Lima, Peru. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 29 (3), 467-483.

by Masayuki Tanaka

Hierarchy in Social Minority Groups Vol. 1: The Structure of Separation in Lima and Tokyo

Posted on by

In many social minority groups, the group members are not necessarily equal, and there is social hierarchy within the communities. By analyzing the previous readings, “the Mechanism of Ethnic Retention: Later-Generation Japanese Immigrants in Lima, Peru” and “the Chinese Social Dance Party in Tokyo: Identity and Status in an Immigrant Leisure Subculture,” this post proves that minority groups tend to create hierarchic structure in their society and differentiate people.

First of all, Japanese-Peruvian immigrants in Lima formed hierarchy based on socioeconomic standards, and they were mainly divided in three ways: peasants or intellectuals, Okinawans or non-Okinawans, and rich or poor.

1, In the Japanese-Peruvian communities, there was a border between peasants and so-called intellectuals such as embassy officials, businesspeople, and emigration company personnel. Ayumi Takenaka claims, “the poorer immigrants continued to be treated by Japanese bureaucrats and businessmen as ‘second-class citizens’” (471). Therefore, the poor peasants were subordinate to the intellectuals.

2, These Japanese-Peruvian immigrants were also separated between Okinawans and non-Okinawans. “Okinawan immigrants tended to have a lower level of education, occupy lower-rung economic positions in Lima, and speak a distinct dialect of their own” while many of non-Okinawans were members of intellectual classes (471). Hence, the Okinawans were discriminated and excluded from the community by the rest of Japanese immigrants.

3, The immigrants established a community called Japanese-Peruvian Association (APJ), which allowed all Japanese to join. However, there was also hierarchy and exclusion. Although economically privileged immigrants always occupied leadership and important positions of the community, the other poorer immigrants were excluded from the association because they could not afford to pay high membership and activity fees.

Next, Chinese immigrants in Tokyo had similar hierarchic structure in their dance party as Japanese-Peruvian community. They were separated by region, and the level of education.

1, As Japanese-Peruvians were divided into Okinawans and non-Okinawans, the Chinese immigrants were mainly separated into two groups: Northeasterners and Fujian people. Gracia Liu Farrer joined the dance party herself and explains, “Regional grouping was the strongest among the less educated and socially stigmatized who could find no more advantageous status distinctions” (663). Since Fujian is notorious for illegal immigrations and human trafficking, the people from Fujian are discriminated by the rest of Chinese immigrants.

2, Also, the immigrants made groups by their levels of education. Farrer contends that better-educated people were more privileged by higher status while less-educated immigrants were not in their dance party.

In these ways, both Japanese-Peruvians in Lima and Chinese immigrants in Tokyo composed hierarchy to separate immigrants. As the result, the excluded people were subordinate to the others in better and higher positions. Each member was not equal at all, and in particular, hierarchy and separation based on socioeconomic reasons are obvious within the communities.

Works Cited

Farrer, G.L. (2004). The Chinese Social Dance Party in Tokyo: Identity and Status in an Immigrant Leisure Subculture. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 33 (6), 651-674.

Takenaka, A. (2003). The Mechanism of Ethnic Retention: Later-Generation Japanese Immigrants in Lima, Peru. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 29 (3), 467-483.

by Masayuki Tanaka

Japanglish

Posted on by
I often see the words now, was, will and done at the end of Japanese sentences on Twitter nowadays. I have never saw anything like this when Twitter first became popular, but in a past year or so, a lot of my friends started using these 4 English words (although written in Japanese) used grammatically incorrectly.Likewise, a lot of Japanese people use “Japanglish” in their daily lives, thinking that they are using English words or phrases. In fact, many of these words derive from English, but are transformed so that it is easier for the Japanese people to pronounce, or memorize. For example, the phrase “order made” or オーダーメイド is Japanglish. In English, we would say “made-to-order” or “custom-made.” Other examples include “skin-ship” (スキンシップ) or “Consento” （コンセント）. In English, we would say “personal contact” and “outlet” consecutively.

If you think about it, there are a lot of words that sound English, but are actually used only in Japan, and it seems as if this trend of using English is spreading even more recently due to globalization. More and more of these Japanglish are becoming popular, and new ones are continuously formed. For instance, the word “glocalization.” This is a new Japanglish word, often used to describe globalization and the current world system. As can be seen from the word, it is a mixture of “globalization” and “localization,” used in many ways to describe the relationship between global and local issues.

Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are “glocal” in the sense that it connects both globally and locally, and has a huge influence in our social behaviours. What the individuals “tweet” or “post” could have a major impact on our society, such as the demonstrations in Egypt, which the individuals posted on Facebook to gather supporters and to explain what is going on in Egypt.

And if you think about it further, the words now, was, will and done on Twitter by the Japanese people are also examples of glocalization. Young Japanese people take the English words (global) and use it in their Japanese sentences to “tweet” (local).

Works cited:

Unknown. “Wasei Eigo Towa.” Kimyouna Wasei Eigo no Sekaie Yousoko, n.d. Web.  23 Dec. 2011. <http://www.eieigo.com/index.php?FrontPage&gt;

by Nami Tatewaki

Dual Citizenship in Japan

Posted on by

BASIC MEANING

Dual citizenship occurs when one person acquires nationality from more than one country. This can happen when a child is born of parents of mixed nationality or of parents who are living in country other than that of their citizenship.

CURRENT SITUATION

Nowadays, a child born in Japan of mixed parents would be eligible for both Japanese citizenship and the citizenship of their foreign parents. However, Japan takes a stricter view of individuals holding more than one nationality, since the situations and laws can easily become a bit complex. Therefore, when young people become adult, about 22, they have to choose their citizenship.

Unlike many countries that tolerate but not officially endorse dual citizenship, Japan chooses to take restrictions on dual nationality. Thus, when a Japanese national holding a foreign nationality turns 20, they will be required to choose on sole citizenship within 2 years.

THE GOVERNMENTAL MEASRURES ABOUT HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR NATIONALITY

For Japanese citizens holding a foreign nationality, there are two methods of declaring a single nationality. One is abandoning the foreign nationality, the other one is swearing to Japanese nationality. When the time comes to choose one nationality, people are usually supposed to think carefully and make the right decision.

MY OWN OPINION

In my own opinion, the actively cracking down on dual nationality in Japan may be a wise choice, even though the practice to require one to make a decision seems a little cruel. But what I am thinking of is that it’s better for one to choose which country one belongs to. In this way, it will be more clearly who is responsible for you, but you don’t have to cut the tie with the other country. It’s just like choosing your belief. To our motherland, we should become a faithful, loyal and devoted national.

By Yan Yinyan

I Hate Facebook

Posted on by

I must make a personal confession. I hate Facebook. I did not like it from the beginning and my mood for it did not get better until now. But still I am using it. Each day. Just like the 800 million people who are registered in this best working “social” network. But somehow I have the feeling that I am not the only one out of these more then 11 percent of the world population, who is living under these double standards.

Social network, what is the meaning of this? The probably best way to describe it, is that it is a network of relationships between people, including their interaction. If this “network” is meant in a virtual or real world remains to be seen. Focusing on the virtual social network there is a high danger of a degeneration of the old model of community.

Do we not abandon our more intense strong ties with childhood friends in favour of superficial weak ties with acquaintances? True is that our connections are more widespread and by this high quantitative and ideal for a aggregation of social capital.

Positive effects are the most visible in the sector of communication which is much more simplified with the help of digital social networks. Virtual social networks can sustain friendship or communication over distance, but it also can launch and support whole revolutions such as the “Arab-Spring”.

Nevertheless, if overused, it can support the before mentioned degeneration of true communication and viable face to face relationship, what will lead to isolation and then one day, we will find ourself lonely under billions of people. From this perspective, perhaps this fear from isolation and loneliness is the driving force of the worlds love-hate relationship with Facebook. For my part, I hope that a “chat” will never ever replace a good old chat in a café with a friend who I do not just now from a picture in the internet.

By Robert Hoegerle

Dumping of Toxic Waste

Posted on by

While many Japanese citizens do not like the idea of using nuclear power to generate electricity, the Japanese government has been supporting nuclear power ever since the post war period. The government, when proposing a site for a new nuclear reactor, launches many soft-power initiatives such as media campaigns or fairs with information about nuclear power (many of these fairs display products from areas with nuclear reactors in an effort to show off the vitality of those communities. Incidentally, the government has started showing off products from the area around the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactor in an effort to demonstrate that the food is once again edible.) Often times, local groups will complain about the addition of a new nuclear reactor or facility in their town, but they are seldom successful in convincing the government to move the project to a new location.

One of the major complaints of residents of a town where a new nuclear facility has been proposed is that the nuclear facility will have a negative effect on their town and the surrounding area. It is well known that production of electricity through nuclear power causes the creation of radioactive waste. This type of waste is harmful to all living things and poses a large problem in regards to how to dispose of it – since neither landfills nor dumping is a responsible option. No community wants to have this new problem to deal with, much less see their landscape marred by the waste. Now, Japan has chosen to dispose of its radioactive waste by dumping it into the ocean, a method that is obviously crude and harmful to the aquatic environment.

This problem was obviously exacerbated by the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdown. This led to a new problem in using nuclear energy, where uncontained nuclear waste had to be constantly cooled to prevent further damage to the plant and surrounding area. TEPCO decided to use water to cool the waste, but this required a large amount of water. The process developed was to have water that had already been used run off into containment and to remove the radiation from it so that it could be used again. While this method does show signs of attempting to minimize damage on the environment, the fact of the matter was that every day required more new water to be used as the old water was being cleansed.

by Anonymous

Problems Come Along with Overseas Domestic Labor

Posted on by

When I was young, both of my parents have to work until late night every day. If there wasn’t a maid who looked after me, my parents wouldn’t have been being succeed in their career. She was my friend ,my guardian , she spent time with me and take care of my daily life, also the house work. However, one day she told me that she has to go back to her home country to prepare for the wedding ceremony. Since then, I realized that she also has family and friends in the corner of the world. I don’t know where Philippines was, I also don’t know she also has another life somewhere outside this country.

After that, every time I saw a maid working on the street with one child, I will think who can they talk with if they are feeling homesick? Since one family need a maid is mainly because normally parents are busy and they have a child that don’t have time to take care of. Parents are normally don’t paid much attention on how she feel but just the work she had done for that day.

They are normally being low paid, one of the main reasons is the living index of their home country is lower, as getting the low paid salary in the country they are working for is being high paid compare with their own country. Being a minority group working in a country, do they have the right to enjoy the welfare provide by the country they worked for? Some of them might have worked long enough to become citizen in the country; do they have the same right as the normal citizen?

Most of the domestic labors are women, they worked for others family, doing housework that is not belong to their own family. More often they have to take care child, if they are married and have child they couldn’t even being able to take care of their own child. They are one of the minority group that we should pay more attention on to.

by Chi Lun Cheng

Was Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia Caused by SNS?

Posted on by

In the late 2010, there was an intensive civil resistance against Tunisian President at that time.  In Tunisia, that president was running long time and people was dissatisfied with his government.  People started demonstrations complaining that lacking the freedom of speech and other political freedoms.  People finally had succeeded to exile the president.  It is said that many kinds of SNS played important role to spread this revolution. That is why this revolution had been called as “Twitter Revolution” or “Facebook Revolution”.

Was it really SNS that caused this revolution?  Jasmine Revolution could not happen without the power of SNS?

In Jasmine revolution, people shared useful information about demonstrations by SNS quicker than media.  When media does not broadcast what people want to know, now we have the Internet and SNS to broadcast by ourselves.  Not only twitter and facebook, they also used video sharing sites such as youtube, dailymotion and Ustream.  People could really watch what was actually happening without any regulations by government even though they could not attend the activities.  Also, those series of information did attract many other people in other countries.  Actually, after this Jasmine Revolution, similar revolutions happened in Egypt and other Arabic countries.

In Tunisia, 34% of people were the user of Internet, and 16% of Tunisian people were on Facebook.  It seems that there would be a gap between those who have access to the Internet and those who do not (Digital divide).    Actually, the government tried to block the access to the Internet to avoid letting information spread.  But it could not really stop the revolution.  People can also communicate without using Internet.  From here, we can see that SNS was not really a trigger of these series of revolutions.  It has been helping people sharing information but it could not be happening without strong desire of Tunisians.  SNS is just another way of communication.  We should consider it as another media and that means we also have to be careful any information on the SNS.  SNS is useful and it can be an accelerator of Jasmine Revolution and any other social activities happening in the world, but we should always think carefully before completely trusting it and not to spread wrong information.  From now on, the bond between people will be more important than ever.

by Naoko Matsumoto

Cure for crime: Give me a job

Posted on by

by Robert Moorehead

In today’s news of the obvious, a white paper released by the Ministry of Justice states that employment is the key to prevent youth offenders from repeating their crimes. In response, the world says “Duh.”

Since Japan’s economic decline in the 1990s, young Japanese men have struggled to find full-time, relatively permanent work. To reduce employment costs, Japanese companies have protected older workers, at the expense of younger workers. For an insightful analysis, see Mary C. Brinton’s Lost in Transition: Youth, Work, and Instability in Postindustrial Japan.

“Young people discharged from reformatories feel a sense of relief in being accepted by society when given employment and a place to stay,” says Mitsuyuki Iijima, president of a trucking company in Tokyo and volunteer probation officer.

Then again, don’t most people feel a sense of relief when they’re given a job and a place to stay? Which would give you more relief, no job and no place to stay, or a job and a place to stay? Who’s more likely to commit crime, someone with a job (and thus something to protect) or someone who’s unemployed (and thus has little or nothing to lose)?

“It is a highly important task for us to extend a helping hand to them in securing employment, along with helping improve the ability of families to supervise and support them,” he added. Reformatories encourage families of inmates to meet them as frequently as possible to ensure a positive living environment awaits them after their release from the facilities. Having strong family ties is essential to preventing recidivism, the white paper stressed.

So a positive living environment can discourage criminality. Again … duh. However, the news article plays a bit loose with the statistics. (Let’s assume that the original report is more rigorous in its statistical analyses.) The strength of family ties are measured by the number of times your family visits you while you’re in jail.

96 percent of the men said that their families had visited them twice or more, and only four percent (27 out of 644 people) said their families had visited them only once or not at all. Four percent! Those whose parents visited them only once or not at all had a recidivism rate 11 points higher, but now we’re only talking about two percent of the total group (15 out of 644 re-offended). Am I missing something? 15 men re-offended, whereas we’d expect only 12 to do so. So the difference is only three people? 644 young men are in jail, and researchers’ analysis explains the behavior of only three of them?

It’s also worth noting that the article does not specifically state that it’s referring only to men, but … it is. If the white paper were referring to the criminality of young women, it would specifically say so, as would the newspaper article. However, men’s gender is understood here. It’s the default, accepted category. So we can write an article about men’s criminality while referring to people in general, but an article about women’s criminality would refer only to women.

The decline of employment opportunities for Japan’s young men likely foretells greater propensity to crime. For those who don’t go on to college, high schools used to link students to full-time employment after graduation. Now, those links have largely been severed. More students are thus continuing their education into 2-year or 4-year colleges or vocational schools, but without improved employment prospects when they graduate, is staying in school just delaying the inevitable? Jobs that used to be attainable with a high school diploma now go to college graduates, further marginalizing those who don’t go to college.

One question unanswered in these studies is what happens to minority youth in Japan. Groups such as the Burakumin and Zainichi Koreans have historically been outside the mainstream employment market, which guides youth to work for large corporate employers. Joining these groups are second-generation South American Nikkei, who are now coming of age in Japan. If mainstream Japanese are struggling to find jobs with major employers, what effect is that having on minority candidates who are already on the margins?

Link: “Employment called the key to reducing recidivism among young offenders.” The Yomiuri Shimbun, Nov. 13, 2011.