Foreigners In Japan Research Articles

Can heterolocalism explain the residential patterns of small populations of foreigners in Japan? The cases of Afghans, Laotians, Bolivians and Turks

AbstractThis paper examines whether the residential patterns of small nationality‐based ethnic groups in Japan, such as Afghans, Laotians, Bolivians and Turks, can be successfully explained by the model of heterolocalism, which is well‐known for comprehensively explaining the patterns of new immigrants. This verification work is conducted based on census microdata, mapping and interviews with the foreigners. The model is characterized by five propositions, two of which are found not to apply to the Japanese case. Namely, regarding the ‘spatial dispersion’ proposition, a series of small‐sized clusters of foreign inhabitants was confirmed, suggesting that nodal heterolocalism as a modified model is better than the original model. As for the proposition of ‘spatial disjuncture between home and work’, we find that the places of work and residence show spatial proximity rather than separation, reflecting the fact that most of the foreign inhabitants are engaged in blue‐collar occupations. The obtained results serve as criticism of the heterolocalism model, which emphasizes that it is valid not only for the relatively privileged but also for certain lower‐status groups.

Enhancing healthcare access during disasters and emergencies: Recommendations from Nepali migrants in Japan.

Migrants in Japan often face difficulties accessing healthcare due to language barriers, lack of information, shortage of interpreters, amongst other barriers. With an increase in the number of foreigners in Japan, it is also expected that health and safety concerns for migrants will rise during times of crisis or disaster. The purpose of this article is to present recommendations from Nepali migrants themselves about various actions that stakeholders or policymakers could take to improve healthcare access during future disasters, emergencies, or crises in Japan. Recommendations from Nepali migrants in this study include mobilization of Nepali healthcare professionals, self-preparedness, a disaster information centre by the embassy, Nepali hotline services, telehealth services, and mutual help. By working together and leveraging available resources, it is possible to ensure that migrants are not left behind in the face of disasters and emergencies. Further research is required to determine the most effective ways to improve healthcare access for migrants in Japan during disasters, crises, or emergencies.

Building Walls Through Cultural Exchange: NHK’s Cool Japan and Home Sweet Tokyo

In this paper I look at two programs broadcasted on NHK—Japan’s public broadcaster—featuring foreigners living in Japan, Cool Japan and Home Sweet Tokyo, and the refracted ways in which Japanese identity is constructed through gazes that are self-Orientalizing and Occidentalizing. I place the two within three contexts: the Cool and Sugoi Japan campaigns, the foreign talent industry, and the increased concerns over foreigners in Japan. Using a functionalist approach, my analysis highlights the roles played by these two programs within Japanese society and for a Japanese audience, especially in its representation of foreign residents in light of cultural nationalism. While NHK produces some programs featuring non-Japanese hosts and guests, Cool Japan and Home Sweet Tokyo are of unique interest for their purported aim to represent and give voice to foreigners living in Japan.

ЗАРУБІЖНИЙ ДОСВІД АДМІНІСТРАТИВНОЇ ВІДПОВІДАЛЬНОСТІ ІНОЗЕМЦІВ ТА ОСІБ БЕЗ ГРОМАДЯНСТВА

The paper is devoted to a careful and topical topic of studying the administrative responsibility of foreigners and stateless persons in some foreign countries. It is noted that foreigners and stateless persons in Ukraine are subject to the national legal regime, i.e., they are endowed with the same scope of rights and responsibilities as citizens of Ukraine. Except for certain political and labor rights. Thus, foreigners and stateless persons are brought to legal responsibility, including administrative, on a par with the citizens of Ukraine. In the context of improving and optimizing the process of bringing to administrative responsibility foreigners and stateless persons in Ukraine, it is advisable to study the positive foreign experience. Thus, the proposed study is relevant and important. The methodological basis of the study were general scientific and special legal methods of cognition. Among the general scientific methods, we used dialectical, general logical, analysis, generalization, and formalization. Regarding specifically legal methods, we used, among others, formal-legal, systemic, theoretical, and legal. The key place in our study, of course, was occupied by the comparative law method, which allowed to conduct a comparative legal study of the grounds of administrative liability of foreigners and stateless persons in foreign countries, as well as those sanctions and penalties that may apply to some foreign countries. The authors found that the states of the Anglo-American legal system do not recognize separate administrative legislation. Acts that in Ukraine are considered administrative offenses, violations of customs law or tax misdemeanors in the United States belong to the category of crimes or civil misdemeanors. It has been proven that in most European countries belonging to the continental group of legal systems, cases of administrative offenses belong to the field of criminal law, i.e., such offenses are considered a type of crime. It is determined that the peculiarity of the administrative and legal status of foreigners in Japan is the fact that the migration policy of this country is not focused on the integration of foreigners, plus this country does not have adequate social infrastructure for their settlement.

The Importance of "Easy Japanese": Communicating Health Information to Foreigners in Japan.

The number of foreign workers in Japan has been increasing in recent years. In Shimane Prefecture, people from non-English speaking countries account for most of the foreign resident population. Language barriers pose numerous challenges for this population. Their problems communicating in the medical context, in particular, contribute to their avoidance of hospitals. In addition to translation machines and English, "Easy Japanese" has been found to help Japanese healthcare workers communicate with foreign patients. “Easy Japanese" refers to easy-to-understand Japanese that involves rephrasing words and sentences. The use of Easy Japanese should be promoted among medical professionals in Japan as it is considered a communication skill that can be improved through practice. A voluntary study group was formed among medical students. During the first session, students were presented with background information, explaining why the need for Easy Japanese is increasing. In the second session, they practiced paraphrasing words. Finally, in the third session, they conducted simulated medical communication and practiced Easy Japanese with foreign residents to determine whether they were able to convey their intentions. Participants were recruited via social networking service, with five participants in the first session, five in the second, and eight in the third. Through this project, it became clear that for participants, the usual way of speaking Japanese came first in practice and that it was difficult for them to produce easy-to-understand phrases at the spur of the moment without practice. Additionally, medical students reported that the expressions they acquired through several practice sessions were helpful when talking with international students on campus. The final session involved a student-led Easy Japanese study group. Based on the students’ comments, we found that this study group was useful for them. Accordingly, Easy Japanese education should be continued and expanded to more students in the medical field and to the local community, including foreign residents, to measure its effectiveness.

PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF ELABORATION OF INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT PROJECT IN EDUCATION SPHERE IN JAPAN

In Japan, one of the strongest economies in the world and home to 125 million people, proficiency in English language is associated with the huge advantages and signifies privilege since the Meiji era when English was used as a tool by Japanese elite in a technological catch-up with the West. The seven years of U.S. occupation of the country after the Second World War have also left a big impact on the Japan’s economic, political and social development. The reconstruction of Japan aided by Americans altered the perception of Japanese people, associating English language with such ideas like freedom and democracy. During the seven years of occupation the country faced a lot of political and economic changes, including liberalization, and was slowly transitioning its central industries from agriculture to light manufacturing and later to heavy manufacturing. The economy of Japan has been slowly recovering from an era of economic stagnation, it is on the path of the moderate growth. Today, it is the third strongest economy with the nominal GDP of about $5.06 trillion that is focused on advanced manufacturing and export, agriculture, fishing and tourism. Japan is very special and different from other countries; a lot of great companies and unique business practices were born there. It is also leading in high-tech innovations and manufacturing. While having a lot of opportunities for various businesses, being politically stable and safe country, its bureaucracy and the comparative difficulty of doing business for foreigners makes it a controversial but potentially rewarding choose for an investment project. In the recent years, the necessity of knowing how to communicate in English has increased significantly. The school program focuses mainly on such skills as reading and writing, and a lot of attempts to reform the system has failed. That is why parents and students are approaching private language schools to master the abilities of speaking and listening. In addition, English teaching is one of the most popular jobs for foreigners in Japan. The language school market is quite saturated, but at given circumstances it can be very rewarding. The idea of the investment project is to create a private language school that will focus on giving Japanese people the practical English skills. The project involves the creation of Gōdō Kaisha (a Japanese analogue to the LLC). This type of incorporation fits the company best, considering the size and scale of the activities. As the company is not planning to issue certificates, the need for special licensing from the state is absent. Appointing a representative director is obligatory in Japan, but GK, allows to appoint a representative director who is not a resident in Japan. The company plans to hire the foreigners already living in Japan, that way the company will be

Why are there so many extreme opinions online?: An empirical, comparative analysis of Japan, Korea and the USA

PurposeThis study aims to verify the following hypothesis: People with extreme opinions post on social media more than those with moderate opinions.Design/methodology/approachA social media posting model was constructed to estimate the influence of extreme opinions on the number of social media posts in Japan, Korea and the USA. For a quantitative verification, data from 5,095 questionnaire surveys were regressed using a Tobit model.FindingsExtreme opinions were found to increase the number of social media posts in all three countries and for both surveyed topics (constitutional amendment in Japan and increasing number of foreigners in Japan, Korea and the USA). Furthermore, the higher the interest in the topic, the greater the effect. The hypothesis was thus supported.Research limitations/implicationsThe survey was conducted online, and the sample size in Korea and the USA was smaller than in Japan. The topics were limited to two, and only three countries were included.Social implicationsPeople should use social media knowing that there are numerous extreme views online. Companies that provide social media platforms should consider measures to ensure that users are not exclusively exposed to extreme opinions.Originality/valueThis research conducts a quantitative analysis on the effects of opinion extremity on social media posting behavior and the resulting bias in online opinion distribution, a topic on which there is scant prior research.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-07-2020-0310.

A Call for Enhanced Healthcare Support for Increasingly Vulnerable Groups of Foreigners in Japan: Insights from a Former Thai-Native Medical Student in Japan.

A Call for Enhanced Healthcare Support for Increasingly Vulnerable Groups of Foreigners in Japan: Insights from a Former Thai-Native Medical Student in Japan.

Potential of mosques to serve as evacuation shelters for foreign Muslims during disasters: a case study in Gunma, Japan

Foreigners tend to be vulnerable to disasters due to religious and cultural differences. In Japan, Muslim foreign residents, who are minorities, likely face difficulties in terms of food and religious practices in evacuation shelters. In this study, we propose the use of mosques as voluntary shelters for Muslim foreigners in Japan and evaluate their potential to function as shelters. Mosques are expected to have a large space, including a prayer space, and to store food familiar to daily users. We conducted field surveys targeting two mosques in Isesaki, Gunma, Japan, to investigate their equipment and building environment in relation to how they could function as shelters; the number of evacuees they could accommodate; the amount of food they could supply to evacuees; and the willingness of the administrators to use the mosques as shelters. Both mosques were found to be equipped with toilets and shower rooms and had enough space for approximately 60–80 evacuees. They also had sufficient kitchen space and tableware to prepare meals for about 100 people. Although they did not always stock a large amount of food, they could quickly receive food from nearby stores. Moreover, the administrators were willing to use the mosques as shelters. Therefore, it was suggested that the mosques could serve as shelters accommodating and feeding many evacuees. Finally, measures to improve the function of mosques as shelters are discussed. This study lays the groundwork for the future use of mosques as shelters.

A new framework of workplace belonging: Instrument validation and testing relationships to crucial acculturation outcomes

ABSTRACT Contemporary global migrant flows challenge national ingroup boundaries, leading to demands for greater inclusivity of those migrants in receiving societies worldwide. Utilizing the specific case of Japanese and foreigners in Japan, this study aimed to validate Komisarof's framework of workplace belonging. The framework refines understanding of how perceptions of belonging – particularly the degrees to which people see themselves accepted as members of another group’s cultural-linguistic community and as core members of their shared work organization – impact quality and effectiveness of intercultural work relations for both migrants and members of the host society. Instruments measuring both dimensions of belonging were validated first through a review of potential items by a panel of experts, followed by an exploratory factor analysis of retained items with a sample of 228 respondents (116 Japanese and 112 non-Japanese representing 24 nationalities). Relationships between four permutations of belonging, termed ontological interpretive spaces (“OIS”), and four outcome variables (job effectiveness, flourishing, organizational commitment, and intercultural competence) were hypothesized and tested. Significant effects of OIS were found for job effectiveness, flourishing, and organizational commitment, providing evidence of belonging’s effects on these crucial acculturation outcomes in intercultural work contexts.

Estimating Home Location of Foreigners in Japan Using Photograph Location

Estimating Home Location of Foreigners in Japan Using Photograph Location

Summer-type hypersensitivity pneumonitis in a share house for foreigners in Japan.

Summer-type hypersensitivity pneumonitis commonly occurs in Japan during the warm and humid season, when the causative Trichosporon asahii flourish. The assessment of anti-T. asahii antibodies in patients with hypersensitivity pneumonitis without any obvious causative antigen may be useful even outside Japan.

Disaster-resilient communication ecosystem in an inclusive society – A case of foreigners in Japan

The number of foreign residents and tourists in Japan has been dramatically increasing in recent years. Despite the fact that Japan is prone to natural disasters, with each climate-related event turning into an emergency such as with record rainfalls, floods and mudslides almost every year, non-Japanese communication infrastructure and everyday disaster drills for foreigners have received little attention. This study aims to understand how a resilient communication ecosystem forms in various disaster contexts involving foreigners. Within a framework of information ecology we try to get an overview of the communication ecosystem in literature and outline its structure and trends in social media use. Our empirical case study uses Twitter API and R programming software to extract and analyze tweets in English during Typhoon 19 (Hagibis) in October 2019. It reveals that many information sources transmit warnings and evacuation orders through social media but do not convey a sense of locality and precise instructions on how to act. For future disaster preparedness, we argue that the municipal government, as a responsible agent, should (1) make available instructional information in foreign languages on social media, (2) transfer such information through collaboration with transmitters, and (3) examine the use of local hashtags in social media to strengthen non-Japanese speaker's capacity to adapt.

Blond hair, blue eyes, and “bad” Japanese: representing foreigner stereotypes in Japanese anime

This paper investigates foreigners’ linguistic and visual representations observed in 17 recent Japanese animated shows (or anime), and explores ways to increase students’ critical awareness of issues regarding Japanese language and culture. We find that foreign characters in anime tend to be linguistically represented with simplified, marked Japanese, and/or interjection of native language expressions to mark their otherness. While there are 17 countries represented in the anime shows we examined, the majority of foreign characters are Americans. Most of the characters are depicted as racially white and who speak marked Japanese. Of these, it is the American characters who are most often represented as white with blue eyes and blond hair, the quintessential representation of foreigners in Japan. Additionally, female characters account for only 20% of the total number of foreign characters, and many of them are visually sexualised. We discuss the effects of mediatisation regarding nihonjinron, ‘the theory of Japanese’, and propose ways to incorporate the findings into Japanese language instruction in order to increase critical awareness of issues regarding language and culture among students.

Contributions from Japan to gastrointestinal endoscopy training and development: Special report.

Contributions from Japan to gastrointestinal endoscopy training and development: Special report.

A review of literature about the child-rearing of foreigners in Japan

A review of literature about the child-rearing of foreigners in Japan

Engaging the Other: 'Japan' and Its Alter Egos, 1550–1850 by Ronald P. Toby

Reviewed by: Engaging the Other: 'Japan' and Its Alter Egos, 1550–1850 by Ronald P. Toby Kären Wigen Engaging the Other: 'Japan' and Its Alter Egos, 1550–1850. By Ronald P. Toby. Leiden: Brill, 2019. 393 pages. Hardcover, €138.00/$166.00. This book brings together seven previously published articles written by Ronald P. Toby in a burst of creative energy between 1994 and 2002. Five of the seven have been available until now only in Japanese; their translation and compilation into a single volume greatly facilitate access to the oeuvre of a pioneer in the transnational, spatial, and visual history of early modern Japan. The first extended essay in the volume—"Mapping the Margins: The Ragged Edges of State and Nation" (chapter 2)—captures the excitement of the early years of the spatial turn. Here Toby adduces copious cartographic evidence to show that, until the mid-nineteenth century, Nihon's southern and northern boundaries were inconsistently and ambiguously mapped. By the time this essay was published in Japan in 2001, similar arguments were going mainstream in the English-speaking world, thanks to pioneering work by Thongchai Winichakul, David Howell, and others. Those who were newly embarking on careers at the time may read Toby's contribution with a touch of nostalgia. His sense of discovery is palpable, recalling the excitement of historians' first encounters with the notions of the geo-body and the logo-map. Hailed by Benedict Anderson in the revised edition of Imagined Communities (London: Verso Books, 1991), Thongchai's work had just begun to open up the cartographic archive, suggesting new lines of inquiry that remain generative to this day. But Toby's turn was not exclusively spatial. Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 follow his gaze from the geo-body to the human body, a more intimate scale that afforded opportunities to pore over the depiction of Korean and Chinese figures in Japanese art. These essays (originally published in the mid-1990s) represented an extension into the visual field of the core interests that had animated his first book, State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan (Princeton University Press, 1984). Leaving behind the governmental records on which that landmark work had been based, Toby now took delight in decoding the lexicon deployed by painters and printmakers to signal "Chinese," "Korean," "Ryukyuan," or "barbarian" to the Edo viewer. Showcasing the author's skill at close reading of both visual and verbal texts, these four richly illustrated chapters constitute the heart of the present volume. A final essay entitled "The Mountain That Needs No Interpreter: Mt. Fuji and the Foreign" (chapter 7) ties the collection together nicely by uniting the geographical and the figural. The most recent and also the longest work in the volume, it introduces some three dozen Edo- and Meiji-era depictions of Mt. Fuji being either viewed by foreigners in Japan or glimpsed from abroad. The range of genres that featured this pairing of native landscape and foreign gaze is striking in its own right; Toby's abundant examples extend from woodblock prints to hand-painted scrolls, panoramic screens, and votive plaques (ema). Animating them all, he argues, is the [End Page 272] conceit that Mt. Fuji was the greatest mountain in the world, capable on the one hand of drawing men from afar "to admire the mountain and even to worship it" (p. 282) and, on the other, of projecting an "amuletic power" (p. 269) far and wide to protect Japan from any alien threat. Only in his epilogue ("Antiphonals of Identity") does Toby lay out the question that drove him to investigate "the lexicon, grammar, and rhetoric of Self and Other" in Japan in the first place: My initial interest in this was sparked by the seemingly simple question, how did two-and-a-half centuries of overtly peaceful, amicable, and, for the most part, mutually satisfactory relations between Japan and Korea morph in the nineteenth century into a discourse that authorized Japanese aggression and invasion, political manipulation, and ultimately the colonization of Korea? Was there in the popular culture a subtext to the superficially innocent, playful Tojin performances seen in so many festivals across Japan? (p. 333) By that...

Career advice for foreigners in Japan

Career advice for foreigners in Japan

The Nativist Backlash: Exploring the Roots of the Action Conservative Movement

After decades of decline, the sudden emergence from about 2006 of a new style of hard-right organization has greatly changed the landscape of rightist politics in Japan. In Japan, this is referred to as the Action Conservative Movement (ACM), or Kōdō Hoshu Undō. ACM groups have a strong nativist streak, and are known for their use of hate speech against foreigners in general and Koreans in particular. This paper, the first in a collection of four, sketches in the historical, social and political background against which the ACM has arisen. It covers the development of Japan’s ethnic minorities, with particular reference to the Zainichi Koreans, Japan’s largest and longest-standing ethnic minority, whose so-called ‘special privileges’ are a particular target of the ACM. It shows how a gradual liberalization of the treatment of foreigners in Japan has gone hand-in-hand with a strengthening emphasis on patriotism under successive administrations. This apparent paradox of governance, along with the spread of internet chatrooms and live streaming of political demonstrations, are the main factors identified in the rise of the ACM.

Media Preference, Information Needs, and the Language Proficiency of Foreigners in Japan after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake

After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the Japanese government identified the lack of proficiency in the Japanese language as one characteristic of foreigners that should be considered in disaster prevention planning. This article seeks to understand how proficiency in a local language affects disaster information gathering behavior by using the results of a questionnaire survey conducted after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Respondents were categorized based on their Japanese and English language abilities. Their media mode, language preferences, information importance, and information-gathering difficulties also were examined. It was found that foreigners skilled in Japanese demonstrated similar information gathering behavior as Japanese respondents, but foreigners unskilled in Japanese showed little usage of Japanese-language media. This group also encountered difficulties due to a lack of Japanese proficiency, but many members were able to acquire some level of Japanese-language information through Internet-based methods. To address language proficiency in disaster prevention planning, information provision in languages other than Japanese should be increased, and Japanese information should be shared in a way that facilitates translation. Although this survey was significant in its scope, the results should be considered within the limitations of the Internet-based response collection and focus only on the less-affected area of Japan.