Category Archives: Class Pages

Japan should admit more refugees

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by Fujisaka Shunsuke

I think Japan should accept more refugees. Comparing with other developed countries, Japan’s refugee is too little. Person who has a risk of persecution is admitted as refugees in Japan. However to be refugee in Japan is very difficult. Only 1 percent can be refugee and other 99 percent of people still have to find other place to go. I think Japan should admit more refugees. There are two main reasons why Japan should accept refugees. First refugees will be a labor. Second it is also good for refugees to be in Japan.

First, refugees will be a good labor mostly in the country side. It is because there is a shortage of labor in the countryside. For example there is shortage of farmer. Therefore farmers want more labor to work. Some people might say that farmer is hard work and it is 3K work in Japan. 3K stands for kitanai (dirty), kiken (dangerous), kitsui (difficult). I do not think farmer is 3K work. Many farmers have a pride to be a farmer and farmer support all Japanese by making food. Even if farmer is 3K work it is better than nothing. However to change the system of refugee is important. Government should change the society that refugee can get job easily. Refugees must be treated like Japanese.

Second it is also good for refugees to be in Japan. I think Japan’s economy is stable comparing with European countries. I think there are a lot of people those who want to come to Japan as a refugee. That’s why insurance is good for refugees. They will have a more chance to get insurance than other countries. For example in Japan there is a system of the public health insurance for whole nation but America does not have this system of the insurance. It means that Japan ‘s insurance is good.

In conclusion Japan should admit more refugees. Due to refugees will be a good labor and it is good for refugees to be in Japan rather than to be in any other countries. It is also good for Japan to admit more refugees because it changes other countries impression of Japan. Other countries will have good impression to Japan. Finally I want to say that refugees must be cared by government and society after they became refugees. Aftercare is important for refugees. To support continuously is necessary to be a good country for refugees.

Japan and Refugees

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by Shoki Fujimoto

I think Japan should keep current stance on acceptance of refugee. There are some reasons why I think so. First, Japan is not suitable for accepting refugees or immigration. Japanese national feeling is kind of exclusive for foreign people. This attitude was promoted by the fact that Japan has not accepted refugees historically. Japanese people tend to feel fear against foreign people for some reasons. Moreover, there are not small numbers of people that kind of look down on refugees.

Second, we cannot ignore historical reason. Those who that say America and European countries’ cases as why Japan should take in refugees often say that we had better follow the stance of international society. According Ministry of Justice, Japan admitted only 21 refugees in 2011. On the other hand, America approves on average about 90 thousand refugees every year. However, this opinion does not include important factor that Japan has been a country of “Japanese”. This does not mean that I would like to say “Japan is monoracial country and there is no foreigner in Japan”. Needless to say, there has been and are many foreign people in Japan, and they contributed to Japan’s development by working for Japan like introducing culture, and bringing technology. However, comparing Japan with America and European countries, power of foreign people that contributed to build country is very small. America is very new country created by foreigners and in Europe, there has been numberless exchanges including war. It means that such countries were built by foreigners. Therefore, variation of way of building country makes difference on the stance on foreigners.

Third, acceptance of refugees has few merits on Japan. In our debate in EKK class, affirmative side claimed that we can solve Japan’s declining birthrate and aging population problem by refugee’s labor. However, we cannot agree with this opinion. First of all, I do not think it is good that compensating vacuum of labor by using refugees. If we aim to supply labor by foreign people, we should increase number of immigrants, but Japanese literacy is must, I think. Besides, designating refugee’s work and where they live means restricting their human rights. This is reverse of intension.

Certainly, it is so sad to refuse refugees who have run away from their countries, and personally I would like to admit refugees. However, my intention is one thing, and Japan’s national interest is another thing. Even if current Japan’s stance changes, it will take a long time to change its policy. To conclude, Japan should not change its stance if truly we aim at Japan’s national interest.

References

Ministry of Justice. [http://www.moj.go.jp/nyuukokukanri/kouhou/nyuukokukanri03_00085.html] (retrieved May 30, 2013).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan [http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/nanmin/main3.html] (retrieved May 30, 2013)

Refugees cannot fit in and would take jobs from Japanese

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by Reina Doi

Recently, lots of refugees are coming to Japan to expect better living, but most of them are not accepted as refugees, so they forced displacement. For this situation, some people criticized that this is not appropriate as a country which ratify the treaty of refugees,and Japan should accept more refugees. However, I disagree that opinion in that employment issue, cultural aspects and national sentiments.

First of all, I believe if Japan admits many refugees to come, more Japanese will feel difficulty to find job, and it will make hierarchy in Japanese society. Employer prefers low cost to employ, so refugees would rob work from Japanese people, and an unemployment rate will increase. In addition, society will divide into two opposites, and as a result, cognition that refugees should do working which people do not want to do will be general. Thus, increasing refugees affects Japanese employment.

Next, there are big culture shock if refugees come to Japan, and especially language seems suffered them. Language is the basic of communication, and important in everything one does. Of course, refugees who come to Japan did not study Japanese in their own country, even English is not so common, and not useful in daily life, so Japan is not good to live. However, Japanese government does not support for them to learn language, so it is too hard to live like their home country.

Finally, national sentiments could be important when we think about refugees. Many Japanese normally feel uncomfortable around foreigners, because it is rare that foreigners live in Japan compared with other countries. For instance, U.S. is formed by immigrants, and even now there are lots of people are coming and live together. However, Japan is not same as U.S., and even though Japan ratified the treaty of refugees, it does not match public opinion, so if government enforce to admit more refugees, they would suffer from discrimination. Besides, if tax which is caused for taking care of refugees increase, antipathy will burst, and it makes demonstration which accept lots of refugees.

To sum up, saving Japanese worker, culture differences in that language and national sentiments is the reason that I disagree to allow. Japan seems that it is not appropriate to admit refugees, because there are no good system to save refugees and people are exclusive. Therefore it does not good effect for refugees, and they will feel difficulty to live Japan. For these reasons, I think Japan should not allow more refugees.

Aggressively accepting refugees

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by Yurika Chiba

According to UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), there were more than 15,370,000 refugees all over the world in 2010. Currently, Japan has more than 10,000 refugees. However, the number of refugees is very small compared to other countries. For example, the United States of America accepts more than 30,000 refugees per year. By contrast, Japan accepts less than 100 refugees per year. It is obvious that Japan does not actively take in refugees. Some people insist that Japan should accept more refugees. However, others do not think so. Which idea is correct?

At first, Japan is said to be a homogeneous country. Basically, the number of foreigners and immigrants is small. I mean most Japanese people do not get used to interacting with people from different countries. It is hard for refugees to fit in Japanese society. In addition, Japan does not have a well-organized system for refugees. For instance, refugees cannot get a job easily. They cannot receive health insurance. There are such problems in Japan. I mean that refugees cannot adapt Japanese society easily even if they are recognized as refugees by Japanese government. What I want to say is that Japanese government should produce a well-organized system to make better society for refugees before Japan increases the number of refugees.

However, some people suggest that accepting more refugees is above everything else. They indicate that waiting for a well-organized system for refugees is the same as doing nothing. It is crucial to take in more refugees as soon as possible. Many refugees would have an impact on Japanese people. Japanese government has to establish the system for refugees if there are a lot of refugees in Japan. I think it is also important to understand refugees among Japanese people. For instance, why they became refugees, why they cannot live in their own country and so on. Actually, I did not know much about refugees because I was not interested in the topic. But, this issue is attractive to me now. I think most Japanese people know too little about refugees because the word “refugees” is not-so-familiar topic. If a refugee moves home to next to our house, we have no other choice to consider how to deal with the refugee. I mean that most Japanese people do not have the opportunity to think about refugees because there are not refugees around us. Expanding the number of refugees might allow Japanese people to understand refugees more and more.

At last, my opinion is that Japan should accept more refugees aggressively. But, it is also important that Japanese government produce the well-organized system for refugees.

References

UNHCR. Retrieved 05/29/13 from http://www.unhcr.or.jp/html/index.html

Japan should become a leader of global society

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by Kazuki Ando

The ratio of refugees’ acceptance is very low in Japan. This data shows that Japan doesn’t accept refugee in some reason. The reasons why Japan doesn’t accept are that Japan is academic career-based society and Japan has large population despite small country. However Japan should accept more refugees.

First, to protect human rights is much more superior than not accept refugee. While most developed country tends to accept refugee, Japan doesn’t. To accept more refugees is possible to change the view of Japan from other country. To become a leader of international society like the U.S. and countries in Europe. Some Asian countries like Singapore accepted refugees are succeeded as well. In fact, it takes much time to make up some supports for refugee because Japanese have stereotypes, and then they regard as “gaijin”. I think it is not big deal if much time passed in order to change because Japan took much time to change into democracy. Besides some multicultural countries can make structures for refugee, so Japan also can do. This is good opportunity to change into multicultural and to contribute international society.

Second, to accept refugee doesn’t have any demerits. Some people say that to accept refugee has some demerits for Japanese society in terms of public safety and employment rate. According to metropolitan police department, the criminal rate of foreigner is quite fewer than that of Japanese. I think the public safety in Japan don’t become bad. Next, now employment rate is very low in Japan, so we can see the news that university student is hard to get a better job. Now Japan has this serious situation, thus Japan can’t afford to accept refugee in terms of employment rate. I don’t agree with that opinion because what refugee work in Japan brings good effect to Japanese society. For example, development of economy, rise of quality of products and so on. Refugee has strong will to work in Japan in order to live in Japan. If they don’t work hard, they can’t live in Japan because Japanese government did not give them enough treatment to live. In addition, Japan has some under populated areas and Japan is declining birth rate and an ageing population society, so Japan needs more workers to prevent such a problem. To accept more refugees is going to be a development of economy for Japan.

To sum up, Japan should accept more refugees to become leader in global society and to gain the development of Japanese economy. It must be necessary of much time, so Japan should gradually change the way of thinking about “gaijin” and make enough supports for refugee to live in Japan.

Language education against emigrants in Japan

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by Minori Takada

Today, in the world (especially in multicultural countries), the education of the language for the emigrant becomes the problem. Therefore, I report the actual situation of the Japanese education for emigrants in Japan, and in the end I would like to make a suggestion “what we need” for its improvement.

As you know, Japan shows severe posture for immigration intake, and the ratio of foreigner residing in Japan is remarkably lower than other countries. According to OECD, the ratio of the foreigner among the total population in Japan was 1.7% in 2009.

Many of them came to Japan as “emigrants” to get job. And some of them get married after having a job in Japan and get a child, so the linguistic education for the child of the emigrant often becomes the problem in Japan.

To say it plainly, the Japanese education for the children of emigrants is not enough. We can understand this situation from looking at this chart. （Economic and Social Research Institute Cabinet Office Tokyo, Japan. 2012）

Citizenship School attendance (%) Students who go on to high school (%)
Korea 99.8% 93.0%
China 99.4% 85.7%
Philippine 98.1% 59.7%
Brazil 98.1% 42.2%
U.S. 94.3% 87.7%
U.K. 99.5% 98.1%

This is the percentage of students who go on to a higher stage of education.

There are six nationalities’ data, Korea, China, Philippine, Brazil, U.S. and U.K. Here is the average percentage of schools that are compulsory education, and all of them show high numbers. However, percentages of students who go on to a high school greatly falls. This is why that they cannot keep up with classes, because some of children cannot understand Japanese well.

Why does such a result appear? I checked what kind of linguistic education for emigrants is done in Japan.

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs research, the number of the facilities that teach Japanese to immigrants was 1,832 in 2011. And in addition, more than 70% are accounted by public facilities. And there are four main supports that are done by the Japanese government.

  • Financial support for the administration of the Japanese classroom.
  • Working-out of the research expense about the Japanese education.
  • Maintenance of the teaching materials about the Japanese education.
  • Holding of the Japanese education meeting for the study.

From this, we can understand that “support” by the Japanese government is only basically financial or superficial things.

Then, what kinds of policies do countries (where a lot of emigrants succeed in their linguistic education) perform?

I nominated Germany for an example, because it is said that Germany resembles Japan.

The biggest difference is that there is an enforcement of the native language education at government level. This is called as “intensive teaching methods”, and children can use only German all the time when they are at school. And in addition, German government holds special measures against children who do not have enough skills to speak and write.

“The education for the emigrant” is established in a school law clearly in Germany, and it may be said that such an education is accomplished well.

In conclusion, based on these things, I point out a refinement of the linguistic education for the emigrant in Japan.

I think the government should be concerned with support more directly. The government should perform not only the support that indirect and financial, but also a more concrete support.

And to plan an opportunity to learn Japanese for as a public thing, as the agency for cultural affairs says, it is necessary to calculate numbers from the results of conventional various educational fronts and accumulation of future data, and research about the language use situation of the foreigner and the Japanese ability.

References

移民統合における言語教育の役割 ―ドイツの事例を中心に― （金箱秀俊 pp.50-76. 2010. 国立国会図書館調査）

日本における外国人の定住化についての 社会階層論による分析 ‐職業達成と世代間移動に焦点をあてて‐ （是川夕 2012. ESRI Discussion Paper Series No.283）

文化庁 海外における移民に対する言語教育www.bunka.go.jp/publish/bunkachou_geppou/2011_08/special/special_04.html

文化庁 世界、日本、地域から見る日本語教育www.bunka.go.jp/publish/bunkachou_geppou/2011_08/special/special_01.html

The Atlas for Emigration: emigration-atlas.net/society/emigration.html

Evolution of gender and migration scholarship and its challenge

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by Ayano Tsukada

Gender, the socially constructed role of and relationship between women and men, is deeply related to our lives. Our thoughts and our behavior are very affected by gender. Migration is not an exception here. In the article published in 2000, the sociologist Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo argues: “We now have a clear understanding that migration is gendered and that gender relations change with migration processes” (116). Women and men take different jobs in destination countries, use their money differently, and so on. Migration is also gendered and gendering. It is very important for researchers to know how and to what extent the lives of migrants are affected by gender. Without taking gender into account, we can easily misdescribe the whole picture of migration.

Sociological scholarship on gender and migration has a relatively short history.

In the late 1970s, women were depicted in the migration process and became a subject of many studies, however, scholars at the time only focused on women and men or only on the experience of women. They presented women migrants as a special case.

By the late 1980s, the evidence had grown large enough to require redrawing the map of gender and migration scholarship and then, theoretical formulation emerged. Scholars started to look at household economy as a critical site for revealing the relationship between migration and women, but still they were considering men as household heads and by doing so, they limited the data on women. At this point, the scholars studied men and women separately.

By the mid-1990s, the effective use of qualitative methods to understand the dynamics of gender and migration emerged and the new scholarship showed how migration processes are related to the social construction of gender.

From above, we can see the shift of sociological scholarship on gender and migration from the emphasis on documenting and explaining the gendered character of migration towards exploring its gendering effects.

In spite of this progress, many studies often degrade gender analyses to the level of the family or household and let scholars to ignore gender in other domains of the migration process.

There are still some parts that are missing in gender and migration studies. For instance, there are very few data on the consequences of women’s migration while there are many studies on the effect of men’s migration on their families, their communities, and on how gender is exercised in their home countries. What happens to the men and children who left behind when their wives or mothers migrate? Does women’s migration change the gender relationship of their countries? If so, how? Is it positive or negative?

Right now, the sociological scholarship on migration is more like gender-segregated rather than gender-integrated. It is necessary to look at gender as a central element to explore unexplained phases of migration. I hope that migration Studies in the 21st century will integrate gender more than it has done in the past 30 years.

Reference

Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette. (2001). Doméstica: Immigrant workers cleaning and caring in the shadows of affluence. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.

Afsar, Risa. (2011). Contextualizing Gender and Migration in South Asia: Critical Insights. Retrieved from http://gtd.sagepub.com/content/15/3/389 on 25th May, 2013

What is beauty?

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by Satomi Tanaka

Now many beauty contests are held in the world but I always guess it is too difficult to choose a most beautiful woman in the world. To begin with, that idea is wrong. We don’t have to decide which woman is most beautiful. It is because we have different faces and characteristics. In my opinion, beauty cannot be compared because it is an abstract idea for three reasons.

First of all, “beauty” is made by people’s common patterns and preferences. Woman in the big contest such kind of Miss Universe are very slender, small face and big eyes. Many people might have these stuffs as the definition of beauty but it is a just an image. There are no specific rules or dates that we can major woman to recognize as a beautiful woman. In the world the same face doesn’t exist. Our own faces are only one. That’s why we cannot categorize or draw a line between a beauty and a bungler.

Second, the definition of beauty is completely different depend on countries. It is deeply related with their culture. For example, in some African countries local people have a beauty definition that women who have black lips is beautiful. This is a traditional common sense. So women tattooed their lips. Many people might think that the idea seems weird or unique. However, our idea of beauty will be thought the same way. In these countries have a one way to decide a beautiful woman but this is one way to measure how the woman is beautiful.

Finally, I often feel that women’s definition of beauty and men’s definition of beauty tend to be different. Especially in Japan, generally most of all women think that “I’m fat.” Then they try to lose weight, because many people in Japan have a pattern of beauty that slender woman is beautiful. On the other hand, many men don’t think so. I think I can say each person has a different preference. Some people think the woman is a beautiful but some people don’t think so. Like that beauty’s definition is different depend on people’s preferences.

In conclusion, world-wide common beauty’s definition doesn’t exist. It is because each country has a different idea of beauty. So we cannot decide the specific woman as a most beautiful woman in the world. And beauty is affected by culture, traditional idea, common sense and preferences. I think I can say that they are very abstract elements of beauty.

Chinese immigrants in New Zealand: A case of educational optimism?

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by Yuriko Otsuka

New Zealand is not only known for sheep and agriculture, but it is also known as a country which has a lot of immigrants. The population of New Zealand was about 4,252,277 people in 2010, and in that, the Chinese immigrants were about 85,477 people, which placed them as second among the immigrant nationalities in New Zealand (Peoplemovin, 2010). I stayed in New Zealand for a year since I had an opportunity to study abroad, and when I interacted with my Chinese friends, they told me about their life in China. Their parents had high expectation of their child’s grades, and told me that one of the reasons they came to New Zealand as an exchange student is to avoid the pressures from their parents; especially their mother. Chinese mothers, parents are way strict compared to ordinary Japanese moms and dads.

Tiffany (2007) indicated the reason why Chinese parents encourage their children’s education even though they are out of their home country by saying, high achievement and university degree will eventually lead their child to have a good job, and having a good job “represent the access to financial, professional and life success”. From that we could see that Chinese parents are really strict to their children’s education because they think it is good for their child in the long run. In “Chinese immigrants children’s first year of schooling: an investigation of Chinese immigrant parents’ perspective”, Li (as cited in Tiffany, 2007) said that “Although these [Chinese] families have resided in the new country for several years, they still connect themselves to their motherland and indigenous Chinese cultural values”. These ideas and actions make people call the Chinese mothers “tiger moms”, being strict in order for their children to have high academic achievement.

Considering about tiger moms, people may think becoming like them will enhance their child’s academic achievement, due to the results of Chinese immigrants ranking at the top in the classes in New Zealand. However, we should know that being strict and encouraging children do not mean that the child will achieve high academic scores. Colleen (as cited in Heather and Lois, n.d.) find that 87% of the Chinese students had high expectation towards getting good grades from their parents in New Zealand. However, only 37% said they are achieving their parents’ expectation. From this it is not 100 percent sure whether having a tiger mom is a guarantee of their children to achieve high academic expectation.

Not only having a guarantee of a child having a high academic achievement, but there are some problems of tiger moms in New Zealand. For instance, there is a possibility of a clash between the child and the parent. Similar to the Japanese society, I think the Chinese always makes their child to do work instead of letting them have a break time. I think being in to the slow life in New Zealand may make the Chinese immigrants think whether it is necessary to work this hard? Since I experienced the slow life in New Zealand, I felt like that. Acculturating to the host country will let people know another type of the society where the environment might be the opposite of the motherland. I think it is a good thing to have good grades, and parents to interfere their child’s education. However, interfering too much does not mean that the child will achieve high academic expectations. Furthermore, does not mean that children will become happy by having a tiger mom and achieved high academic expectations.

References

Kao, Grace, & Marta Tienda. (1995). Optimism and achievement: The educational performance of the immigrant youth. Social Science Quarterly, 76, 4.

Kavan, Heather & Lois Wilkinson. (n.d.). Dialogues with dragons: Assisting Chinese students’ academic achievement. Retrieved from http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Colleges/College%20of%20Business/Communication%20and%20Journalism/Staff/Staff%20research%20files/hkavan_Dialoguing%20with%20dragons.pdf

Peoplemovin. (2010). Migration flows across the world. Retrieved from http://peoplemov.in/