Anglophones in Japan Survey - Commentary and Analysis by INOUE Eido

Sakura, Osaka 2017

As some of you might know last year I did a study on Anglophones in Japan: a survey and over 30 follow-up interviews .  The data I collected was used for my Master's dissertation. I cannot thank the participants enough for their time; their answers produced a rich data set for analysis.  As promised, I sent the survey results to the participants who wanted to receive them.

I also have to thank those who were instrumental in spreading the news about the survey and encouraging people to participate.  I could not have reached so many people without their help.

One very helpful person was Inoue Eido, a naturalized Japanese citizen who writes for the excellent blog Becoming Legally Japanese.  This is a site in English where you can get very solid factual information about how to naturalize in Japan.  The FAQ is particularly useful because it answers some of the more common questions about things like Japanese naturalization laws and dual citizenship, and Why would anybody want to become Japanese?  

For those of you who are following the rising number of renunciations of American citizenship (which, to look at it more positively, means achieving citizenship in the country of residence) 10 of the blog contributors are former Americans.  Note, however, that there are also contributors from Canada, Great Britain, Nigeria, Ecuador, and Bangladesh.  This provides, I think, a better overall context for understanding renunciation/naturalization as a phenomenon that is hardly unique to US citizens.

Inoue-san was kind enough to promote my survey on the blog.  And after he had received the survey results, he asked if he could post them with his commentary on the site.  My response was, "I sent it to you because you and others were kind enough to participate and if you want to in turn send the survey results to your friends, your family or write up a response to it, you can."  To be very clear the results that I sent are the raw numbers and contain no identifying information. whatsoever. Also these were the survey results only and do not include any data about the interviews.

Inoue-san has published his post and you can read it here: Analysis of "Native English Speaker in Japan Survey" Results.

Fascinating commentary.  I particularly appreciated his remarks on how the questions could have been refined.  As for the analysis, there are things I agree with and things I don't but that's perfect because it's the start of a conversation.  I was also very amused by his generalizations of the Anglophones who came to Japan in different eras:

"1945+: Those that came in the fifties and sixties came for their country (the Allied forces [U.S.] military).
1970: Those that came in the seventies came for God (missionaries).
1984: Those that came in the eighties came for the money (the "bubble era").
1993: Those that came in the nineties came for the women (relationships)
2001: … and those that came after the millennium came for the animé ☻."

I think very similar (and equally amusing) generalizations over time could be made of Americans and other migrants in France, the UK, Brazil, Canada or any other country.  Not only are the reasons for migrating multi-causal but they change with time.  Societies simply aren't static; human beings are odd, unpredictable creatures.  Americans used to go to France to study medicine; today it's argued that they are more likely to be marriage migrants.  In the future, perhaps we will see an increase in American scientists and entrepreneurs heading for the Hexagon to study climate change.  Who knows? 

A study is a snapshot in time.  This one was conducted at the end of 2016.  I have wonder what this Anglophone population in Japan might look like in 2026 as the world changes:  Brexit, the healthcare debate in the US, income inequality, technology, changes in the structure of the English as a Foreign Language industry.

I make no predictions.  I just hope that I'll be around long enough to see how the story unfolds.

Marriage Migration and Integration

"[C]ross-border marriage migration is understood as migration that results, at least in part, from a contractual relationship between individuals with different national or residency statuses.  Cross-border marriage either changes the immigration status of one partner (for example, by increasing their entitlements to reside or to access the social or economic benefits of the country they are residing in), or it enables one partner to enter and to set up home as a non-citizen spouse in a country foreign to them." (p. 5) Williams, L. (2010). Global marriage: Cross-border marriage migration in global context. Springer.


"Marriage migrant" is an interesting category of migrant.  Williams' definition is both accurate and democratic: it can be applied without reference to country of origin or destination.  Here are two people from two (or more) different countries who establish a contract that the states concerned recognize for immigration purposes.  You could almost say that being the spouse of a citizen confers a sort of demi-citizenship on the foreign spouse.  In many countries a foreign spouse can jump to the head of the immigration/naturalization queue simply by virtue of marriage to a native.  It's a very seductive path (in all ways) and where immigration laws are strict it can be the easiest way to enter a country or stay.

Note, however, that it is not as easy as it was.  Some states have been tightening up the requirements in order to limit or control it.  There is a lot of concern (and press coverage) of  fake marriages - ones that are contracted solely for immigration.  There are interviews by the immigration authorities to determine if the marriage is a "real" one.  The US and the UK have imposed minimum income/asset thresholds on the citizen spouse who is required to show that he/she can support the foreign spouse.  France interviews the spouses before the marriage and upon arrival there is an evaluation by the authorities and the migrant signs an integration contract with requirements for classes in civics and language that must be respected.  The French authorities can refuse a residency card to a migrant who does not attend the classes and is not seen to be sérieux about the process  So the "right" to join a spouse in his/her country is a qualified one and, personally, I believe that more countries will try to use these strategies in order to limit marriage migration and to have more control over which spouses are allowed to enter or stay in the country.

And this is an interesting development because I think there used to be an assumption that marriage itself was a kind of integration program.  The citizen spouse was trusted to 1. contract a legal and legitimate marriage based on feeling and not for financial/instrumental reasons and 2. would see to the integration of the spouse based on, among other things, the assumed power differential between the citizen and the foreigner.  For the state to intervene here is as much a lack of faith in its own citizens as it is suspicion of foreigners.

Are states right to be suspicious of citizens and their foreign spouses?   To a certain degree there has always been wariness.  Take, for example, the military based on foreign soil.  My sense is that even today they are not exactly encouraged to bring home foreign wives and husbands.  After World War I there was a debate in the US over the desirability of French war brides who were seen as a little too Catholic for Protestant America.  In Japan I've talked to foreigners who experienced a very chilly reception when they first met their future Japanese in-laws.  My own French mother-in-law was over the moon when she found out I was Catholic.  

But whatever the reception, once the spouse arrived and became part of the family, I think most assumed that the family would push the foreign wife/husband in the direction of integrating into the larger society.  Or perhaps they didn't think it mattered where the public face of the family was usually a male citizen who was presumed to have control of the family's public and private life.  And if the wife wasn't integrated?  Well, that just meant that he had even more of a mandate to speak for the family because she couldn't.

That is speculation on my part but I think it would be worth looking into.  There are two questions I would ask:  Do marriage migrants integrate better in the host country than other migrants?  and Is there a difference between the overall integration of male marriage migrants versus female ones?

For these questions, I can see arguments for and against.  Assuming that the citizen spouse has more power in the relationship then one might expect to see him/her making more of the decisions about what language to speak in the home, where the children will be educated, where the family goes on vacation and so on.  The culture and language of the foreign spouse can be crowded out if it is allowed to exist at all.  I knew an American woman whose husband simply refused to allow any English in their home.  I know many migrants who would have preferred a bi-lingual education for the children but the spouse was not very supportive of that and given the expense in many cases it would have been a financial stretch.  So those things would probably lead to greater integration.  The more the family publicly and privately conforms to the larger society, the more the outnumbered foreign spouse must comply.

On the other hand I can see situations where the foreign spouse is not encouraged to integrate.  It may be because the citizen spouse does not see this as his/her responsibility.  Having a foreign spouse speaking a foreign language is an advantage for the children and so he/she is encouraged to speak it at home even if the rest of the family uses the local language.  There can be a perception that the foreign spouse can't integrate and will simply mess things up if he/she is sent down to the city office to take care of family business.  Children can be embarrassed by a foreign parent who is visibly different and has an accent.  Read The American by Franz-Olivier Giesbert which is about his relationship with his immigrant American father.  And, finally, let's face it the less integrated the foreign spouse, the more the citizen spouse has power within the relationship.  And where the foreign spouse is a man in a culture where men generally have more power within the family, the citizen wife may like a marriage where she has more power than if she had married a native man.

So, yes, I think there are reasons to wonder if marriage to a native citizen is or is not conducive to greater integration.  Whether the state needs to step in to correct this is a judgment call.  On one hand I can see that treating a marriage migrant as an individual and not as spouse could be beneficial for integration, especially in a case like France where the state will help.  Insists on it, in fact, regardless of what the French citizen spouse thinks.  However, what are we then to make of the laws which give preferences to spouses for entry and the right to remain?  Let's be very clear - they are allowed to enter or stay on the basis of a relationship, not on their other merits.  Make the relationship irrelevant and many migrants could not, in fact, migrate or obtain residency status.

I wonder if we are not moving in that direction.  I can see a world where marriage migration is legally possible (those "family values") but there would be so many qualifications that it would be practically impossible for most people.  Marriage wouldn't be irrelevant but it would simply be one criteria for admission trumped by others like finances, literacy, health, and country of origin.  

And let's face it, where there are fewer international marriages, there will be a lot fewer people to integrate. 

Problem solved.

This City Was Made for Walking: The Higashi-Yokobori River

Osaka is flat and I mean FLAT.  It's great for walking or bike riding.  As I mentioned in an earlier post it's hard to get lost if you know more or less where the canals and rivers are.

http://www.suito-osaka.jp/suito/en/projects/projects.html

This morning I set out early and followed the Higashi-Yokobori River all the way up to Nakanoshima Park where the Okawa River meets the Tosabori and Dojima Rivers (no. 9).  As you can see from the map the waterways in central Osaka form a square.  Once upon a time there were smaller canals within the square and merchants could move their products around or out of the city.  I read that most of the canals were gone by the late 1960s but there are still many small businesses and warehouses in this area though goods are now moved by truck.

The Higashi-Yokobori River route must have really been something in its day.  Every few blocks there are small bridges - some of them quite beautiful.  Alas, someone decided years ago that this was the perfect place to put an elevated freeway.  What was a nice tree-covered promenade along the canal has been closed off to the public and is untended along long stretches.  What a darn shame. The city has projects for improving it (Aqua Metropolis Osaka) but I think the freeway isn't going anywhere unless nature intervenes.  I sure wouldn't like to be anywhere near it during an earthquake.   Remember Kobe?

http://www.earthguide.ucsd.edu/earthguide/imagelibrary/earthquake1.html

Here are a few pictures from this morning.  There is a happy ending to the walk - another beautiful rose garden.

The pylons for the freeway are sunk into the middle of the canal

One of the many small bridges over the canal

An old house surrounded by apartment buildings

 

More pylons and still water

And finally here is where the canal meets the rivers.

 

And here is the happy ending - the rose gardens at Nakanoshima Park

 

But the freeway continues....

Lifting

After I published yesterday's post I received an email from a reader who expressed surprise that weightlifting was my preferred sport.  But it is, my dear Flophouse readers.  No lie.  I love the weights.

Now I agree that watching weightlifting (or American football) is about as interesting as watching paint dry.  But lifting itself is a sport that is not only extremely gratifying; it's an excellent way to counteract some of the worst side effects of my cancer treatment.

I first learned about lifting in France,  Yes, the land of wine drinkers and cheese lovers is also one that is very sportif.  For one of the best shows in town, I invite you to go stand somewhere near the Eiffel tower in the morning and watch the local fireman out for a run.  A not-to-be-missed sight for tourists and residents alike. Furthermore, my French spouse has been lifting for years, is an avid Crossfitter, and recently did the Spartan Race in Tokyo.  He had a very good score but I still winced when I saw all the bruises.

I started lifting about 7 years ago.  About the time I stopped drinking and before I was diagnosed with cancer.  I began with a Jane Fonda tape and what  you might call the "baby bells" - small dumbbells ranging from 1 - 6 kilos.  Consistency meant that I outgrew the small weights and went looking for something a little harder and I found Stumptuous, a site run by a Canadian woman lifter with advice, encouragement and challenging routines.  That was my entry into the world of Ladies who Lift which is still a tough one because sterotypes abound.  As Mistress Krista writes, "You see, dear milennial babies, there was a dark and silly time when old men in suits decreed that girlpeople could not lift heavy things at the Olympics, because lo, their uteruses would explode and all males present would spontaneously be emasculated."

That attitude is alive and well and it goes something like this: "don't lift heavy weights because you might get muscles and that's so unattractive in a woman.  The phenomenon appears to be cross-cultural; a Japanese Crossfit coach I know sometimes despairs of ever getting Japanese women into the gym because they would rather be skinny as opposed to having the beautiful muscles of a ballet dancer.  Something that is entirely within their reach, mind you, but they prefer to believe that dancers look the way they do because they eat nothing but lettuce morning, noon and night.  Right.

But forget the dancers and have a look at these lady lifters.  They are amazing.







I still enjoy Stumptous but I found my joy with The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess by Lou Schuler, Cassandra Forsythe, and Alwyn Cosgrove.  The one bit of advice I read there that has stayed with me?  Women almost always underestimate how much weight they can safely lift.  Always go a little bit heavier than you think you can manage because, chances are, you will be pleasantly surprised.  There is a lesson in there for women and life in general and I'll let you consider the connection for yourself.

So I moved from baby bells to bigger and bigger dumbbells and finally, with Crossfit, into the world of Olympic lifting:  squats, deadlifts and so on.  My front squat still sucks but I now have a bar and weights at home so I can work on it.

Why do I like it so much?  Well, I can lift just about anywhere - at home or in a box.  Crossfit, by the way, is often criticized but one thing they do very well in the boxes I've been to in Belgium, the US and Japan is welcome women without any condescending crap.  Asshattery is not permitted in a well-run box.

Another reason is that the results are very pleasing regardless of where you start. Age is certainly no impediment.  In Seattle there was a 75 year old man and women of all ages and fitness levels in the box and, damn, was I impressed.  They could lift far more than I and with better form.  I've been thin for most of my life but I can't say that I was fit or that I am at the peak of personal fitness now.

What I can say is that around 40 beating my body into submission with a starvation level diet and cigarettes just didn't work anymore.  I was writing checks my body could no longer cash.  I was starting to get things like flabby skin under the arms.  I like that I have muscle tone in my arms and legs.  I look good in a pair of jeans (all those squats and lunges).  At 52 I can wear shorts and show off my long legs and tattoos. :-)  I can lift heavy boxes off the floor and head home from the supermarket with big bags of groceries in hand.  I can run up stairs in the metro.  I can walk for miles without getting tired.  I just feel good when I lift.  It's a huge confidence-builder to know that you are strong and not just skinny.

Most importantly, I can EAT.  You don't build muscles with lettuce and water.  You need a balanced diet with lots of protein.  Your actual bodyweight is not terribly significant so to hell with the scale. As Schuler and Cosgrove say, "The scale doesn't know what you looke like, much less how strong you are or how good you feel.  It's just number detached from context." As for this notion that you have to be fanatical about food, you learn when practicing any sport that food is primarily fuel and the effects of poor eating habits have immediate consequences;  I feel weaker when I lift after a few days of fast food or baked goods.  And the cherry on the cake I will regret eating?  I have osteoporosis and lifting and running/walking are perfect ways to combat it. Lifting is, in my case, oncologist approved.

So there you have it.  I really recommend it as a sport.  Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove just published a new lifting book for women called Strong.  I'm at Phase 1, Stage 2 in the routine and I love it. There are planks, Romanian deadlifts, goblet squats and lots of push-ups and inverted rows. It's a huge kick to watch your progress from week to week as you add plates to the bar.

As you can tell I'm pretty happy and motivated to be a lifter.  If you have liked what you have read so far but you are still on the fence about exercise in general and lifting in particular, just listen to Mistress Krista:

"Lifting weights is not rocket science. Find a heavy thing and pick it up. Put it down. Pick it up again. Rest a while. Pick it up and put it down again. Next week, try a heavier thing. Occasionally, pick up your right foot and put it in front of your left foot. Repeat with other side. Perform this alternating motion for 20 minutes a few times weekly."

"Look, honey, you only get one container. And you get what mom and dad gave you. You can make it the best possible container it can be, and love it for what it is, or you can waste your life pissing and moaning about something that isn’t possible. Control what you can control, change what you can change, and forget about all the other stuff. Celebrate health and living free of pain. Stop obsessing about BEING and LOOKING, and start DOING."

Brexit Podcasts

My reading about current events is sporadic.  Some days I do a full pass of the newspapers and websites and some days I'd much rather dedicate the day's reading entirely to actual books with bibliographies.  Think of it as carbohydrates versus protein - an analogy that may not speak to you but makes sense in the context of my favorite sport:  weightlifting.

One topic that I do try to stay on top of is Brexit which hits so many of the themes I like to think about:  migration, citizenship, borders, integration, and disintegration.  It was also a topic mentioned by British participants in my study of Anglophones in Japan.

However, I would go blind if I tried to read all the words on the screen that have been published on the Internet and since the story is still unfolding I mistrust the books that are available.  Too soon for a deep, intelligent analysis of even why they voted to leave.  As for where Brexit is going all we have is speculation.

So I've turned to podcasts.  I like the sense of being privy to a discussion without having any obligation to contribute to it.  And they tend to be longer than an article (15 to 30 minutes) but still short enough that the contributors have to make their points clearly and succinctly.

The one I've been following for a few weeks now is The Guardian's Brexit Means....  The most recent discussion (June 19) is organized around the question:  What can we expect as the Article 50 talks begin?  At about 7:30 they touch on citizen's right and the rights of non-EU spouses. (Note that there is another, earlier podcast entirely devoted to EU citizens' rights.)  At 12:52 they talk about the Irish border.

Another that I've started following only recently because it is very new is BBC Radio 5's Brexitcast.  Their first offering is very similar to the latest one from The Guardian so you get two discussions from a UK perspective on the same topic.  Theirs is called Brexit Begins.

And this morning I found the Inside Politics podcasts on Brexit from The Irish Times.  Ireland definitely has a dog in this fight because they are in the EU and they have a very sensitive border with the UK.  The Irish Times doesn't have a Brexit series but the topic, as you can imagine, comes up often.  The latest is an interview with Fintan O'Toole, an award-winning Irish author/journalist who just received the Orwell prize for journalism.  Hell of an endorsement and I will take the time to read his work. And I call your attention to the DUP 2017 manifesto which O'Toole refers to.  It outlines their approach to Brexit on pages 18-19.  

Here is the O'Toole interview which I recommend highly to you:  Fintan O'Toole on Brexit, English Nationalism and the DUP

And now back to my books.

From Osaka to Brussels to Canterbury

Public Domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8752705

"He only is a well-made man who has a good determination.  And the end of culture is not to destroy this, God forbid! but to train away all impediment and mixture, and leave nothing but pure power.  Our student must have style and determination, and be a master in his own specialty.  But, having this, he must put it behind him.  He must have a catholicity, a power to see with a free and disengaged look every object."

The Conduct of Life by Ralph Waldo Emerson



Doubt is a great impediment to determination.   The mind is not a friendly neighborhood, but a ghetto of pitfalls weighed against possibilities.

I re-entered the academic life in middle-age with a career behind me and a number of uncertain paths ahead.  I had a passion for a subject and I was content for a time just reading and writing about it in this blog. To do more would have meant choosing one path over the others with no guarantee of success.  This was the paralysis of analysis where the mind constantly explores the possibilities and ultimately rejects them all, only to revisit the matter the next day with the same result.

But as I sat still, my world changed around me.  I saw my preferred options narrowing if only for a predetermined period of time.  I began to pay attention to other voices that had been telling me for years that academia and I might be a good fit. So I applied to the school of my choice in the specialty closest to my heart, and to my surprise I was accepted as a student.

Thus began my time as a graduate student at the University of Kent Brussels School of International Studies.  I went to study International Migration but that wasn't the only education I received. I learned, for example, that my unruly mind that lived in the wreckage of the future simply didn't have the capacity to imagine all the possibilities open to me and greatly underestimated my ability to do things I had never done before.  Guided by a friend in Paris, I found a place to live and a flatmate who turned out to be one of the most delightful women I have ever met.  I could pay my rent, cook for myself, explore the city,  Perhaps at this point you are laughing - of course a grown woman can do those things.  But consider this:   at 50 I had never lived on my own.  I missed my family but I gained confidence in my ability to take care of myself.

I also learned that the voices were correct.  I could do the classwork, I could finish the required reading (though sometimes it was a struggle), I could participate in seminar and I could write those papers in the proper form with an argument and sources cited as they should be    A great deal of that success was due to humility.  I hadn't darkened the doors of academia in 30 years and that was in the American system not the British one. When I didn't know what I was doing, I asked and my professors were more than happy to help, particularly my program director, Dr. Klekowski von Koppenfels, who was very patient with my never-ending inquiries.  From here are my research questions, are any of them promising? to what citation system should I use?

Less doubt meant more determination.  Nevertheless, I was still very worried about my dissertation. I did my fieldwork in Japan and I started doing the research and setting up the study as soon as I could.  That was another exercise in humility because studies that involve human beings meant understanding research ethics and submitting the study format and questions to an ethics review board.   Graduate students are not simply loosed upon the world to ask questions of anyone, anytime, anywhere. There are rules and there is supervision.  I had no idea.

Last step was writing it up.  14,000 words more or less, a research question, an argument, data I spent weeks reviewing, literature review that places this work within a context of other works and the absolutely necessary but truly dull business of citing sources and compiling a bibliography.  Ever day was filled with anxiety watching the deadline approach and counting down the number of days I had remaining.  I was up at 5 or 6 AM every day and went to bed at 10:00 PM when I was so exhausted that my vision was blurry and everything I wrote was utter crap.  The family was kind and ignored my grumpiness; they took over the household duties and proofread when asked.  I even had a weekly skype with my thesis advisor who finally gently gave me this bit of advice:  "There are perfect dissertations, Victoria, and there are finished dissertations."

I submitted a day before the March 22nd deadline.  Still consumed with doubt I tried to reread what I had already sent and when I found a spelling error on my first pass, I decided that the insanity had to end. I closed my text and let it go. Factum es.

Since the beginning of June I have been waiting to hear if I passed or not:  checking my school email every day.  Last night the verdict appeared in my inbox and it said:  "I am pleased to inform you that you have satisfied the Examiners in the examinations for the above degree at the appropriate standard."  And not only did I pass but with "Distinction" - the highest of the three grade categories (pass and merit are the other two).

So sometime at the end of November I will be in Canterbury Cathedral in Kent for the graduation ceremony.  I never attended the one for my BA so long ago but for my MA?  I wouldn't miss it for the world.  And let's be very clear, an MA doesn't make me a master of my specialty but it has made me a better observer and researcher in all the areas that interest me.  But above all, it represents to me the triumph of determination over doubt.  I honestly did not know if I could do it.  But I did.

With a great deal of help and encouragement.  The acknowledgements in my dissertation take up nearly an entire page.  Some of them may not even remember what they said that made a difference and are oblivious to how much it stayed in my mind until I was ready to act on it.  Thank you for having faith in me.

And now, on to other things.  The gardens awaits.  The job hunt begins.  And we'll see what this middle-aged woman can make of herself now.

A suivre.....

For anyone who is interested, I feel comfortable circulating my dissertation about Anglophones in Japan.  For those of you with more experience with academia, is there a place I can upload it?  Do I have the right to do so or do I have to ask my school?  If not, just send me an email (v_ferauge@yahoo.com) and I'll send you a copy with one caveat which is that I would like your thoughts and comments in return.

The Bac 2017

Oh yes, it's that time again.

High school students in France are taking their final exams for their "Bac" (le baccalauréat).  It is a grueling exercise that is stress for children and their parents. I lived through it twice and I am so glad I am done.   The elder Frenchling passed in 2011 and did so well that she was accepted by McGill University in Montreal.  We were and are so very proud of her.  The younger Frenchling passed in 2013 and also went off to Canada for university. We've been singing O Canada ever since but there are some days I wish we were all back in France playing on the beach in Brittany.

Le Monde has published the subjects for the June 20, 2017 exams for the Bac S, ES and L:  Physics/Chemistry, Economics and Social Sciences and Literature.  Have a look.

Bac 2017 : les sujets de physique-chimie, d’économie (SES) et de littérature

Could I answer these questions?  Not a chance, but perhaps some of you might do better.