Tag Archives: japanese society

What migrations will be faced in Japan

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by Kaori Isobe

According to the statistics by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, there are about 686,246 people who came to Japan as legal foreign workers during 2011. Furthermore, there are also people coming to Japan from other countries to work illegally or overstay. But I’ll write about legal migrations in this blog article.

As increasing the number of migration, the issues between migrations and Japanese people have been increasing as well. One of the issues is that migrations tend to be together all time. Let me show an example. There are many migrations from Brazil in my hometown, Shizuoka-prefecture. When I went to Hamamatsu-city, where they work and live intensively, I found that Brazilian people gather up all time. They talk in Portuguese and place a distance from Japanese people. It means they don’t get familiar with Japanese people and they don’t have communication with local people. Is this really good situation for both migrations and Japanese society?

I definitely say NO. If migration cannot communicate with local Japanese people, migration never get along with Japanese people. For example, migration cannot follow rules which are existed in the local area in Japan, such as the way of garbage out. If migration cannot follow rules, Japanese society would criticize migration. Then, this situation would isolate migrants from Japanese society. Also, an image of migration would be so bad among Japanese society. Then, the relationship between migration and Japanese society will be getting bad and bad.

Well, how this issue should be solved? First, migrants should accept differences between migrations’ culture and Japanese culture. It may be easier to gather with who speak same language from same culture. But, to be familiar with Japanese culture, migration should try to communicate with Japanese much more, even it’s difficult.

Second, Japanese society should not have stereotype of migration. To remove stereotype, Japanese society should hold events, such as an interchange between migration and local people and Japanese language lecture. It would not be so much easy, but keep on holding event as constantly, both migration and Japanese society would open their hearts and change the images each other. Migrations and Japanese people should know each other very well.

Finally, Japanese government should move to make better society for both migration and Japanese society. As you may know, Japan is said to be a racially homogeneous country. But as increasing the number of migration, Japanese society needs to pay attention to people from other countries much more. Therefore, the government should tell about migrations to Japanese citizens, especially for young people. Why I mentioned “young people” is because young people will become leaders in next Japanese society. So, I propose that Japanese education should add lectures which are about people from other countries including migrations.

Throughout these passages, I wrote my opinions. Whether my proposals are effective or not, issues about migration and Japanese Society should be considered with Japanese government but also with Japanese citizens because this issue must influence all citizens who live in Japan.

Reference

Web Page of Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare; http://www.mhlw.go.jp/

International migration and globalization are connected

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by Julia Helbing

When thinking about international migration, it came into my mind that it is somehow connected to globalization and high-tech work.

There are inevitably many poor countries. But in these countries are a lot of high-skilled workers. Because they don’t have the chance to get a proper education or a job in their country of origin, many of these workers go abroad, where they can find proper education and work. But still they take parts of their old life with them; they still want to eat food from their country of origin. So they import it from their home. Some people even opened shops just for the needs of foreign habitants, mostly foreigners, and imported the food they are used from home. As soon as normal supermarkets noticed this, they also started to offer some food from foreign countries, hoping that the immigrants would buy at their supermarket and take some other items with them. I think this is one good reason, why trade with foreign countries started and influenced globalization.

Nowadays, international migration is an all-over-the-world topic. People are going almost everywhere, because they have family in other countries, they already found a job or where they hope to find a job in the future. Many students also go abroad, to add experience and a stay abroad to their life or to learn another language and become fluent in speaking it. If they would find a job, they would also stay in this country and finish their studies there.

But going to a foreign country is really a very big step and should be considered well. When you start a new live in a country you don’t know, or you are not used to the habits, you will experience many difficulties not just concerning the language. In the other country, many things are different to the origin country, people behave different and react different. For example, whenever I go for shopping in Japan, whether it is food shopping or anything else, the employees behave different than German employees. Japanese employees seem to be friendlier, but they sometimes try to avoid speaking English with a foreign costumer. German employees seem to be a bit colder, but almost all of them can speak English or another language fluently. In Japan, you also take off your shoes when entering the fitting room, in Germany, you just keep them on.

International migrant also have strong ties to their home countries. They try to stick to their holidays, want to consume food and drinks from their own countries and they also like to speak their mother tongue at home. Of course they try to learn the language of the host country, but normally they speak it with an accent. When their children are growing, the children usually just use the mother tongue of their parents at home, but speak the host country’s language as soon as they exit the house. They find it less problematic to adapt to the behavior, language and costumes of the host country. The second or third generation of immigrants also loses the connection to their countries of origin more and more. The third or fourth generation can’t even speak the language of their grandparents anymore.

Nevertheless, immigrants have very often to fight against discrimination. Even if they can’t even speak the language of their country of origin, just because they look different, some people don’t see them as for example American habitants, despite they grew up and went to school in America. There are many laws against discrimination, but still a lot of discrimination happens, even in political environment. In Germany for example, one politician, Thilo Sarrazin wrote the book “Germany disestablishes itself” and stated that Muslims are taking away the jobs in Germany.

I think in a globalized world, there should be no space for discrimination. We can buy articles from all around the world through the internet or even in our local supermarket; a lot of foreign people are doing great jobs all over the world. And there are also some jobs that habitants born in one country don’t want to do, e.g. the care of elderly. They are happy that foreign people do this. You could say that some people don’t want to live with foreigners, but can’t live without them.

What are you?

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by Koichi Sugimoto

In this class, the professor said ‘’what are you’’ again and again, so this phrase has been repeated in my heart again and again, too. What does it mean? If I am hafu, I’ll answer ‘’I am Koichi. I have parents who have different nationalities’’. In this case, I am supposed to be hafu. Why they have to be called like that? I don’t think whether nationalities have to belong to countries which exist in this world or not. Nationalities or citizenship is certainly important to identify who he/she is, but they are not necessarily needed. I mean we all are human-being. We have each name, sense of values, thought, brief and identity. That is my thought.

By the way, in Japan, ‘’hafu’’ is a widespread word when we call someone who has one Japanese parent and non-Japanese parent because this word was coming in Japan first, used widely and which is derived from English word ‘’half’’. I learned that there is some areas in which people who call hafu ‘’double’’ live. It is because ‘’double’’ has a kind of positive meaning than hafu. How to call is occasionally formed under the influence of situation, so it’s hard to identify which words are better, but we can rethink how important it is for hafu/double. Why do they ask only hafu? We don’t have to be limited by nationalities. I am I, and hafu is hafu. That’s fine.

From readings, I pick up one example about hafu which is seems to give us something positive meaning to be hafu. Her name is Tanya Akiko Cornish, born and raised in UK. She stated when she is in London, she can identify with people living there, and also she doesn’t feel like she is something different, but in Japan, it is not comfortable for her to live in there because she is hafu. However, she stated in the last part, ‘’I’m fully happy with my racial and my class background and I feel like I’ve got an insight into all different areas and that it’s made me a better person’’. This made me more understanding, that is, there are not only necessarily bad things but also good things for them. They are in surroundings where they can learn, study and feel two different cultures and background. This is very precious things because that is a thing which almost all people cannot experience.

Finally, I could get deeper understanding of hafu through this class so far. People have each opinion, so some people are asking, ‘’what are you?’’, but that’s reasons why they don’t know hafu well, and they regard hafu as something rare or uncommon. However, hafu is coming to be close to us now. Hafu may be a main nationality in the future.

Identity Crisis of Biethnics Living in Japan

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In Japan, the numbers of biethnic children are increasing due to the increase of international marriages. The term Biethnic comes from the article, An identity based on being different (Oikawa et al. 2007), which is pointing at those who have a Japanese parent and a non-Japanese parent, which in Japan is usually called “Haafu” (Half), “Mix”, or “Double”. The terms “Haafu” (Half), “Mix”, or “Double” are taken negative to some biethnics so the author have chosen to use the term “biethnic” to describe them which will be more neutral. These biethnic children face identity crisis living in Japan because of their appearance.

Biethnics who have a parent that is non-Asian will face the difficulties of having non-Asian appearance which makes them stand out of the homogeneous society in Japan. Even those who have been living in Japan their entire lives, those who have a Japanese cultural identity, cannot blend into the Japanese society easily because of their non-Asian look (Oikawa et al. 2007, 642). On the other hand, those who have a parent that is non-Japanese but Asian will blend in the Japanese society very well because no one notices that they are biethnic. However, when they show their non-Japaneseness, they will face difficulties trying to make others understand that they are biethnic (Oikawa et al. 2007, 638).

In the research by Oikawa, she has discovered that there are three types of reactions in order to identify who they are, which are: Unique Me; Model Biethnic; and Just Let Me Be Japanese.

Unique Me is those “who do not like to be stereotyped and who wanted to be seen as unique individuals (Oikawa et al. 2007, 644)”. There are many positive stereo types towards biethnics (such as pretty/handsome, stylish, tall, bilingual, etc.), but to Unique Me, this does not mean anything. They think that although they are biethnics, it does not mean that everyone is the same. Unique Me does not want to be categorized as one type of biethnic.

Model Biethnic is those “pleased to be associated with the prevalent stereotypes, most of them being positive, of Biethnic individuals in Japan (Oikawa et al. 2007, 644).” Model Biethnics prefer to been seen as the stereotypes mentioned beforehand, since it makes them seen as special people.

Just Let Me Be Japanese, are those who want to be treated like Japanese and they even wished that they looked more Japanese. This appears to those who have been living in a complete Japanese society for their entire life and they are completely Japanese inside.

These different reactions towards their biethnic identity appear to be not permanent. Biethnics change reactions over time, and sometimes fit into two different categories depending on the identity crisis they are going through. Identity crisis cannot be avoided among the biethnics.

Sources:
Oikawa, Sara, and Tomoko Yoshida. “An Identity Based on Being Different: A focus on Biethnic Individuals in Japan.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations. 31. (2007): 633-653.

by Rashel Phillips

Why Does Discrimination Against Ethnic Groups Occur in Japan?

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In this class, we learn about the existence of many ethnic groups in Japan. However, they all have common point that they have been discriminated against or experienced bad treatment in Japanese society. I want to look the reasons of the discriminations mainly and consider if it is possible to accept them easily in Japanese society.

I want to classify the reason of discrimination in two categories; psychological perspective and sociological perspective. First of all, psychological perspective is to discover the factor of discrimination in inside of human beings. I think we all have a feeling of wanting to have a higher status than other people. For example, maybe I want to gain more money than other people or I want to get higher score in exam than other people. Also, I think we tend to want to have people who are weaker than us. For example, even though you could not get higher score than your friend, if there are other friends who got lower score than you, then you do not need to suffer a lot from a feeling of inferiority. Also, we may feel proud of ourselves by bulling the weak people. Another aspect of psychological perspective is that it may be difficult for people to accept different way of thinking or sense of values. There is a risk of leading to the thought of “antiforeignism” that people cannot accept the new way of thinking and cling to the traditional thoughts. Therefore, even though ethnic groups increase more in Japan, they may show the reluctance toward them.

Now, I want to see the sociological perspective. Japan is said to be as a “collective society” which means to attach high value to the collectiveness and accommodativeness of people. It is important for us to work or act together so that it can rally the society efficiently. However, because of this characteristic of Japanese people, I think we tend to exclude the eye-grabber things or people. Japan is also a country which is a more ethnically homogeneous nation compared with other nations. When I lived in Paris, I saw many ethnic groups every day and it was a normal sight. However, it is very rare thing in Japan to see that many ethnic groups though they are increasing day by day. Therefore, because of the characteristic and situation in Japan, it may be difficult for them to accept minorities’ way of thinking or sense of values easily and in bad way, it leads to discrimination.

By the advance of globalization, ethnic groups may increase more in Japan and it might be normal to see them. However, I think it takes time to accept them in Japan because our way of thinking may be different fundamentally. Also, if they increase more, there might be the problems of employment, criminals, communication, or many other problems. Therefore, I think discrimination against them cannot be solved easily and there are still many tasks to implement a multicultural state in Japan.

by Mao Shukunobe

US Military Bases in Okinawa

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In yesterday’s “Japanese Society” class, we learned and had a discussion about Okinawan identity and the topic of the discussion turned to the American military bases. And the discussion reminded me the experience I had when I visited Okinawa and talked with the people there last summer. So I would like to write about the experience.

I took a three-day trip to South Okinawa by myself and learned about the military base issue. Before the trip, I had thought that the people in Okinawa had been annoyed by the bases and American soldiers and had expected to see demonstrations against the bases at various places. But I was wrong. Although there are a lot of military bases and American soldiers in Okinawa, when I asked them how they felt about it, their responses were quit different from what I thought it would be: although they said that it had better be removed, they do not seem to belief that it would really come true. Except those who have participated in campaigns against the bases, ordinary Okinawan, such as housewives, salaried workers, farmers, bus drivers and students, they did not demand the removal of the bases.

To be sure, when something happens like the rape of a girl by an American soldier in 1995, they become furious and demand that the bases should be removed. However, in their daily life, they don’t really care about that. They talked with me about the bases jokingly.

I think it’s because they have no choice but to accept the bases. In the video we watched in the class, a lady said that Okinawan can’t live without bases, because they depend on bases for their livelihood. For example, Okinawan government can get grants from the Japanese government and the residents can get jobs. Under such a condition, if they protest against the bases, they have to give up their jobs as well. For the Japanese governments and the people in other prefectures the relationship between America and Japan is a very complicated matter, I think.

I found it’s only an image constructed by the historical education in Japan and the mass media. I’m not meaning that bases should be accepted, but we shouldn’t forget that there is a great gap between what the people in Okinawa think about the base issue and what other Japanese people think about it.

by Yukari Deguchi