EPOK Research Project
Winter 2018

EPOK Research Project
Winter 2018

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Winter 2018

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EPOK Research Project
Winter 2018

Contents
From the course coordinator

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From the chief editor

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EPOK Students of spring and falls 20184

EPOK Research papers• The Custom of Removing Shoes in Japan (Emily Jew)
• The changes of purpose why people drink tea in japan (Wang Rongde)• Double letter words in Japanese complicate students who study Japanese
as a foreign language in Okayama University Tsushima campus

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• Do Katakana affect the correct English spelling?
Case of Okayama University students

20• The public image of genetically modified food in Japan• Comparing working women who go on maternity leave in Japan and Germany
EPOK Winter 2018 Poster

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FROM THE COURSE COORDINATOREPOK リサーチプロジェクトは、岡山大学の交換留学プログラム EPOK で学ぶ留学生がそれぞれの留学期間を通じて取り組む個別研究です。日本の社会や文化を探求する視野から自由に個々の課題を設定し、実践的にその課題に係る活動を観察するフィールドワークを通じてリサーチを行い、その成果をエッセイにまとめました。研究テーマは、変遷する文化や習慣の様相や意味、社会や産業にみる特徴、第二言語の学習に係る諸課題など、自由に広がっており、日本を学ぶという地域研
究の学際的取組を映し出しています。
2018 年度冬期修了の EPOK 生が作成したリサーチエッセイをここに文集としてまとめました。
このエッセイ集は、各々の取り組んだテーマを通じて見た日本の姿を示すだけでなく、そこに至る過程での学びや異文化の経験に取り組んだ一人一人の EPOK の軌跡でもあります。

In the course of EPOK Research Project EPOK students worked on the individual
research theme in relation to their interest in Japanese culture and society throughout their timeat Okayama University. The compilation of the research essay in this book is the final product of
their exploration and discovery. The 2018-winter EPOK research essay collection shows a goodvariety of their interest, including unique custom and culture, second-language education,
workplace system and practice, and issue in agriculture.
I hope the process of searching and finding own theme of interest is acknowledged as atangible, exciting and unique experience for each of the EPOK student in learning about theculture which could be different from their own. May this collection of the essays be a token of
their discovery and endeavor in Okayama, Japan.

2019 年 2 月
Obayashi Junko 大林純子
EPOK advisor
Center for Global Partnerships and Education
Okayama University

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FROM THE CHIEF EDITOR
One says there are many ways of life we can choose, but we will not know until we walkthrough. As one of EPOK students, I would say that we have walked through one of the greatest
way in our life since we decided to study at Okayama University. This program provide us many
excellent courses such as learning Japanese cultures, exploring wonderful places andinternational exchange events with Japanese students. We also enjoy travelling since Okayama islocated in the perfect hub connecting to various travel spots. In the same time, we have opened
our world. In the Sharehouse dormitory, we have met and learned other people from different
countries and cultures. We spend time together, we play together, we hang out together and wehelp to each other. That makes life in Japan more marvelous. We are now connected with new
friends around the world. Our world was changed, our world is bigger. From bottom of my heart,
I believe that one day the destiny will bring us to meet these great memorial friends again.
In this EPOK Research Project, I ensure that we pass on our interest while staying inJapan with our great passion and motivation of curiosity. Even though we will go back to ourhome land, our left treasures will stay still. When we open this booklet, we will be reminded that
Once we were here, Once we were curious, Once we searched and Once we learned. Thank you
EPOK program for this greatest experience, it will be engraved on our memory forever.

Thanaphon Khiomonthon
January 20193

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EPOK STUDENTS OF SPRING & FALL 2018

Name: Emily Lynette Jew
Age: 22
Major: Speech-Language Pathology
Home University: California State University, East Bay
Favorite Experiences While Studying in Japan: Meeting themost すばらしいともだち s, finding the most かっこいいか
れし, learning the ぶんか, improving my にほんご, and being
able to explore the best of にほん.

Name: Wang Rongde
Age: 21
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Home University: National Taiwan University
Favorite Experiences While Studying in Japan: Well I think
the best experience for me during my stay in Japan was that I
can make a lot of foreign friends from many countries and evenhad many chances to travel with them. And also my language
ability has improved a lot in both Japanese and English
because of that.

Name: Thanaphon Khiomonthon
Age: 23
Major: English
Home University: Kasetsart University
Favorite Experiences While Studying in Japan: Learningand exchanging knowledge to each other with people who arefrom different countries, different culture and different
lifestyle.

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Name: Nitiwat Watthanapongpin
Age: 23
Major: English
Home University: Kasetsart University
Favorite Experiences While Studying in Japan: It is thebest opportunity to meet new lifelong friends from different
backgrounds around the world.

Name: Torge Heitmueller
Age: 23
Major: Plant Biotechnology
Home University: Leibniz University HannoverFavorite Experiences While Studying in Japan: Participatingin the Misasa Town Festival during Golden Week with
Fujimoto-sensei’s class and our short road trip to Mt. Daisen
for the torch parade

Name: Nele Ahrensmeier
Age: 22
Major: Economic Science
Home University: Leibniz University HannoverFavorite Experiences While Studying in Japan: Firstly,
getting to know Japanese culture and the country as a wholeand secondly, meeting other international students from allaround the world. It was an amazing experience where
unforgettable memories were made.

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The Custom of Removing Shoes in Japan
日本における靴を脱ぐという慣習について
Emily Jew エミリージュウ
California State University, East Bay (USA)
私が初めて日本を訪れたとき、私が最初に体感した文化の違いの中の一つは、部屋に入る前に靴を脱ぐ必要があるということです。私はアメリカ出身で、そこでは屋内でも靴を脱ぐ必要がないので、最初はこの靴を脱ぐという行為に手間を感じました。しかし、私は日本の文化を尊敬し、そして学びたかったので、日本に住むことを決意 しました。それ故に、私はこのプログラムで、この慣習の起源、時の流れと共にどのように発展したのかを調べ、自身の個人的な考察も交えながら、日本における靴を脱ぐという慣習に対して日本人と留学生の両方にインタビューを行いました。

Before arriving in Japan, I understood that there was a rule about removing our shoes before
entering a home. However, I didn’t completely comprehend this custom, and I still don’t. During my stayin Japan, I realized that it was a really bad idea to have only brought shoes that required to be tied on, as it
always took time when leaving the house. It was extremely inconvenient, for moments when I would
prepare to leave my home by putting on my shoes, only to have to take them off right away because I had
forgotten something inside. It felt unnecessary, especially if I was in a rush. Despite this, I never broke therule, as I knew that there had to be some kind of reason behind this action, even if it didn’t matter so muchto me.
As a foreigner, I want to be respectful to Japanese culture, and, therefore, I feel that I should learn
why this custom is important. That way, I could learn to appreciate it rather than feel inconvenienced. In
addition, while I do wish to know the beginning of the removal of shoes, I’m also curious as to how thisbelief could have changed throughout the years, if it has. For that reason, I will research how this customof removing shoes in Japan originated and how that mindset has changed over history.
Before getting started on the background of this custom, I believe it’s important to understand thebasics. When entering a Japanese house, there is an area called the doma,
which displays a tiled floor at the entrance where people are expected toremove their shoes before completely going inside. Raised about 15 cm
above the doma is the agarikamachi, which is the wooden floor that forms
the edge of the interior (Murachi, 1989). The agarikamachi is viewed as asort of border or threshold that separates the world of the outside, where
shoes are worn, and the inside, where people are barefoot. This also
includes the doma. Most foreigners believe that because they are inside,
it’s acceptable (Murachi, 1989). Even though it is technically inside of thehouse, the doma is viewed as being part of the dirty outside world andshould never be stood on without shoes. After removing one shoe, the footthat is barefoot should immediately step on the agarikamachi without
touching the doma. This action is then repeated with the other foot that isstill within the boundary of the doma. Finally, the shoes should always beneatly facing the doorway, not the other way around as this is common
The Doma & Agarikamachi, photo by
etiquette. Normally, slippers are also used at the entrance to step into,
Emily Jew
rather than entering with bear feet.
Now we understand the rules of this practice. However, where did the custom come from and why
is it so important to modern life even now?
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The history of this custom goes way back in the past to ancient Japan times. It was believed that
gods and spirits resided all around them, including almost every aspect of mother nature in Japan. Thisbelief began with Shintoism, which referred to the Way of the Gods. It was this belief system that madepeople believe that every mountain, stream, and tree was connected with a spirit. “These deities, known
as kami, were considered cheerful and friendly to humans. If kept satisfied, they would watch over humanaffairs and refrain from causing natural disasters” (ushistory.org, 2017).
However, if the people disobeyed their physical and spiritual cleanliness rules, the kami wouldn’t
hesitate to unleash their wrath unto them. Because of this, worshippers were careful to avoid dirtying holy
areas by participating in ritual purifications to clean themselves before entering the torii, which are the gatesleading into sacred precinct of a Shinto shrine. By keeping yourself clean, it meant that the kami would be
happy, and, in return, make daily life for humans peaceful.
“The place where kami reside must be clean and pure, for in a real sense order and cleanliness arenext to godliness in Japan. This religious awareness manifests itself in a Shinto aesthetic that permeates thewhole of Japanese sensibility and culture—an aesthetic that seeks harmonious blending with the beauty andsimplicity of nature and emphasizes the pure, the clean, the tranquil, and the natural character of things”(Ellwood and Pilgrim, 2016). Because of this mindset coming from religion, actions such as removing yourshoes before entering certain areas, wearing surgical masks, showering before entering a pool of water,
having separate slippers for the bathroom, and requiring students to clean their own classrooms are routine
for all Japanese citizens. These practices have become ingrained into Japanese culture, and if they are notfollowed, you will be frowned upon and judged, as you will be seen as not having a peaceful mind or good
morals (Rhae, 2017).
In addition to religious explanations, the sense of cleanliness in general during Japan’s historicalages was another reason for the custom of removing shoes. “The climate in Japan is very humid. Back whenroads weren’t paved or layered with stones, the Japanese naturally removed their shoes to stop bringing in
mud and dirt from the outside. This was especially because houses were made with `tatami` flooring, whichis extremely hard to clean dirt from” (GladTeam, 2017). Adding on to this, the floor was not just for walking
on for the Japanese, it was also used for other daily activities such as eating and sleeping on. Such examples
include the fact that many Japanese people will eat their meals on low tables while sitting on a cushion on
the floor. Also, laying out a futon on the floor and sleeping on it is still a common act now. Because of this,just the thought of being so close to the dirt compels Japanese citizens to go through extra lengths to keep
their home and floors void of grime.
When comparing Japan to the West, we can see that many characteristics of the latter had been
adapted to over the years, thus, making Japan more “Westernized”. “Japanese people have maintained agreat interest and curiosity in imported things, including religion and science. This is why Japanese people
never felt any strong resistance against the introduction of Western culture, both spiritual and material”(Hirai, 1999). Such characteristics include the adoption of Western clothes, food, drinks, hairstyles,
buildings, education, and even words. In addition, women in Japan dyed their teeth black during the Edoera, but that also began to disappear by the Meiji era after foreigners who were visiting Japan thought that
their teeth had rotten. In regard to the Westernization of architecture in Japan, within the common Japanese
home, most replaced sliding doors with push open doors, the tatami floor was replaced by normal wooden
floors, chairs replaced cushions, and futons were replaced by beds. And an example of a Westernized drinkthat was brought over by foreigners was beer, which was first brewed in the 1870s during the Meiji era(Beech, 2018).
With these cultural changes, it brought on a new sort of convenience to Japanese society. Even so,
there are other features of Western culture that Japan decided not to adapt to, specifically the action of
keeping one’s shoes on within the house. Most Westerners find it normal to leave their shoes on indoors,and, therefore, if they were required to always remove their shoes before entering their home, most wouldfind it a nuisance and question the full process.
Why then did Japan decide to opt out of taking the Western, or more convenient, way of entering
a home? From past research, it seems as though it’s because of the feeling of cleanliness people get when
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they remove their shoes, which are only worn outside in the dirt. However, from my personal experienceof living in Japan, the floors in the house still get just as dirty, despite following the rule of taking off ourshoes. As an American, I still think about this often and wonder if it really does any good of keeping dirt
out. In addition, a lot of the Japanese people I’ve met aren’t the cleanest in general. Before arriving in Japan,
I had an image that they would keep their houses and rooms clean, more than most. However, most of thestudents here are like any other person. They have messy rooms, both private and common, and they don’t
seem to mind it much. In fact, I would say that the way they live during their daily lives contribute more to
how dirty their rooms are compared to if they were to wear their shoes indoors. Therefore, I can only
conclude that their way of thinking in regard to their shoes may be more of a psychological thing rather
than having physical proof, as it seems to not make any difference either way.
To get an understanding of how other people besides me feel about this custom, I held a smallinterview with 20 students: 10 Japanese students and 10 foreign students, each from a different country andbackground. The purpose of this interview was not only to find how they felt about it, but to also discoverif they know the origins of why Japanese people take part in it, and if they only follow this rule blindly justbecause they were taught to do so from the day they were born. The questions provided are the following
below:
1. How do you feel about the custom of having to remove your shoes before entering the house?
2. Why do you think the Japanese have this custom?
3. Do you know the actual reason why they have this custom? If not, can you guess?
4. Why do you still keep up with this act?
5. To Japanese students: If somebody were to leave their shoes on, would you get angry/shocked? If
so, would the anger/shock come from the fact that they disrespected the custom? Or because it’s
dirty?
To foreign students: Do you think Japanese people would be angry/shocked? If so, do you think
the anger/shock would come from the fact that you disrespected their custom? Or because it’s
dirty?
6. To Japanese students: In general, do you think this custom makes a difference in how clean yourroom is?
To foreign students: Do you think this custom makes a difference in how clean your room is?
Have you noticed any change in comparison to your room in your home country?
7. To Japanese students: Would you say that you’re a tidy person in general? Do you clean on a regularbasis?
To foreign students: During your experience of living with Japanese students, are theygenerally tidy?
Japanese Responses:
Q1:
Natural (10)Q2:
Keep home clean (10)Q3:Don’t know/Guess incorrectly (2)Don’t know/Guess correctly (6)Q4:Taught from birth/Keeps house clean (10)Q5:Shocked/Dirty (10)Q6:
Yes (10)
Q7:
Yes (5)
No (5)
Foreigner Response:
Q1: Natural (2)Neutral (3)Annoying (5)Q2: Keep home clean (10)
Q3: Don’t know/GuessDon’t know/Guess
Does know (1)incorrectly (1)correctly (8)8Does know (2)EPOK Research Project
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Q4:

Japanesetaught/Respect (6)Japanesetaught/Clean (1)Japanese taught/Sometimes
ignore (1)

Q5:
Q6:
Q7:

Shocked/Dirty (3)Yes (2)
Yes (4)Angry/Disrespect (6)No (6)
No (2)

Angry/Dirty (1)Maybe (2)Depends (4)Already knew
from homecountry/Clean (2)The end result came out to be similar to what I had guessed, as the Japanese students weren’t relying
on past history to continue with this custom, but rather the psychology of cleanliness. However, I was wrong
in the fact that they actually wouldn’t be angry at the disrespect if shoes were to be worn inside, only
shocked because of the dirtiness. In addition, the students with an Asian background sympathized with theJapanese students, more than the students of other cultures.
By understanding this topic, I hope to teach foreigners who are either living in or visiting Japanand aren’t aware of the custom, or, if they do know, to encourage them to appreciate this custom rather thanbe annoyed. While most Japanese people no longer link this custom back to its origins, it’s still importantto them, so I believe that it’s only right to respect them and follow their rules.
Thank you for reading my research paper. I only wish that visitors to Japan would enjoy learning
about the various customs of their culture, so I hope that this paper has given some new insight and interest
to the topic.

Reference
Beech, Philip. Japan & Early Westernization. n.d. 30 October 2018.
Ellwood, Robert and Richard Pilgrim. Japanese Religion: A Cultural Perspective. Abingdon: Routledge , 2016.
GladTeam. Taking Off Shoes in Japan: Must Know Japanese Customs. 31 October 2017. 30 July 2018.
Hirai, Naofusa. "Traditional Cultures and Modernization: Several Problems in the Case of Japan." Cultural Identity andModernization in Asian Countries: Proceedings of Kokugakuin University Centennial Symposium (1999). 5 October
2018.
Murachi, Takashi. "Taking off Shoes to Enter Japanese Houses - Why?" Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (1989): 385.
Rhae, Donna. Hygiene Practices in Japan. 29 June 2017. <https://www.odigo.jp/articles/8124-hygiene-practices-in-japan>.
ushistory.org. Japanese Religion and Spirituality. 2018. <http://www.ushistory.org/civ/10a.asp>.

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The changes of purpose why people drink tea in japan
日本におけるお茶を飲む理由の変化
Wang Rongde 王榮德National Taiwan University (Taiwan)

要旨：私の育った台湾では、お茶はコーヒーなどと同様に単なる飲み物です。一部の人はこだ
わりを持って飲みますが、それでもただの飲み物です。しかし、日本では茶の湯という文化があります。茶の湯は、単なる飲み物ではなく、作法や部屋のアレンジ、その裏にある精神も含
めた全てです。日本では、お茶は単なる飲み物ではなく、芸術になっています。このため、日本人がお茶を飲む目的は、台湾をはじめ他の国とは違うのではないかと考えました。しかし、お茶の文化はかなり変化しているように思います。よって、日本人がお茶を飲む目的について知りたいと思いました。この研究では、お茶の歴史と「なぜ日本人がお茶を飲むのか」について探求しました。
1. History
In this section, the history of tea will be explored by referring Urasenke Chanoyu Hand book (1993).
(1) Origin/Tea seeds were not native to japan, but introduced from china sometime in the early Heian period (7941185). This age corresponds in history with T’ang dynasty (818-907) in china…….. most probably tea
seeds entered japan among the goods brought back by such scholar-priests as Saicho (767-822) andKukai(774-835) who were dispatched as envoys to the T’ang court or by those Chinese envoys who
remained as naturalized persons in japan./
According to this passage, we can tell that tea is not originated in japan and Japanese had never drink tea
before Heian period. As a result, tea was relatively a foreign stuff rather than a traditional drinking. And
also we do not need to discuss the time before Heian period because tea was not introduced before then.
/Tea was originally prepared in japan in the T’ang tradition known as dancha. The tea leaves were firststeamed and beaten into firm balls……tea was drunk in this manner in japan but it was probably a
privilege of only a segment of the nobility and priesthood. Subsequent literary accounts fail to mention
tea until the Kamakura period and it may be assumed that tea was forgotten until then. /This paragraph shows that the so-called chanoyu had not formed yet. In this period of time they just used
the Chinese style to drink tea. And because of the rarity of tea, tea was only drunk by the nobility not byordinaries. So the purpose of drinking tea that time was just purely drinking some foreign beverages. And
after that, tea was not drunk by Japanese until Kamakura period (1185-1392).
(2) Kamakura period (1185-1392)/A renewed interest in tea appears with the reintroduction of seeds in the Kamakura period by the priest
Eisai(1141-1215) who brought the teaching of Rinzai Zen Buddhism to japan……….was the foremost
selection in tea competitions and social tea gatherings which enjoyed popularity in the Nambokucho
period(1336-1392)./
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Now we know that tea was introduced to japan again in Kamakura period and was later become more
popular, which will be discussed in the later paragraph. Now let us take a look at how tea was popularized
and why people drank tea that time.
/When the third shogun, Minamoto Sanemoto(1192-1219), was suffering from the aftereffects of heavy
drinking, Eisai’s recommendation of tea as a practical treatment successfully cured the ailingruler………Eisai professes that tea is the wizard’s herb for sustaining life and the secret or long life./
Apparently, in the early Kamakura period tea was thought of as a thing that is good for health and evenhas the effect same as medicine. Maybe it was a little bit exaggerated but it was actually the purpose why
people drink tea that time.
/After Eisai’s demise and until the end of the Kamakura period, tea was drunk chiefly by zen monks, whofound it useful in staying off sleep during their meditations as well as by the nobility and high ranking
warriors./
For monks, in addition to some of the nobility, tea has the effect of keeping them awake, which is anotherpurpose of drinking tea during that period of time. However, tea still seems not that popular among ordinary
people.
/In Koan 5(1282), a tea gathering known as ochamori was held in the sacred precincts of Saidaiji temple
in Nara. Ochamori means literally a large serving of tea……..marked the mutation of teaas a way andfurther fulfillment of its spiritual aspects…..to have treated the gathered crowd to tea …….this wasprobably the first occasion of tea drinking among masses./
By this time, tea was finally spread to the public. And the purpose of people drinking tea is for some kindsof religion procedures or have religion effects.
/Tocha or tea tournaments were added, becoming a form of polite accomplishment in the Nambokucho
period (1336-1392). Tocha itself consisted of classifying varieties of tea by regions. Contestants were
judge on their ability to identify different kinds of tea………the most elaborate account of tocha gathering
appears in Taiheiki hosted by the powergul Sasaki Doyo(1295-1373)./
In this period of time, drinking tea had become a way of competition, where prizes wagered by theparticipants were distributed. Prior to this time, people drank tea for its medicinal value. However, in thisperiod of time people drank tea for amusement.
(3) Chanoyu/Tocha as central from ofrecreation gradually lost its appeal and tea grew to be widely associated withwine drinking parties. /At the end of Kamakura period, tea had lost its popularity and people turned to focus on wine foramusement. However, after entering the Sengoku jidai, the concept of Zen was added into tea. And Shuko
was considered an important pioneer.
/Shuko learned that “the buddha’s law exists also in tea” and that the same spirit prevails in both Zen
training and in the mastery of tea…….this spiritual code is the precedent of Sen Rikyu’s guide to the spiritof the heart in tea: harmony, respect, purity and tranquility./
According to the passage, tea was not purely for health or amusement nor competition, now tea had
leveled up to spiritual level with the concepts of Zen behind it. Followed by Sen Rikyu, who completed the11

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spirit of Zen brings about the beauty elements of chanoyu: wabi, sabi, and suki, the so-called chanoyu, ortea ceremony was formed.
From then on, tea ceremony had become an important part of Japanese culture. This kind of tea ceremony
had become a kind of art. From the chashitsu, all the settings in it like kakemono and the cha itself are all
the presentation of simplicity because all these elements are pure and simple without so many complicating
things. People started to drink tea because of some spiritual reason, which was really different from that
before.
(4) Meiji Ishin (1968)
The tradition of chanoyu had lasted for a very long time as an important Japanese culture until Meiji
Ishin. In this period of time, Japanese tended to dismiss tradition culture and try to follow western culture.
As a result, chanoyu had lost its importance gradually.
However, with the advances of technology, it is much easier for people to access various kinds of tea.
Nowadays, we can drink tea every time and anywhere whenever we want because there are so many kindsof tea in convenient store. We do not need to prepare tea by themselves by difficult procedures. So I thinktea has definitely gained much more popular than before. People drink tea for many purpose as well.
Now, I am going to evaluate the purpose why people drink tea in modern japan according to thequestionnaire I made.

2. Modern Japan(1) About the questionnaire
Among all the effective 80 responses, there are 22 responses that are not Japanese. That is to say there
are 58 responses that are done by Japanese. However, those people who are not Japanese are now living injapan as international student so I will add those responses to my evaluation as well.
The consistence of ages is shown below:

It is a little bit focus on people between 20-25 years old (41%), but we also got quite a few people over
40 years old (38%), so I think is acceptable.

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(2) Results and analyze
The frequency of people drinking tea is shown below

Surprisingly, people drink tea more often than I thought. 50% of people response that they drink tea
2 times or above every day. This corresponds to what I said before that tea has definitely gained much
more popular than before. And the reason why can drink tea so often is also highly related toconvenience store, as shown below:

Most people access tea by bottles which is mostly sold in convenience store or vending machine, andquite a lot people also by tea bag. What surprise me is that there are still 28% of people who drink tea
directly from leaves, which is the traditional way to prepare tea. That is to say japan still under the impact
of chanoyu.
And for the most important part: the purpose why people drink tea is shown below.
It shows that most people (64%) drink tea just because of their hobby. Also, quite a lot people drink tea
because of thirsty, which is reasonable. However, seldom people drink tea because of health or not to fallasleep. These two purposes used to be the main purposes of people in the past to drink tea, as we mentioned
before. As a result, we can say that the purpose why people drink tea changes again in nowadays. And thereason why people will consider tea as a kind of beverage is probably because it is so easy to access tea
nowadays.

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Reference
Soshitsu Sen XV (1993) CHANOYU handbook One (4th edition), Urasenke Foundation.
Soshitsu Sen XV (1997) The Japanese Way of Tea: From Its Origins in China to Sen Rikyu, University of Hawaii Press.

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Double letter words in Japanese complicate students who study Japanese as a foreign language
in Okayama University Tsushima campus
Thanaphon Khiomonthon タナポンキオモントン
Kasetsart University (Thailand)

日本語では「ダブルレターワード」という 小 さい「つ」で表される音である言葉と「おば あ さん」や「りょうり」などの長音がよく使われます。しかし，例えば「おばさん-おばあさん」の発音は似ており，同じ音に聞こえることがあります．そのため，聞き間違いによる誤解を生む場合があります．こういった経緯からダブルレターワードや長音に関心を持つようになりました．この研究では，留学生がどのようにダブルレターワードや長音を理解をするのか調べ， 正しい発音を目指した勉強方法について提案します．

I. Literature review
The authors want to know the way to develop pronunciation in Japanese double letter words of
JSL, or foreign people who learned Japanese as their second language. They invented CALL system andapplied it with participants mostly JSL students. They found that CALL system is useful for teaching
Japanese double letter word phones. The system is significant because it is the first CALL system to provide
corrective feedback similar to what human teachers would provide when teaching Japanese pronunciation.
In addition, this feedback is easy to understand and apply to students who might have a pronunciation
problem. The system can help learners to acquire skills in a short period.
1. Introduction
When people speak second or foreign language, they do not notice any mispronunciation words as
their mother tongue. They tend to look over and focus on language structure and grammar more than theirpronunciation. However, pronunciation is also important in successful communication. The communication
would be error if the information people want to convey used in incorrect pronunciation words because themeaning may be completely changed even their grammar and structure are so perfect. In Japanese, there
are many double letter words including long vowels and double non-vowel consonants that obstacle
foreigners who learn Japanese as a foreign language in Japan. Sometimes, it causes them to make acommunication error without intention. There are plenty of words that sound familiar with double letterwords; for example, おばあさん(Obaasan/Grandmother) and おばさん(Obasan/Aunt) which differ inpronunciation duration at the second syllable, or おと(Oto/Sound) and おっと(Otto/Husband) which soundthe same if you speak at the same duration.
This background information leads this research to study on how much students who are learning
Japanese can pronounce and understand these double consonant words. This study separated data collective
way into two sections including double consonant word pronunciation and listening. Based on the researchof Goh kawai and Keikichi Hirose, this study aims to find the pronunciation error point and try to improve
it with a reliable methodology. In addition, this research will find how related of double consonant
pronunciation and listening in foreigner students in Okayama University.
Acquiring nativelike pronunciation is the most desirability among foreign language learners.
However, most adult learners develop fossilized pronunciations that are too late to be native speaker.
Research suggests that some adults can attain close to-native pronunciation through intense training. One
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Winter 2018of reliable training is CALL (computer-aided language learning) system developed by Goh and Keikichi intheir research. They believe that applying CALL systems to practice students who pronounce some double
consonant words incorrectly individually in parallel may help them improve their pronunciation errors.
This paper aims to find how understand in double consonant words of foreign students and try apractice to improve their pronunciation for being an alternative way in practicing correct pronunciation.
2. Methodology
The methodology used in this research mostly based on the research of Goh Kawai and Keikichi
Hirose which adapting and adding more to be matched for this area. Initially, I made a questionnaire which
included three section. The first section is participant information. For this part, this study want to knowthat the level of Japanese language of participant whether has an impact on how correct in pronunciationand listening. I also asked about the extra learning in Japanese language that may be useful for other people
who try to learn the language. The second section is pronunciation part. This part is mostly like Goh Kawai
and Keikichi Hirose research methodology which is CALL system. In this part, participant will read a shortpassage that included the double consonant words but they will not know about it. However, there are somedifferences. For example, the former research use this CALL with Japanese as a second language student
while this study apply for Japanese as a foreign language learner. However, the language level is different
and many foreign students studying Japanese in Okayama are not good as the students who learn Japanese
as a second language yet. So, the experiment in this paper will be adapted for the students in appropriate
way. In this study, the passage is applied from news on NHK Web easy for Japanese learners which has a
lot of easy to understand words. Even though there are some kanji appearing in the context, participants
can read because I put hirakana, Japanese letter expressing sound in each kanji, on top of every kanji. The
third section is listening part. The purpose of this section is to find the relation between pronunciation andlistening of the participants. The study has ten words for participants to listen to and fill in the box whichsound they heard. They can only listen for one time. In each word, there are two or more similar soundchoices. The target of this study is to collect data from fifteen participants which including various level ofJapanese language. Every sounds in this section came from the kind help of a Japanese native speaker which
he tried so hard to make neutral sounds as good as possible. Also, I asked another Japanese native speaker
to listen to the sounds I got. This another Japanese said the sounds is clear and understandable.
After collecting data, I will analyze first and third sections while the second section will be analyzed
by Japanese native speaker whose sounds are used in the third section. Moreover, this native speaker will
provide feedback to those who made mistakes in the listening part. If a participant did well in the experimentor more than 90 percent, he or she will not be applied for the next step. Then, I will separate thoseparticipants who do make some mistake into two group, control group and experiment group. I will give
feedback in the first part about where the mistake is and how to make it better by the suggestion of thenative speaker. Also, they will listen to every sounds in the third part and learn by themselves about thedifferences. On the other hand, I will only let the control group know about their score.
After feedback giving for one month, I will do a test again. This time I will change some markpoint in the second and third sections. And after that, I will compare to the former test and find the progress.
The study will know that CALL system is work or not in this period. By the way, if participants can reachmore than 90 percent in some part, there will be no the second test since the purpose of this paper is to findout that can CALL system be used with students who learn Japanese as foreign language(JFL student).
3. Data analysis
I spent whole October to collecting first test data and analyze them. The fifteen participants arefrom many countries including India, Taiwan, America, Germany, Paraguay, Thailand, Indonesia andChina. Also, their Japanese level is from level one until level seven but all of them can read hirakana and16

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Winter 2018some kanji. In this analysis part, I will used number demonstrating the participants from “no.1 to no.15” tomake it easier and more understandable.
In the reading part, participants are asked to read a passage from news which include Japanese
double letter words. There are 3 pairs of double letter words that might be confused by its similar
pronunciation including:
1.りょこうーりょかんーりょうり
2.きょねんーきょうねん
3.じけんーじっけん.
For analyzing, a Japanese native speaker helped me after collecting first data. Here is the analyzed
data which focus only on the double letter words.
Word

Mistake(no.)

りょこう

7

りょかん

None

りょうり

None

きょねん

None

きょうねん

2,9

じけん

7

じっけん

1,2,5,8,9,12Table 1: First reading test

After analyzing this data with the native speaker, I was a bit surprise that only seven participants
including no.1, no.2, no.5, no.7, no.8, no.9, and no.12 making mistake in double letter word pronunciationand they did less than two mistakes. Three of seven participants made two mistakes while other four
participants made only one mistake. The most mistake word is じっけん because six people fell for thisword, they pronounce it as じけん instead. So, it means there are some of JFL students who are confused
about the word mixing with small「つ」and most of them omit this sound and speak it as the similar word
without small「つ」that make a shorten sound. In the next test, I asked only the participants who made atleast one mistake so there will be seven participants in the second test. In addition, I random them into twogroups including four participants in experiment group and three participants in control group. After
analyzing this data, I told the experiment group about their performance and gave them feedback that would
help their pronunciation by practicing their mistake pronunciation in a month while I did not tell the control
group for this part.
One month after I gave feedback to the experiment group, I asked all of seven participants to do
the second test. In this time, I used the same passage. Four participants in the experiment group including
no.1, no.7, no.8 and no.9 read the last time passage which providing a note telling them which word they
made mistake and how to improve it. However, three participants in the control group including no.2, no.5
and no.12 get a clean passage. Here is the result of the second test comparing to the first test.

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Mistake Words

First test(no.)

Second test(no.)

りょこう

7

None

きょうねん

2,9

2

じけん

7

None

じっけん

1,2,5,8,9,12

1,2,5,8

Table 2: First and second reading tests

After analyzed the second test data, the result is demonstrate that only three participants canimprove their pronunciation which two students are from experiment group and one student is from control
group. That means this applied CALL system may not good enough to enhance student language skill forstudying Japanese. Nevertheless, the native speaker who analyzed these tests says the pronunciation of theexperiment group are better than before. He also mentioned that even though they still made same mistake,it came nearer or almost correct which he did not found in the control group. I found that the participantsin experiment group are more beware of pronunciation.
The third part or listening part came into the same time. In this part, participants are asked to listen
to the given sounds only one time and to choose the right answer they heard. There are ten questions
providing similar words which are:Six pairs of similar words including1.
おばさんーおばあさん、
2.
おじさんーじいさん、3.
にんぎょーにんぎょう、
4.
さいきょーさいきょう、5. おとーおっと、6. きとーきっと.
Three pairs of three similar words including
1. じけんーじいけんーじっけん、2. じこーじっこうーじっこ、3. しょきーしょうきーしょっき.
A pair of four similar word which is
1. いっしょーいっしょうーいしょーいしょう.
Participants
No.1
No.2
No.3
No.4
No.5
No.6
No.7
No.8
No.9
No.10
No.11
No.12
No.13
No.14
No.15

First test score
9/10
6/10
4/10
5/10
6/10
6/10
8/10
5/10
6/10
6/10
7/10
7/10
9/10
8/10
9/10

Second test score
8/10
5/10
6/10
9/10
8/10
7/10
9/10
7/10
6/10
9/10
8/10
10/10
-

When I got all the first test data of the third part, I foundthat no one can get full score. There are three participants who
get score more than 90 percent so they are not included in thesecond test. Most of participants get a score more than half
and there are people who get half score. By the way, only one
participant get score less than half.
In this part, the top three mistakes are いしょ(13 people),
きと(10 people) and じこ(8 people). I noticed that when I
collecting this test, most of participants said they were notsure about いしょ. Not because there are four choices, butthey all seem very similar, especially, いしょ and いっしょ.
It is quite difficult to distinguish the differences.

Table 3: First and second listening test

After I analyzed the first data, I prepared for the second test immediately. I random twelve
participants into two group, six in each experiment group and control group. For the experiment group
including no.2, no.5, no.6, no.8, no.11 and no.14, I told them their score and sent them the sound file for18

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practicing their listening skill and finding where differences are a month before the second test. However,I did tell the control group only their score.
When I finished checking the second test result, I found clearly different between experiment andcontrol group. Even though most of experiment group still made mistake in いしょ, they get better in othersounds. On the other hand, some participants in control group get a little better while some other get lower
score. So I get feedback from participants about the second test. Experiment group agree that it is easier tolisten and distinguish the sound they heard while control group says there is no a big change comparing to
the first test.
4. Conclusion
In my experience, I occasionally suffer this error when I speak with Japanese people and,sometimes, they misunderstand what I want to say. Since there are a lot of similar words like this, we canfind those kind of words in daily life. Now, I found that some foreign student in Okayama University are
confused about pronouncing the double letter words in Japanese language, but many of them can pronounce
correctly. Although the CALL system can be used with student who learn Japanese as a second language,
it might not enough for student who learn Japanese as a foreign language. On the other hand, this technique
can be used in listening practice because most of students who get feedback after the first test, they get abetter score while the students who did not get feedback get a little higher score or even lower score. In the
future, I hope this technique could be used for practicing language skill which will be very useful for
language learners in advance.
For the further study, there are a lot of other specific topic that can be expanded more. For instance,
there are pairs of similar sounds in Japanese language such as 「すーつ」or「しーち」which including
the impact of mother tongue toward foreign language acquiring.

References
Goh Kawai and Keikichi Hirose, (1997). A CALL system using speech recognition to train the pronunciation of Japanese longvowels, the mora nasal and mora obstruents. Fifth European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology,
EUROSPEECH 1997
NHK News Web Easy. 夏に外国へ旅行に行く人が今まででいちばん多くなりそう. At
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10011513481000/k10011513481000.html

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Do Katakana affect the correct English spelling?
Case of Okayama University students
Nitiwat Watthanapongpin 二ティワットワッタナーポンピン
Kasetsart University (Thailand)
日本人の英語（カタカナ）は面白い自分のアイデンティティだと思います。カタカナ語というのは英語から借りる言葉ですが、日本語の文字で書かれ、日本語の音で話されます。日本人はい
つもカタカナを書きそして話していますから、それで、私は疑問に思いました。日本人（岡山大学生）にカタカナの言葉を英語でスペルさせたら、日本人（岡山大学生）は正しい英語をスペルすることができるのか、そしてもし間違ってたらどのようなスペルをするのか。岡山大学生をL-café 大
学生とL-café 大学生じゃない二つのグループに分けて調査をしました。

“Do loanwords in Japanese (Katakana) affect the correct English spelling of Okayama University?”
From research “English Loanwords in Japanese: Effects, Attitudes and Usage as a Means of Improving
Spoken English Ability” by Ben Olah (2007). This paper looks at the extensive use of English loanwords
in Japanese and how loanwords usually have a negative effect on the ability of Japanese people who use
spoken English. In addition, the attitudes of Japanese university students towards loanwords in Japanese.
The result showed that the large number of English loanwords used in Japanese creates problems
for Japanese people when they speak English because the poor pronunciation of these loanwords acts as abarrier to understanding. In addition, the meanings of some loanwords are considerably different to theEnglish words from which they came, a semantic gap that creates further problems when Japanese speak
English.
In addition, the results of a questionnaire given to a group of university students showed that mostof them thought that there were too many loanwords used in Japanese and there was a large number ofloanwords they did not understand. However, the results revealed that students want loanwords to be taught
as part of English classes at junior high and high school.
From Ben Olah’s research, I notice that he just focused on the effect of loanwords in Japanese to
English speaking skill however he did not focus on any writing skill, so I would like to do the research onof writing and spelling, so my research topic is “Do loanwords in Japanese (katakana) affect the correct
English spelling of Okayama University students?”
From Ben Olah’s methodology, He split the issues of loanwords in Japanese into two types, suchas, issues caused by pronunciation and issues caused by semantic change. In my research, I will focus onjust only the issues caused by pronunciation (phonological change) because I think that loanwords inJapanese pronunciation that are based on katakana sound might relate with English spelling’s way ofJapanese.
The methodology is making a loanwords vocabulary spelling test. Every loanword in this test will
be written using katakana characters. The loanword vocabularies will be divided into four types according
to phonological change by Ben Olah’s division such as syllable expansion, shortening,shortening/combination and phonological change. Moreover, I started by choosing most of the Katakana
vocabularies from “Genki 2” the elementary Japanese textbook, because I think that most of vocabularies
in this textbook are used in daily life, so Japanese student might be used to it. In addition, I found some ofthem from the website conversation context, and I chose words that are not too difficult. In the end, my
Katakana test had 20 words. All of them are words that might be a problem because of pronunciation, andthen I divided them into 4 types such as, syllable expansion, shortening, shortening/combination andphonological change, and each type has 5 words. As following:
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Phonological Change by Ben Olah
Syllable expansion
Due to the syllabic restrictions of monosyllabic Japanese katakana, consonant clusters cannot be
produced without putting vowel sounds in between them. As a result of this, words in English that havefew syllables can end up being expanded, requiring far more sounds to produce their katakana equivalentin Japanese.
スーツケース
suitcase
ストレス
Stress
クリスマス
Christmas
レストランrestaurant
アドバイス
adviceShortening
In order to save time when speaking, many loanwords have been shortened. These shortened
versions become the standard way of saying or writing the loanwords, with people often unaware of its
original form.
テレビ
television
デパート
department store
アニメ
animation
コンビニ
convenience store
スーパー
supermarket
Shortening/combination
In other cases, two loanwords have been combined, with one or both of the original English words
being shortened.
パソコン
personal computer
エアコン
air conditioner
アメフト
American football
デジカメ
video camera
リモコン remote controller
Phonological change
Loanwords want to retain their original English form, but are unable to be pronounced correctly
using the available Japanese phonemes. Japanese and English have different vowel sounds, and consonant
sound, which means that many English words must undergo a phonological change in order to be written
in katakana. One consequence of this is that some loanwords are pronounced differently to the English
word they came from.
バニラ
vanillaハンバーガー
hamburger
ラジオ
radio
レザー
leatherツナ
tuna

Next, I planned to do this research with 50 Japanese students, 25 people from L-café (L-café
students) and 25 people from other places in the university (non L-café students). In addition for the
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katakana test I did not put the types together in groups, instead I mixed all the types together so that theJapanese students wouldn’t notice the groups. Moreover, while the student were taking this test, they were
not allowed to use their smartphone or ask their friend. Finally, the test was analyzed to discover which
type of phonological change that students often make mistake on.
After I got the data from katakana test, I compared and analyzed the data by the following Ben
Olah’s methodology. First, I divided the data into two group between ‘L-café students’ and ‘Non L-café
students’. Next, I divided every katakana word into their category. There are four categories, such as,
Syllable expansion, Shortening, Shortening/Combination, Phonological change. Each category has 5katakana words each. After that, I counted the misspelled words in the two groups, one by one, from thefirst to the last word. Finally, I compared the misspelled words between ‘L-café students’ group and ‘Non
L-café students’ group, to find out which group made specific mistakes on which word and which category.

Percentages of misspelling between Non-L café and L café students
25 Non-L café students
Syllable Expansion
スーツケース
ストレス
クリスマス
レストラン
アドバイス

12%
8%
48%
16%
4%

Shortening
テレビ
デパート
アニメ
コンビニ
スーパー

32%
56%
40%
80%
20%

Shortening /Combination
48%
パソコン
48%
エアコン
20%
アメフト
84%
デジカメ
80%
リモコン

Phonological Change
バニラ
ハンバーガー
ラジオ
レザー
ツナ

80%
80%
8%
88%
36%

25 L café students
Syllable Expansion
スーツケース
ストレス
クリスマス
レストラン
アドバイス

16%
0%
28%
12%
0%

Shortening
テレビ
デパート
アニメ
コンビニ
スーパー

28%
68%
40%
44%
20%

Shortening /Combination
60%
パソコン
44%
エアコン
8%
アメフト
88%
デジカメ
60%
リモコン

Phonological Change
バニラ
ハンバーガー
ラジオ
レザー
ツナ

44%
76%
4%
52%
40%

More often misspelled word
Less often misspelled word
Equally misspelled word

From the result, on average, Non-L café students made more mistakes than L café students,
however most of the mistakes are not too different from each other. There are 20 words in total used in thistest. There are 9 words where the difference of misspelling between the two groups is only 4%. Then there
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are 2 words where the difference is 0%. Then there is 1 word where the difference is 8% and finally 8 words
where the difference is more than 10%
From the test result, Syllable Expansion is the category that both groups of students made least
misspelling. Most of them really know how to spell in English correctly.
Next, the shortening category shows an interesting result, because it is the only category where
both groups, Non-L café students and L café students, equally made mistakes on two words in same
category, such as アニメ and スーパー. From the test paper, it revealed that most of students in bothgroups did not know the full spelling word in English, most of students just wrote super on スーパー andanime on アニメ. It could be assumed that they did not know the full spelling word of supermarket andanimation.
In addition, the shortening/combination category is the category that many students willingly
ignored to write the answers down on the test, especially デジカメ (digital camera) and リモコン (remotecontroller). I assume that they probably did not know the full spelling of the word. However, there are also
many students who gave answers, but still made mistakes on the two words as well.
Moreover, the category that most of the students made many mistakes on (especially Non L-café
students) is the phonological change category. From the test result, it showed that most of them were
confused about the differences between English and Japanese sounds. They spelled English words throughtranscription from the Japanese sound, not English sound. For example, they usually spelled バニラ(vanilla) to be (banila), ハンバーガー (hamburger) to be (hambargar), and spelled ツナ (tuna) to be(tsuna).
In conclusion, the results revealed evidently that loanwords in Japanese (katakana) affect thecorrect English spelling of most Okayama University students. It is not only Non-L café students but also
L café students. The often misspelled words are not too different from each other. Most of the students inboth groups tended to get confused with the difference of English and Japanese pronunciation that was split
into the 4 types by Ben Olah, such as, syllable expansion, shortening, shortening/combination andphonological change. Syllable Expansion is the category that both groups of students made the least
misspelling. Moreover, the category where most students made many mistakes on (especially Non L-café
students) is the phonological change category. The category that both groups made mistakes on (because
they did not know the full spelling of the words) are the shortening and the shortening/combination
category. In my opinion, I think that Japanese education should emphasize to educate their student about
how to spell English correctly so then when they grow up, they will not get confused about the correct
English spelling that is caused by the difference between English and Japanese pronunciation.

Reference
Ben Olah (2007). English Loanwords in Japanese: Effects, Attitudes and Usage as a Means of Improving Spoken English Ability.
Em B, Yoko L, Yutaka O, Chikako S, Kyoko T. An integrated course in elementary Japanese GENKI 2. Japan: The Japan Times,
Ltd; 2011.
Em Casalena. Katakana Words for Learning Loanwords and Addressing Americanisms: Weblogs [online] available from:https://www.fluentu.com/blog/japanese/katakana-words/ [Accessed 15th November 2018]23

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The public image of genetically modified food in Japan
日本における遺伝子組み換え食品の公共イメージ
Torge Heitmueller トルゲ ハイトミュラー
Leibniz University Hannover (Germany)

Summary: この小論で、なぜ私はこのテーマを選んだのか、なぜその調査方法と質問を選んだのかを、私の予想と実際の結果を交えながら説明します。また、私の結果をヨーロッパの調査結果と比較し、さらなるアンケートと私自身の結論の見解を示します。私の仮説は、世界中の人々は遺伝子技術の現在、そしておそらく古い基準についてさえよく理解しておらず、また、
遺伝子技術やその現実世界への適用に関するほとんどの意見は不十分な知識によってなされたものである、ということです。私の調査では、GM 食品およびバイオテクノロジー全般のさまざ
まな性質についての疑問の意見を求めました。全体的に、欧州連合の調査の結果ど同様な傾向がみられましたが、日本人は欧州の回答者よりも、リスクにより慎重であるように思われるだ
けでなく、潜在的な有効性を認める傾向が強いことに気が付きました。結論として、日本における遺伝子技術に対する理解は、欧州のものと同様に多くの誤解が見受けられますが、日本人の遺伝子技術の有用性に対するより好意的な認識は、これらの誤解を解くことを欧州人に比べ容易にすると思われます。
Introduction
My major is plant biotechnology and when I had to choose my topic for the research project, I
wanted it to be connected to my major. Trying to combine Japanese culture or society with biotechnology
I decided to research the public image of genetically modified food (GM-food) in Japan. GM-food is by far
the biggest focus of my major and something important to me, as I find it really interesting and am of theopinion that it will be very important in the future of agriculture. We often discuss its public image inEurope and America, but rarely other regions, which is why I was interested to learn more about its status
in Japan.
During the semester before I came to Okayama my professor invited Dr. Susanne Stirn from the
University of Hamburg for a discussion on GM-food. A big part in this lecture was a survey conducted by
the European Union called Eurobarometer. The survey from 2006 and 2010 contained questions about GMfood and other biotechnological practices. Which gave me the idea to create my own questionnaire basedon these Eurobarometer-Studies to conduct my own research regarding the public image of GM-food inJapan.
Construction of the Survey
When constructing my survey, I wanted it to be as close to the Eurobarometer-studies as possible
to make a comparison easier, however I changed a few things. I removed the option of answering 'I don't
know' and 'maybe' from almost all questions, because I had a feeling that those options would be by far themost chosen ones and I wanted clearer results. I also changed the wording of question 6 of my survey tobe, in my eyes, easier understandable. And last I added two questions, one if people heard of or knew about
the CRISPR technology and as my first question a generally self-assessment about their knowledge
regarding gene technology.
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The first was added because the technology was discovered quite recently and was not covered in
the EU-survey, the second because my general hypothesis is, that people worldwide do not have a goodunderstanding of the current and maybe even old standards of gene technology and that most opinions are
based on an insufficient knowledge about the topic and its real-world application.
Questions number two to number seven where taken from the Eurobarometer-studies, but I want to
explain their purpose here anyway.
The first two questions taken from the surveys compare GM-food production to otherbiotechnological fields, pharmacy, gene-therapy and nanotechnology. I omitted the last field as it is very
diverse and the short explanation in the EU-studies does not mention any gene technology, so after
consulting with my EPOK-adviser I realized that this it might be better to leave it out. The EU-studies focus
on biotechnology as whole, so they ask questions regarding all fields of it, I on the other hand am mostly
concerned with GM-food, but I left these questions in, because I started this research with the assumptionthat GM-food will be perceived negatively and those questions can provide information, if it is the geneor the food-part that is responsible for this public image.
Question number four has the purpose of providing some insight into why people think about GMfood the way they do. It makes several statements about GM-food and ask to either agree or disagree. Thiscan give valuable information on what points need to be addressed to improve the perception of GM-food.
Questions number five to number six go deeper into this topic as all questions make a hypothetical change
in GM-food and ask if that would change the persons opinion or behavior regarding GM-food. Again, togive a better understanding as to what would need to be addressed to change the public image of GM-food.
Results and Analysis
The results of the first question in part confirm my previously stated general hypothesis with only
25% of the questioned answering they have a rough or better understanding of gene technology.
Question number two (Figure 1) alreadycomes with a few surprises. The percentage of
people who voted agree or strongly agree is alreadya lot higher than the European surveys, 25%, 28.8%
and 34.5 respectively. While food production had
the highest increase compared to Europe it is still
the least supported field with 61.5%, 13.5% lower
than Medicine.
These results will be a bit more surprisingonce we have a look at the other results.
Figure 2: Application approval
Going over to question number three(Figure 2) we can see some more surprises anddifferences between Europe and Japan. The
Japanese view gene technology in food production
to be the least risky application, whereas in Europe
it is by far viewed as the riskiest, furthermore you
can see an increase in perceived risk in all fields.
However, the perceived usefulness has also gone up
across all fields. But the most interesting part for meis that even though all fields got high approval intheir application, all of them got low encouragement
numbers. Again, food production being the black
Figure 1: Evaluation of gene technology
sheep.
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Now what do I make of these first results? Well it seems to me that Japanese people are more awareof the applications usefulness and risk. Furthermore, my first explanation for the discrepancy between theanswers to question number two and the values for encouragement is that Japanese people want thetechnologies to be applied and tested, but do not want them to be advertised or recommended yet. However,to prove this hypothesis further qualitative research must be done.
Moving on to question number four (Figure 3), this question consist of a number of statements andeach person had to answer yes or no, this question is the closest to a knowledge quiz in the survey, but mostquestions cannot be answered with a single yes or no question and this is more about understanding why
people voted in the previous questions the way they did.

Figure 3: Statements about GM- food

The statements with the biggest differences are 'GM-food helps people in developing countries' and'GM-food is good for the Japanese economy with 25-28% more people saying yes. But overall the same
trend is visible. However, there are again some surprises here, as you may have noticed one of thestatements reads 'The development of GM-food should be encouraged', I already asked basically the samequestion in question number three, but this time the difference between 'yes' and 'no' answers reduced from
32% to 15.4%. I have no Idea what the reason for this is. If we look at the last statement, we see that only
26.9% believe GM-food to be safe for future generations, which stands in contrast to my previous
hypothesis to explain questions number two and three.
Now let's have a look how some hypothetical changes affect those opinions (Figure 4). Both in the
EU and Japan price is the least important factor, if we want more people to buy GM-food. The big difference
is 'tested by authorities', in Japan, depending if we count the 'definitely' answers alone or together with the'probably' answers, is either in second or first place to persuade people to buy GM-food, whereas in Europe
it is in fourth place both times. Another difference is that 'less pesticide use' is in second place in the EU
and in fourth in Japan. Both regions however show that being healthier would bring more than 50% of
people to buy GM-food. This gets backed up further by question number seven, asking people if they would
buy GM-food it was proven to reduce the chancefor cancer. 19.6% answered 'Yes', 49% answered'yes, maybe' and 31.4% answered 'No'.
The last two questions could again be
described as knowledge questions, first I asked if itwould make a difference to the people if edited
genes were taken out of a species that is very
similar or one that is very different, for example
modifying an apple with genes from a different
apple species or with genes from animals, also
called cisgenic and transgenic. The majority

Figure 4 Hypothetical changes to GM-food26

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answered it would make a small or big difference, my guess is because it feels more natural if the gene
come from similar species.
As mentioned before my last question was not part of the original survey, because its breakthroughhappened after the last published survey on biotechnology. I simply wanted to know if people had heard
about the CRISPR-System, because it may be one of, if not the most important discovery in recent years ingene technology, it makes it easier, faster safer and more precise. But to no surprise 84.6% said they had
never even heard of it.
Conclusion
Now what do these results mean? We can see a similar trend in Japan as we do in Europe and theanswers for question four show me that most people do not have enough information about gene technology.
Because of this I think it is very important for scientists, especially biotechnologists to raise awarenessabout the field. Especially information about health and safety seem to be important factors. But from thedata I have gathered I am a bit more optimistic about the public image in Japan than in Europe, Japanese
paid more attention to the possible usefulness and had higher numbers regarding buying GM-food if certain
conditions are met, which I believe they will eventually. In addition, Japanese people said with a higher
percentage that they would buy authority approved food, which may make it easier, if Japanese authorities
support GM-food.
I would also like to take a moment and give some feedback to this research now that I viewed all
the data. I should have finished the survey earlier and extend the run time of it to increase the number ofvoters, the data collected now was taken when 52 people voted. Furthermore, I would not limit myself sostrictly to questions only asked in the Eurobarometer-studies, I initially did so for easier comparison, but
after looking at the results there are a few more question I think are worth asking in a survey, especiallyqualitative follow up questions. For example: 'In which way do you think GM-food harms the environment?''Creation of dominant species', encouraging more pesticide use', etc. or maybe some more knowledge
questions, I now know that most of the people who answered my survey do not know what the CRISPR/CasSystem is but how do they think we edit genes, if not with that technology? Also, who do they regard as an
authority on the matter? Scientists, Politicians, Companies? Those are some questions I would add to mynext survey.
Final word
If you made it this far, I would like to address some statements made in question four. Regarding'being unnatural', this is a bit tough because there are many different definitions of what is natural, but here
is my take on it. With gene technology we add traits to the plants that we want and deem beneficial, but
humanity has done that basically since we started agriculture, after a harvest we plant those seeds that camefrom plants with traits we wanted, bigger fruits, better resistances, etc. all we do with gene technology istake short cut, so we are no longer dependent on years of cultivation, breeding and a sprinkle of luck.
In terms of health and safety I can say that multiple studies have shown no increased health risk
when consuming GM-food regularly and that GM-food productions are not worse than organic orconventional farming methods when it comes to the environment. I will however admit that these studiesof omit the increased pesticide use and what effects they may have on the environment. But in the case ofpesticide use and other company practices that often get called out in the debate around GM-food are notcaused by the technology itself but rather how we use them and I hope that people learn to differentiate thetwo things.
If this got you interest please check out some links I will put in the references, the Youtube-Channel
Kurzgesagt has a few videos on GMO's, Gene Editing and organic vs. conventional farming, all backed up
by scientific papers, but easy to understand and with subtitles available in many languages.
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References
Main reference: Dr. Stirn,S. The discussion on genetically modified foods (2017) *Special Eurobarometer Europeans and Biotechnology in 2005: Patterns and Trends, Gaskell,G. Et al. (July 2006) at:
http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_244b_en.pdf [last accessed: January 15th, 2019]
Special Eurobarometer Biotechnology Report, TNS Opinion & Social. (October 2010) at:
http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_341_en.pdf [last accessed: January 15th, 2019]
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects.
Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/23395.
EPOK-Research Survey on GM-Food, Torge Heitmueller. (December 2018) at: https://goo.gl/forms/4KU8JsFyqawwkl1G2 [lastaccessed: January 15th, 2019] *data collection was stopped from January 9th-15th to not change the data while working on thispaper
Please also have a look at these:
Are GMOs Good or Bad? Genetic Engineering & Our Food, Kurzgesagt – In a nutshell (March 30th, 2017) at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TmcXYp8xu4 [last accessed: January 15th, 2019]
Genetic Engineering will change everything forever – CRISPR, Kurzgesagt – In a nutshell (August 10th, 2016) a t:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhjPd4uNFY&t [last accessed: January 15th, 2019]
Is Organic really better? Healthy food or trendy scam?, Kurzgesagt – In a nutshell (January 13th, 2019) at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PmM6SUn7Es&t [last accessed: January 15th, 201928

EPOK Research Project
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Comparing working women who go on maternity leave in Japan and Germany
Nele Ahrensmeier ネレ アーレンスマイアー
Leibniz University Hannover (Germany)

Summary: わたし の けんきゅうテーマは、日本 と ドイツの はたらく じょせい の いくじきゅう
か の ひかくです。わたしは 日本 に いくまえに、日本の ぶんか に ついて しる ために しゅう
きょう などの 本 を たくさん よみ、 日本人をしろうとしました。すると、日本で はたらくじょ
せいは 子ども を そだてるために しごと を やめなければならない という きょうみぶかいことを しりました。そこで わたしは、日本とドイツではたらく ははおや に ちょうさ と インタビュー
を おこない、ろうどうかんきょう のひかく を おこないました。オランダ の しゃかい しんりがくしゃ の Geert Hofstede (ヘルト・ヤンホフステード)は 国の んかの かちかん の ちがい は 6 つ の ようい
ん に よる と しました。それは じょうげかんけい の つよさ、こじんしゅぎけいこう の つよさ、ふ
かくじつせい の かいひけいこう の つよさ、男らしさ を もとめる つよさ、ちょうきしゅぎてきけい
こう の つよさ、かいらくしゅぎ の つよさです。わたしは この中 の 3 つ に しょうてん を あてて、
ちょうさ を おこないました。日本 と ドイツ の はたらく ははおや の しょくばかんきょう は どちら
も しごと と しせいかつ の りょうりつ が はかりにくい。しかし、ドイツのほうが より おっと からの サポートが おおい こと が わかりました。ドイツ の じょせい の ほとんど は いくじきゅうか をしゅとくするが、日本 では それが とりにくい ぶんか が まだ のこっている。また、おっとが はは
おやにかわって いくじ を し、ははおや が はたらきつづける こと は めったにない。

Are women working in Japan treated differently to men because of their role as a mother? Do theyshare the same career perspectives? If not, what are the differences in perspective?
For this project, I have chosen to research the topic of women in Japan who have had to leave theirjobs due to having children, and want to go back to work after their children have come of age. In my
research, I would like to find out if these women had any difficulties finding new jobs, if they have goodworking conditions that suit their role as working mothers, and if they are treated differently to men working
in a company.
Many authors who visited Japan several times wrote in their books about the inequality between
men and women working in a company. They described a traditional woman’s role as being responsible forhousehold chores, raising children, and not progressing in their careers. I wanted to explore this topic
because it seemed very different to in German culture, and it makes me wonder if this view of the genderroles is still present in Japan today.
Before I came to Japan, I read many books about the country and the people of Japan (their religion
and culture) to get to know the country better, and to compare some interesting aspects with those of myhome country (Germany). For me, the treatment of working women is one of the most interesting
differences.
As part of my research, I read readings from a professor of education at Okayama University. These
readings are amongst others from the United Nations Development Program, which focus on to how to“reduce and redistribute the unpaid domestic and care work burden of women for sustainable development”.
Additionally, I researched about Dutch social psychologist, Geert Hofstede who, in his theory refers to six
factors, which he uses to compare different cultures. These are power distance, individualism, masculinity,
uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and indulgence. I used statistics to visualise how Japan and29

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Germany are different or similar in their development, by focussing on the working conditions of working
mothers.
In order to observe how women in this situation feel from first hand perspectives, I conductedinterviews or questionnaires with women from different industries. I asked 10-12 questions which helped
me discover how helpful the working conditions for women are in general. I interviewed approximately
10-25 women in Japan and Germany to compare their situation, feelings and potential support.
I expect the conclusion to be that it is difficult to generalise and say that the people of Japan only
live in a traditional way. I think that it depends on the age of the employees, and if the company thinks in amore traditional or modern way. Moreover, I believe that Japan will adapt to a more modern way of thinking
for upcoming generations, and all new and prospective businesses will follow the modern way of leading acompany.
In my following research, I prepared a questionnaire for women in Japan and in Germany. I wasinterested in at what age and for how long they quit their job for, and if they got any support from theirfamily or the government. The questions I asked were as follows: What did their daily routine with theirchildren look like? Was it difficult to find a new job, or could they go back to their original workplace? Do
their jobs have good working conditions, or would they like to change something? Do they have the samechanges as men when they want to go back to work?
Regarding my first question, most Japanese women quit their job in their mid 20s because they got
married or pregnant. This compares to women in Germany who in general, left their job between their mid
20s and mid 30s due to the arrival of their first child. Women in Germany got support during their maternity
leave, such as sustentation from their husbands if they no longer live together. This sustentation is a monthly
payment to the mother where the child lives. In addition, the government pays a parental allowance andchild allowance to support the family’s life on a financial basis. If the parents still live together, the husband
often helps out in the household and takes care of the children. If some mothers are not working and do nothave any financial aid, they can apply for unemployment pay to get support if they cannot find a job thatsuits their family situation, and offers good working conditions. Rarely, women did not receive any
financial support, and sometimes it was only the husband who went to work to contribute to the family
income.
As for support, the situations in Japan and Germany seem very similar. In my questionnaire, theJapanese women also answered about whether they receive support from the government for their children
or any unemployment allowance during their maternity leave. Compared to German families, most women
did not receive much (or any) support from their husband.
In Germany, most women could return to their workplace after being on maternity leave. Onlysome them could not return to their previous workplace because their job couldn’t coincide with their role
as a mother. If they did not find a job in a company which suits their family life, they had to look for a parttime job (but this is an exception).
In contrast to German women, not all Japanese women went back to their original workplace.
Nearly every woman I interviewed told me that she was looking to get a new job after her maternity leave.
Some of them changed jobs a lot because they could not get the correct balance between family life withchildren and working life. Even if they had to search for a new job, it seemed like this was not a difficult
process, as nobody mentioned having to go on a long quest for a new job. I learnt about a job placement
office in Japan called “Hello Work”, who help to make it easier for people in Japan to find a new job.
This easy way of going back to work correlates with the opinion of the German women too, withthe difference that most of them could actually go back to their original workplace, where they knew theirwork and what they can expect there, without having to look for a completely new job.
Furthermore, women in Germany have very different opinions regarding good working conditions
for their family situation. Some of them were lucky that their working hours were whilst the children wereat kindergarten or school. If they had to work some days longer, they were able to count on their family
members to take care of the children after school. However, it often depends on the employer as to how
30

EPOK Research Project
Winter 2018much flexibility working mothers can be offered. Moreover, a Japanese mother explained to me in theinterview that she had quite good working conditions whilst her children went to school, and she could
work in the afternoon from home or in special cases, could talk to her supervisor at work who usually
understood the family situation.
I was interested in the opinion of the Japanese women, as to whether they would appreciate a change
in the Japanese law system for example, to make their situation better. One of the problems mentioned was
focussing on salary too seriously. One woman told me that salary is too important for Japanese people, andin her opinion, it is not worth working so much to earn a lot of money when you will not have many days
off work to recover and spend time with family. She would like the law to protect women more because
being a mother is a role which combines a lot of responsibility and hard work with the task of having tokeep working and support the income of the family. The woman explained to me that having separate
gender roles in the family is part of Japanese culture, consequently making it very difficult to change thesituation if working mothers. Another mother said that she would like to have someone who would takecare of her child after school so she would be able to continue working to the end of the day.
German mothers reduce their working hours for example, to spend more time with their children.
One mother explained that spending time with her children was her priority. After she reduced her working
hours she got a lower salary, but that was okay for her. Another mother said that there are laws andguidelines which already exist, but she complained that most or none of them were followed or are notknown by other employees. Moreover, another women mentioned that she wants more gender equality. She
described her role of managing the family next to her job in a company as “invisible work”. She voiced that
this kind of extra work she is doing every day is not seen by anyone, not appreciated and she does not get
any pay for this. German mothers wish for a better arrangement of the workplace, which fits better into thelives of working mothers. They should not have to do the low paid jobs which only hire people by the hourbecause they have a family and need to raise their children alongside their job.
The majority of German mothers said that they are not happy with their situation as a working
mother due to many reasons. One of the reasons is that some mothers could not return to their old job
because it did not work with their family situation so they had to find a new job. However, these new jobs
are usually jobs that they don’t want, which makes them unhappy going to work. It takes a lot oforganisational skill to go to work, even if the salary is not that good. Another problem is the inequality
between men and women, especially regarding salary. It makes it impossible for most mothers to go towork and to take care of their children after kindergarten and school. Although, one mother explained that
this is not the duty of the employer. In general, there is a huge desire for more consideration and appreciation
at work from colleagues and the society.
Applying for a job while having children is quite difficult because of the inflexibility of working
mothers. In addition, as I mentioned, and women from Germany confirmed, they do not get the same salary
as men. The majority of women stay at home and take care of the children, but in the end it is unclear who;
the man or the woman; is working more, and how much they should earn for their work. Normally, it is thewoman who is working part-time and the man full time. Mostly, women do not have the opportunity to
combine another job other than part time, with their family life when men continue working after a shortparental leave (if they choose to take it). Moreover, Japanese mothers can get the same salary as men when
they return to work, but only by doing overtime like them. Another mother explained that she did not havethe same chances as men, but the was satisfied with her situation because she could spend enough time withher family. From what I understand, Japanese mothers would like to receive an equal salary to men but at
the same time, working and doing housework (which they do not get paid for) would prove too demanding.
If the husband helps more to raise a child, it would make the mother’s life much easier when they return to
the workplace. Unfortunately, I learned in the interviews that men do not support their wives enough, so
the women have no other option than to get less salary and less private time to raise the child too.
As a conclusion from a German mother, it is not realistic to expect mothers to be flexible in theirjob. In addition, the situation often depends on the industry the women is working in, though, there aremany differences in general. The situation developed over the past few years is even worse. When a women31

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applies for a job, she gets often asked if she would like to have children in the future. If she answers ‘yes’
to this question, it is a criterion for exclusion for a company not to hire her. At one mother’s work placement,
she got asked who would take care of her children in the case of sickness. This is regulated by thecompulsory health insurance, and is a huge breach of conduct by the employer. She said that we live in an
achievement-oriented society, where all that matters is the profit in the end. In general, the women inGermany wish for more respect and appreciation of their daily work, and better working conditions in acompany which suits their family life. The situation for working mothers in Japan seems very similar. They
are doing part-time jobs because they also have to take care of their children, so cannot work the wholeday. It seemingly depends on the employer as to whether women can work from home on occasion. In
addition, they wish for more support from their husbands in daily life and with raising the children.

Using the cultural dimension’s theory of Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede, I can compare
his findings with the results of my questionnaire. Hofstede analyzed six dimensions to compare countries
all over the world. These six dimensions include Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainly
Avoidance, Long Term Orientation and Indulgence (as I mentioned at the beginning of this paper). In my
discussion, I would like to focus on three dimensions; Power Distance, Masculinity and Long Term
Orientation.
The dimension Power Distance stands for “the extent to which the less powerful members of
institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally”.
According to Hofstede’s research, Germany is a country with a low power distance. He explains that codetermination rights are, compared to other countries, relatively popular and “a direct and participative
communication and meeting style is common”. In the interview, I did not get the impression that womenfeel as though they are treated equally. They know it is difficult for an employer to hire them because of
their inflexibility, but many mothers said that they would wish for more consideration and appreciation of
their work from colleagues and society.
In Japan it seems like most people I interviewed have to deal with their working conditions; theywould like it to change; but only one mother I spoke to asked to work from home in the afternoon when her
child is coming home from school. This correlates with the chart (score of 54), because Japan has ahierarchical society. This means that all decisions have to be confirmed by an upper hierarchy. One mothermentioned in the interview that the Japanese care so much about their salary, and do not get many days off
for holidays. This goes with Hofstede’s theory, where he explains that everybody is born equal, but people
should do the best they can with their lives because in Japan they live in a meritocratic society.
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The dimension Masculinity is defined as “the fundamental issue (…) is what motivates people,
wanting to be the best (Masculine) or liking what you do (Feminine)”. Germany has a score of 66, whichshows that Germany has quite a “Masculine society”. However, regarding my research, this score is justover half, so there is also a large sense of “Feminine society”, which stands for caring for each other andquality of life. In Germany, the mothers would like to spend as much time with their children as possible,
and one woman said that she reduced her working hours and earned less money, but the was able to lookafter her children and take care of them after they came home from school, so it was worth it. They criticise
the “Masculine society” because for some working mothers, there are no flexible working hours offered, or
only low-paid jobs by the hour. Compared to Japan, Germany does not have a very “Masculine society”.
With a score of 95, Japan is very high in the world’s ranking. It describes the competition between children
starting from a young age up to their work in a company to compete with others. In addition, Japanese
workers are doing a lot of overtime, which makes it very hard for women to climb up the career ladder, but
this especially shows how difficult working life for mothers is. The Japanese mothers would like, as theGermans mentioned in the interview, to spend as much time as possible with their children, but no flexible
jobs makes it impossible for them to combine their working life and family life.
The last dimension I would like to focus on is Long Term Orientation which “describes how every
society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present andfuture”. Germany reached a high score of 83 in this dimension (similar to Japan with a score of 88), whichshows that Germany is able to change traditions into modern conditions. The high score of Japan can be
explained due to their hard working lifestyle. Their life seems very short to them so they try to make thebest of it. However, regarding my research project, I would like to focus on the traditions in both countries.
In Germany, it is not necessary for mothers to stay at home or go on maternity leave. Rarely, the husbands
take care of the children when the mothers keeps working. Even if the father keeps working and comes
home, he helps at home with household chores for example, and takes care of the children in most cases.
In the interview with the Japanese women, I was shocked to discover that firstly, it is very common for
women to go on maternity leave and not continue working and secondly, that their husbands do not support
them after work by doing household chores and raising the children. The Japanese women seemed as though
they wish for more help, but in their work places, the men working in the company and the women working
at home are separated, but the problem is that in this perspective the working time which the women is
responsible for is never ending.

Reference:
Hofstede Insights: https://www.hofstede-insights.com/product/compare-countries/
Andreas Neuenkirchen (2013) Gebrauchsanweisung für Japan, Piper

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岡山大学グローバル・パートナーズ〒 700-8530 岡山市北区津島中 2-1-1
Centre for Global Partnership and Education Okayama University
epok-inbound1@adm.okayama-u.ac.jp
http://www.okayama-u.ac.jp