Losing hope in Japan

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Help Japan

Help Japan (Photo credit: Ray Schönberger)

by Katsuya Nagasawa

As Anne Allison said, in modern society in Japan, many young people have lost hope. Some are net café refugees, some are hikikomori. Most of them live on minimum wage. The common things they have are the dissatisfaction, and I think, the origin of dissatisfaction is the policy of Japanese organizations. The organizations do not try to focus on people in bad situations. Actually, the organizations support them for money, however this is the only support.

Even if people could get money from organization as “seikatsuhogo”, it does not resolve the problem that young people have no hope. In addition to this support, Japanese organizations have another support for younger homeless or hikikomori people to get hope in precarious society. For example, the organizations should increase employment, or take away academic meritocracy in Japan.

In the present Japan, it is important to get the relief of mind, as well as the safety of economy. Japanese society has moved too fast, therefore, we need to calm down. Japan may have been losing our heart and soul now, therefore, the organizations should act to save citizens’ hearts. If Japanese organizations do that, we can resolve problems Allison describes, for example, the high rate of suicide and futoko, and we may able to find jibunrashisa or ibasho.

Japanese organizations have more problems about the existence of human life. Problems about Okinawans, ethnic Koreans, migrants, also need to improve. They tend to hold low positions in Japan, and they, especially migrant workers, work for minimum wage. I think a precarious society comes from the bottom. People who have dissatisfaction and are anxious because they have little hope and stable earnings commit murder, for example, the “Akihabara torima jiken”. According to Allison, the problems of public, random, and impersonal crime are very serious. Therefore, an event like that happened once, all people get unrest about Japan or Japanese society. The mood makes Japan precarious. Therefore, Japanese organizations should focus on the bottom of Japan.

However, I think the most serious problem in Japan ever is not so simple that only organizations cannot resolve it. We, Japanese citizens, have to concern ourselves with this problem. If middle or high class people ignored this problem with the economy, Japan would collapse. Even a big ship can sink to the the sea floor if holes are made in its hull. Therefore, the present situation in Japan is an issue that all people must try to consider deeper.

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English Education and Preservation of Ethnic Diversity in Singapore

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English: National Institute of Education, Sing...

English: National Institute of Education, Singapore (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anonymous student post

Large numbers of Singapore’s population are immigrants. Since the country got its independence in 1965, there have always been new immigrants coming in from all over the world who become members of the community. As a result, it has become very ethnically and culturally diverse. Just looking at its population, according to CIA World Factbook, there are 74.2% Chinese, 13.3% Malay, 9.2% Indian, 3.3% other (2012 est.) Some scholars believe that this cultural diversity brought by immigrants is what has made Singapore so economically successful. (Yin, 2013)

Adjusting to this type of diverse environment, Singapore sets four different languages for its official use. So when I was there, I could see many public signs, written in those four when I was there. It was certainly a surprising experience for someone who has been lived in Japan, which only has Japanese as its official language.

Following this astonishment, a new question came up to my mind as a student who was studying in a university in Singapore; that is, how do the educational institutions deal with this diversity?

In this blog post, I would like to see the current language education system in Singapore and observe the outcomes.

Firstly, the Singaporean government heavily focuses on education as it contributes to economic development and unification of the people. They decided to offer basic education in two languages, one is English, other is their ethnic mother tongue languages from where their roots are from, such as Chinese, Malay or Tamil. The reason is that government believes educating people in English will be useful in the process of future economic development foreseeing the globalization; and other languages to preserve their cultural identities. (Nakamura, 2009)

This has worked out successfully for the first aspect. English has contributed Singapore becoming the hub of Southeast Asia. It also has become the symbol of nationwide unity that connects people with different cultures and enabled them to communicate with each other. Now they even created so-called “Singlish” (Singapore-English; mixture of English and languages of different ethnic groups exist in Singapore), which could also be considered as part of their national identity.

However, for the second aspect of preserving diverse cultures through learning non-English languages, is not functioning as it was expected. As a matter of fact, less people are using their ethnic mother tongues in Singapore as they no longer use them outside their communities. Because cultures could not be transmitted onto next generation without the languages, it has become a problem. This is also leading to the changes in individual’s identities. As their language ability for non-English languages declines, their identity as a member of each community declines, too. Thus, this is now seen as a challenge how to keep their languages and cultural diversity in this country (Nakamura, 2009).

In addition, there is an issue that social mobility in the society is somewhat depending on their English ability. I will further discuss this point in the later blog post.

In conclusion, through this outcome of bi(multi-)lingual language education in Singapore, we could observe the difficulty of uniting people with different cultural backgrounds under one national identity whilst preserving the cultural diversity. This type of phenomenon is what many nation states would be expecting to see in their countries as more and more international migration occurs in the world. How to protect the cultures and languages while adjusting to the flow of globalization is a difficult question to find a solution.

Reference

Nakamura, M. (2009). Shingaporu ni okeru kokumin togo. Kyoto: Horitsubunkasha.

Singapore. (2014, May 1). Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved May 25, 2014, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sn.html

Yin, D. (2013, June 6). Singapore Needs Immigrants, Says Jim Rogers. Forbes. Retrieved May 25, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidyin/2013/06/06/singapore-needs-immigrants-says-jim-rogers

 

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Denizenship and refugeeism

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by Shiori Nabeshima

In the sliding-down society, as Anne Allison expressed the Japanese circumstances, once people slip off to the bottom, it is hard to climb up to recover the former situation. It seems that the ‘angle’ is becoming sharper than before to make more people slide down. It means that even though the top or middle and bottom people are all Japanese, the gap between them in terms of equality and rights is widening. Especially temporary or contracted workers are overworked like slaves to support the society. Where are their rights of citizenship? Are they actually regarded as citizens? In Precarious Japan, Allison uses the words denizenship and refugeeism.

Essentially in Britain, the people who are categorized as ‘denizens’ are foreigners who are granted a status similar to resident aliens. Resident aliens have usually rights such as residential, social and economic right, but not electoral rights. It shows that some countries guarantee basic rights to foreigners. Although not all countries give all rights to foreigners, the citizens should have guaranteed all rights by their countries.

Most of people, such as net café nanmin, temp or contracted workers and the working poor which Allison mentioned in her book, are Japanese. Even though they are Japanese, some of them do not have fixed residences, cannot receive security as citizens and are struggling to live on minimum wage. Some of them are paid less than needed to receive welfare, but their welfare applications have been denied.

Right now, their rights are below denizens, such as non-citizens. Therefore Allison introduced the new word “refugeeism”. Refugeeism is as the spread of the nation-state made “belonging to the community into which one is born no longer a matter of course and not belonging no longer a matter of choice”. Being disconnected makes them to be refugees. In the story of Moyai, many precariats were estranged from their family or feel alone because they are precariats. This is led by the notion of winners and losers. Frequently, society rejects those who are in precarious situations. It sometimes makes people join hate groups or cults. As with the experience of Karin Amamiya, the people who are members of hate groups or cults tend to accept precariats. If the others or society accept them, they do not need to join such group.

Japanese society should become more tolerant to those who are precarious and prevent them to fall from the safety net.

Reference

Allison, Anne. 2013. Precarious Japan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Privatization and jiko sekinin

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by Sayaka Maeda

Anne Allison analyzed the movement toward “individual responsibility” (jiko sekinin) in her book Precarious Japan. She said that the Koizumi administration went ahead with the policy: aligning with big business, privatizing more and more of government services under the banner of jko sekinin, and investing too little in social programs, including welfare, and it lead to falling worker’s wages, and increase of homelessness. She argued that Japan is already exposed to poverty.

I agree jiko sekinin has brought those negative points. Privatization causes cost cuts, and the reduced costs are labor costs. Therefore, the number of the unemployed and non-regular employment increases, or the workers may be fired, and some people lose their home, and become homeless and net café refugees. In addition, compared with state-owned companies, private companies need to seek profit. Therefore, I think there are national companies which should not privatize.

However, privatization has merits. First, it increases efficiency and productivity. In addition, the competition among companies occurs, and service and technology improve. Government’s income also increases.

Although privatization causes a lot of problems, and even if a privatized company benefits, the victims (by personnel cuts) should not exist. I think it is important to have limited government where jiko sekinin is needed, but social welfare should be assured for the right that people can live with security.

Now many of state-run companies were privatized, for example, the post office, JR (the former national railway), and some airports. Allison also talked about the Gold plan, which is the policy in which the government has shifted more responsibility to individuals and introduced measures to restructure care away from doctors and hospitals to more home-based care. These days, it is discussed whether a public nursery school should be privatized or not. By the privatization, they can increase the number of nursery schools, and receive more children, however, it becomes difficult to employ nursery school teachers for a long time.

On April 2014, the government increased the consumption tax from 5 % to 8 % to improve social welfare, for example, medical care and pensions, to address the aging population and declining birthrate. I think we have to watch whether the government properly uses our tax. In precarious Japan, I think the government should take measures as soon as possible.

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Skin Whitening as Social Uplifting and Achieving the Ideal “beauty”

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by Moe Miura

There are many skin-whitening products in global markets today. One can easily purchase skin-whitening products even without knowing it, because whitening one’s skin tone is already a big phenomenon in the 21st century all over the world. However, South Africa has significant story about its history of the phenomenon of skin whitening.

In Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters (2009), author Lynn M. Thomas focuses on the history and the use of skin lighteners in South Africa. Today, 35% of the South African women are said to be using the skin-whitening products. Then these questions pop up: why do South African women try to whiten their skin tone? Is there a history behind it?

South Africa is widely known for its history of apartheid, where black and colored people did not have the same political or economic rights as white people, and also were forced to live separately from white people. This policy led to the further discrimination of black and colored people, segregation, and the skin color preferences influenced by the European colonialism (Thomas, 2009). Thus it created the idea of lighter skin equals more liberty and less/no discrimination. Historically, the use of skin whitening products had a lot to do with the fact that there was a significant racial discrimination against black and colored people.

pictureAnother reason of using the skin lighteners was “technology of the self”, meaning people decorate themselves to transform themselves, so that they can achieve happiness or perfection. This can range from concealing blemishes to bleaching their faces. Advertisements have played a big role in informing people about this idea that whiter is more beautiful, using musical stars and beauty contest winners. Capitalism also pushed this idea because the more difficult the thing to achieve, the harder people try; concealing flaws and having lighter skin was difficult thus people would purchase more stuff to achieve this “ideal beauty”. The market of skin lighteners had become multimillion-dollar-per-year endeavor.

As it can be seen, reasons of South African women purchasing skin whiteners ranged from racial uplifting, capitalist commerce, to making themselves look better as a “technology of the self”.

Reference

Thomas, L. M. (2009). Skin Lighteners in South Africa. In Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters, edited by E.N. Glenn. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Can we live in minimum wage in Japan?

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by Misaki Kosaka

Nowadays the number of the poor is increasing in Japan. Especially, people who work as irregular workers (hiseiki koyo) have been noticeable since the deregulation of irregular jobs was enforced. However do irregular jobs make a true profit for Japan? There are workers who can’t even pay their rent because of low wages. So, they are forced to part with their home and start living at a net cafe or sleeping in the open. According to Anne Allison‘s Precarious Japan, haken or hiyatoi workers earn 6000 to 8000 yen for one day on average. They earn only wages that they can live in a day. But this wage is merely average, then their wages differ from day to day. In the day the workers receive very low payment, they can’t hardly eat in the day.

Like this, irregular jobs have very unstable and uneasy factors. Workers can’t save money to rent an apartment due to these negative factors. Furthermore, they hesitate to go to hospital when they are injured or have a high fever because they can’t afford to pay for medical insurance. Even if irregular workers are in bad condition, they have to work hard for living. In addition, most of them don’t receive any industrial accident compensation insurance when accidents happen. As a result, their health worsens and it makes them hard to get a regular job.

I think that this vicious cycle will not be solved without a governmental intervention. In the past, almost all the homeless were elderly men, but the young homeless are increasing these days. Although the young homeless without relatives who lose their job, or work as a part-time worker for a long time, may stay overnight at their friends for few days, after that they will spend night at a fast food restaurant. Then, they will put up with a net café and be finally street person. If they have relatives, they will be NEET or hikikomori.

Anne Allison says that poverty is not just a matter of economics. I think so. People who earn only minimum wage don’t get not only an economic happiness but also non-economic. As this book says, one can’t get and have kids on low wages or with a wage level that doesn’t increase as one gets older. They can’t earn enough money to support their future family.

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About denizenship and refugeeism

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Denizenship and refugeeism lead people to seek belonging. I think belonging has a good point and a bad point, so it is difficult that I decide whether belonging is good or bad. In a good point, belonging gathers people and produces a sense of solidarity, because people can share their emotions and information. When people get intimate with one another, they can get connectedness in the belonging. In other words, they can get ibasho. In a bad point, people in a belonging may have a stereotype, because belonging usually makes a specific concept. If people stick to a concept, when they know different concepts, they will have difficulty understanding them.

In current society of Japan, people have to get belonging to spend their average daily life safely. In other words, if people can’t get belonging, they can’t earn decent wages, and they are danger of life such as homeless. Generally speaking, becoming a permanent employee, or so-called seishain, connects to a safe and stable life. That is why a lot of people want to be a permanent employee.

However, for some people such as foreigners, handicapped people, single parents, furitā, and so on, it is difficult to be a permanent employee. They often work as temporary workers or contract workers. They earn a low salary, and don’t compensate social security system, so they struggle every day. In Allison’s book, Yuasa notes, ”postwar Japan bred its own form of welfare that depended on the corporation and family and organized little public welfare itself” (2013, p.58). Once you are laid off your job, you can’t come back your former status in the current society of Japan, which Yuasa describes as “sliding down society” (suberidai shakai) (2013, p.58). The gap is expanding more and more.

Under this circumstances getting belonging is finding a permanent job, because the government don’t take sufficient welfare policy, so people have to stand their own two feet. In addition, other relationship of human except work disappears. For example, you don’t know the face and name even your neighbors. In this society, people will not be able to ask for help. To avoid isolation, people are eager for belonging unconsciously, and this anxiousness sometimes people make believe a bad concept or a cult such as Aum Shinrikyou, I think.

In conclusion, your life depends on your job as Allison quotes Amamiya, “ikizurasa (hardship of life) is connected to poverty and labor issues” (2013, p.65). In my opinion, it is essential to get belonging for getting good jobs.

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If I am earning minimum wage…

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by Arisa Kato

If I work for minimum wage after I graduate from Ritsumeikan University, what I can do and what can’t I do? This answer may be different whether I live in Kyoto or Ishikawa, my home town.

If I live and work in Kyoto, I earn 773 yen per hour and get 123,680 yen for a month (8 hours per day and 5 times a week). If I were earning 123,680 yen, I would find another job to work side by side. It is because living in Kyoto means living alone for me, so I have to pay the rent and energy costs and so on.

On the other hand, I can earn 704 yen per hour and get only 112,640 yen for a month if I work for minimum wage in Ishikawa. In this situation, I may live with my family and rely on my parents of course I have no excuse. So I wouldn’t have to pay the rent. Then, I might not work two or more jobs but I may study to get some qualifications. This is because having licenses is advantageous to get next job with favorable terms and help me to succeed in getting away from poverty.

What I can say in both situations, I wouldn’t have time for doing my hobbies. I have my hands full with just living and struggling to get out of the serious situation. It is literally a life with minimum necessary. It’s possible I am discriminated against socially, and I cannot have any self-confidence. Perhaps, I wouldn’t like to meet my friends and let them know I am in terrible state because I’ll feel so misery being “losers” (makegumi) [Allison 2013, p51]. For same reason, I don’t want to be in love with someone. I know if I continue this condition for long term, I would lose many friends and “healthy and culturally basic existence” [Allison 2013, p52], which is guaranteed under Article 25 of Japanese Constitution.

This time, I imagined that how my life would be if I were paid the minimum wage. I consider that what’s the hardest things to be working poor is connection with people get weaken. Of course, living with little money is bitter, however, losing friends and other relationships is more heartbreaking. So I wouldn’t like to be a cheap laborer, and we should try to eradicate socially lonely people.

Reference

Allison, Anne. (2013). Precarious Japan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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There’s more than one path to success

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by Yuki Kamino

I understood Anne Allison’s way of thinking about “jiko sekinin” in this way. She says that with high economic growth, our level of life has improved a lot and Japanese people gradually put more emphasis on making money to live better. Family roles are also divided, as fathers go to a company, mothers do housework for their family, and even children have a role in that they have to go to school. In this change of society, a lot of Japanese think it ideal to succeed at school, get a secure job and find a good marriage partner. This course to better life is important to be independent and it is also an important status for Japanese people. As Allison says, this is becoming stronger in today’s atmosphere, but while some are able to walk this course, there are another who are thrown out from there. Those people feel difficulty in life (ikizurasa) and tend to become “hikikomori”.

The good points of “jiko sekinin” is that to be independent, people make a lot of effort. Thanks to their big effort, our level of life has largely improved and we are one of the developed countries. Moreover, as today is called a competitive society, we have a mutual influence on each other, so we have much expectation in the future still more.

While a competitive society give us benefits, it also brings a gap between rich people who are good at accepting themselves to the society and people who are not good at it. I think this is a result of “jiko sekinin”.

I feel that Japanese society has a model in how to be a good person or live better life is written, and a lot of Japanese believe it and are eager to follow it. I think because of the model, some successful people look down on others, and those others more and more feel “ikizurasa”.

In my opinion, we should get out of the model. Of course we have to be independent, but I think the new way can be different, depending on people. I was very surprised at the story of Chihara. He is a very famous comedian who appears in a lot of TV programs. If people know only his past that he did not go to school and confined himself in his room … they could have a bad impression of him. However, we know he makes us happy through TV, and he is loved and respected by many people. No one makes fun of him.

As we can see from the story of Chihara, there is not only one way to success. I believe we should have our own course to be independent.

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Path Forward

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JaPan kaNto

JaPan kaNto (Photo credit: ~Alia~)

by Jea Jeongmin

Modern Japanese society faces lots of difficulties. The decline in marriage and birth rates causes an aging society, and the rise of “hikikomori” and suicide have been recent social problems. If this goes on, the number of unattended deaths will be increasing. Also, the rate of working-age population who will have to support the Japanese economy will decrease and we will not be able to afford the social welfare expense and sustention of finance.

In addition, all people in Japan should have equal rights, such as right to vote or to get employed. For example, foreign people in Japan do not have the right to vote in elections. Also, historically, there has been some social discrimination against permanent Korean residents in Japan in terms of getting a job or housing. When Japanese people found out the fact that Korean people apply for a job or house, they reject Korean people for no reason. Nowadays, however, the situation has been getting better compared to the past. However, this historical evidence remains in Japanese society and they feel that they have been discriminated by Japanese society.

As mentioned above, there are so many social issues in Japan that must be solved to make the future better. When it comes to who will be able to solve these serious issues and change the darker Japanese society, it would be the Japanese government. As for aging society, the reason why Japanese society turned into aging is because percentage of unmarried people is increasing and birth rate is decreasing. What the government has to do to solve this problem is establish a social security system like a system of childcare leave. Japanese government must realize the fact that Japanese economy will fall into a decline if the aging society progresses. In order to stop the recession in the future, Japanese government needs money to establish the social system so that Japanese government should increase the tax more as they are doing right now. Then, Japanese government uses money in an appropriate way, that is, establishing great social welfare system to rebuilt the Japanese economy.

In addition, in terms of having equal rights, foreign people should have the right to vote so that a number of immigration will be increasing in the future in Japan. Foreign workers will be necessary in Japan because young population will be decreasing. If foreign people realize the fact that Japan is acceptable country without having to naturalize, there will be possibility that more foreign people will come to Japan to work.

In conclusion, in order to get economy better from these present problems in Japan, Japanese government leads from the front and take some actions.

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