Homogeneous is the word that comes to mind when it comes to discussing Japan’s population. 99% of the people living in Japan are of Japanese decent. Of all the foreigners living in Japan, many of them live in the larger cities such as Tokyo. This does not leave a lot of room for diversity in the more rural populations of Japan. Within the 2 million people living in Fukushima, there are about 12,000 foreigners living in the prefecture – and most of them are of Chinese, Filipino, or Korean decent. When a teacher I work with found out these numbers, she said that she was surprised that there were so many foreigners in Fukushima. She thought that the number would be much lower.
Although I’ve been here for a number of months and am fairly used to the ongoing novelty of my presence, it is still an odd experience for me. In my high school in Vancouver (actually, I live in a suburb called Burnaby) of about 2800 students, I think that the western population was actually a minority in the school. Native westerners still made up the bulk of our school’s population, but there were probably more students that came from other countries.
Within my school here in Japan, I only know of one student who has a Pakistani father – otherwise, for all intents and purposes, I am the only completely non-Japanese in my school of about 1000 teachers and students. This is why Japan has a program that hires people like me to come and work in these schools. As you can imagine, whenever I bring another foreigner to my school, while many students will try to front an appearance of indifference, there is generally nothing but an interest that borders on outright fascination that lingers wherever we go.
As such, I make a point of having them come to my school so that students have an opportunity to speak with other foreigners. Usually what ends up happening at these visits is my guests will come to one of my English Conversation Club meetings. When Janice was here in December, we had a joint Christmas party with the students at Sakura High School, which is just down the road from us. This was also a good opportunity for the students to meet the ALT from that school as well. This past Tuesday, Sean came to our club meeting where we gave a small presentation of the places Sean has been in the world and then had the students give him a tour of the school and its club activities.
I think that is a great idea. Just think about what if you or your friends were not there. Most of the kids would then probably never have a chance to interact with a person from a different culture
ReplyDeleteThanks T+S! It's a shame many students still don't as they're too shy to approach me in the halls.
ReplyDeleteI spent 15 years in Iwaki before leaving just a few years ago.. Those of us "old timers" from English-speaking countries (like myself) gradually found ourselves cut off from the population of English teachers who come and go so quickly. Not sure why. Looking back it seemed we had less and less in common with the transient Eikaiwa teachers as we got older and they all stayed the same. I can name a dozen white foreigners in the area, many of who have been in Iwaki a couple of decades that are completely unknown to the Eikaiwa teachers who think they have the area to themselves.
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting. Once in a while i'll see another non-japanese person in the streets in Iwaki and i'll say to myself, "who is this person? I know every foreigner around... why don't i know you?"
ReplyDeletewhere are you living now?