Japan strains to welcome foreign students

[dArKeR]

FITTING IN: An attempt to improve Japan's reputation in Asia by inviting foreign students to the country is failing to leave a favorable impression on the visitors

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , FUKUOKA, JAPAN
Monday, Mar 29, 2004,Page 5

By any standard, Su Dake, a 26-year-old Chinese student, should feel satisfaction with his six years spent in Japan.

He expects to graduate from college in April and hopes to enter a master's program in business management. By working hard, and sleeping only a few hours each night, he has paid his college fees and won scholarships from his employer. Individual Japanese have been kind to him, like his boss, who called Su's landlord when the faucets in his apartment froze.

Still, he said he had never felt particularly welcome in Japan. Like other foreign students interviewed recently, Su said he had not made any Japanese friends here and planned to return to China after earning his master's degree.

"It's a sad fact to be unable to become friends with the people here," Su said after delivering newspapers on a recent morning. "Living in Japan is like staying in a hotel forever, never in a home. I'm always waiting to go home."

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/03/29/2003108199

I've always felt extremely welcome in JP, but I'm white. I've heard stories like this all over SE Asia.

[JaySherman]

1. Speaking from personal experience: very true.

Japan strains to welcome foreigners, period. It's said that no matter how long you've lived in Japan and how well you learn the language, you will always be a foreigner to the Japanese. Once a gaijin, always a gaijin. The Japanese are very welcoming on the surface, but if you live here long enough, you learn where you stand. It's supposedly the worst if you're Korean. I've heard stories of Koreans changing their names to Japanese in order to hide their ethnicity.

In the time I've lived and worked here the Japanese haven't left the most favorable impression on me. I highly doubt I could spend the rest of my life here.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. You can be a foreign student in any country

and not "fit in" with the local students or even feel welcome by society at large. I saw that a lot at my own universities, in the good ol' USA, where foreigners found it difficult to mingle with the locals. This is not a problem that is exclusively Japanese, by any stretch.

For its part, the government of Japan sponsors numerous scholarships each year for deserving foreign students. How many other countries do that? The local university has lots of foreign students from all continents and there are opportunities, through the International Student Association and other avenues, for them to mix socially with the Japanese student body. A lot of the graduates go on to work for local research organizations or international companies.