EPOK Research Project
Summer 2019

Contents
page

From the course coordinator(2)

From the chief editor(3)

EPOK students of summer 2019

(4-6)

EPOK Research Papers
1.
2.

Political apathy and DPJ (Federica Ghisalberti)
Breaking The Glass Ceiling: Why are women politicallyunderrepresented in Japan? (Conor Fitzmaurice)
3. How the Okayama students perceive politics: The LDP Case
(Lorenzo Marinelli)
4. Digging into the imperfective aspect with Okayama-ben(Emily Owen)
5. Traditional Japanese Architecture In Modern Society:
Case Study Kurashiki Bikan Chiku (Jordyn Murtaugh)
6. Japanese Generation’s Attitudes Toward Shrine Visits(Lauren Torres)
7. The development of Yukata from the Edo to Meiji period(Hannah Elinor Charlotte Sudhoff)
8. Immigration in Japan: the perception offoreigners at the local level (Silvia Donato)
9. Points of working effectively and efficiently withJapanese and Foreign Companies (Julian Andriulli)
10. Multicultural Education in the Classroom (Micah Watt)
11. Japan is my oyster: Japanese students’ concerns behindstudying abroad: Case study Okayama University students(Ioana Bodean)
2019 Summer EPOK Research Presentations Poster

1(7-11)(12-18)(19-23)(24-28)(29-32)(33-37)(38-42)(43-47)(48-51)(52-55)(56-59)About EPOK Research Project

EPOK 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）において半年または１年間学ぶ留学生が、日本を広く探求する視野から個々に自由課題を設定し、文化や社会の活動を実践的に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るものです。研究テーマは、伝統的な遺産や文化・習慣の保存や変遷、日本語や岡山弁の解析、あるいは政治やグローバル社会への現代日本人の意識など、多岐に広がりました。
書物から学ぶ「他者」の世界ではなく、可能な限り、自分の知覚と経験を通じて現代の日本
社会や日本人がどのように生きているかを理解しようとする小さな試みが、この先も続けて日本をより深く知り、日本と関わっていく各々の道程を懐かしい灯りとなって照らしてくれることを願います。

In the course of EPOK Research Project these EPOK students worked on theindividual research theme in relation to their interest in Japanese cultures, society or
surroundings, finally to conclude in the research essay compiled in this book. The
compilation of the writings of 2019 summer includes variety of their interest such as intraditional custom and cultures, linguistic mystery, social behavior and consciousness ofcontemporary Japanese including the university student.
I hope the students learned through the unique process of searching and re-searching
own theme of interest and question about Japan rather than merely in the book and internet.
May this collection of the essays be a token of their discovery and steps in Okayama,
Japan.

2019 年 7 月
大林 純子
Obayashi Junko
EPOK advisor
Institute of Global Human Resource Development
Okayama University

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From the Chief Editor
Ours was a very special time to come to Japan: Experiencing the change ofan Era in May, the locally held elections the weeks before, and the development of
a new visa plan to accept 500,000 foreign low skilled laborers by Prime minister
Abe. Something to tell our grandchildren, isn’t it? But it is not only these large
scale events that make us feel that Japan is alive and constantly changing, it is
the small things that each and every one of us sees and observes in everyday life.
This combination of being able to tangibly and holistically experience thesmall things and the big things of Japan all at once is exactly what the “daigomi”（醍醐味: the real/true pleasure of something）of the exchange student experienceat Okayama University is. It is the opportunity to observe and learn about eventsand phenomenon like these, occurring right now, in contemporary Japan, from anacademic point of view. And through our experiences and observations, we have cometo learn about this country from a unique and fresh perspective, collecting our
findings into this book. These findings have been carefully consolidated and placed
into each essay, displaying the results of a cumulative, several month long
research project delving into a unique part of Japan. The Research Projects
collected here are a testament to the time and care each of us has placed into
each of our own freely chosen topics of interest, discovering aspects of Japan andits culture that otherwise we would never know. They show what fascinated us, what
moved us, what intrigued us, and just how diverse and expansive Japan and ourmulticultural world is.
After leaving our home countries, full of certainties and familiar people,
we ended up in this small city in the countryside of Japan, famous for it’s niceweather and delicious fruits, where the biggest danger consists of bicycle roaming
recklessly on the streets（笑）. And it was here that we dived not only into theculture and customs of this small city, but also the whole of Japan. But it was
not only the culture and customs that we found: We also found Japanese friends,
who leaded us through the strangeness of a completely different lifestyle, andfriends from other countries, with whom we faced the same problems together, andwith whom we shared our knowledge, our cultures, and ourselves, enriching us evenmore.
And so without further ado, we bring to you the EPOK Research Projects ofSummer 2019. We hope that you will be able to not only enjoy the wide spanning
content brought to you by a wide variety of people from different backgrounds andcultures, but broaden your mind as well and learn from our findings.

Julian Andriulli
July 20193
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Politics
Topic: Political apathy and DPJ（政治に対する無関心と民主党）
Name: Federica Ghisalberti フェデリカ・ギサルベルティ
Home University: Ca’Foscari University of Venice(Italy)Favorite Japanese Word: My favorite word is actually
Pachinko. Even though I don’t like the noisy pachinko
machines, I’ve always just loved the sound of the word
itself. While this is a silly reason, pachinko parlours
are also very interesting as they represent one gap in
the Japanese Law, given that it’s a gambling game in acountry where gambling is theoretically illegal. In fact, while Pachinko balls
won from the games cannot be exchanged directly for money inside the parlour,
they can be exchanged for prizes or tokens, later exchanged for cash in a shop
separate from the parlour. So if you don’t get money inside the parlour, it’s
not considered gambling! I think this is just one of the many fascinating andfunny aspects of Japanese culture, reflected into the Japanese law system.
Topic: Breaking The Glass Ceiling: Why are womenpolitically underrepresented in Japan?
（日本の政治にはなぜ女性がそんなに少ないのでしょうか）
Name: Conor Fitzmaurice フィッツモーリス コナー
Home University: University of Kent (UK)
Favorite Japanese Word: My favorite Japanese word is
木漏れ日 (こもれび). To me, it is a beautiful wordwith a beautiful meaning; The flickering light thatshines through the trees; the feeling of serenity,
walking through a forest as the leaves rustle and thelight shines along the path.
Topic: HOW THE OKAYAMA STUDENTS PERCEIVE POLITICS: THE
LDP CASE（岡山大学の学生が政治をどう感じるか―自由民主党のケースについて）
Name: Lorenzo Marinelli ロレンツォ ・マリネッリ
Home University: Cà Foscari University of Venice(Italy)Favorite Japanese Word: My favorite Japanese word is:
桜梅桃李( おうばいとうり). This word is composed by
the kanji of 4 different trees that flower in thespringtime: cherry (桜), plum (梅), peach (桃) andapricot(李). I like this word because the combinationof these kanji means that people shouldn’t live theirlives comparing themselves to others, but instead value their own unique traits.
Each flower blooms wonderfully showing their characteristics. Buddhism in regard
in to this word preaches: 桜は桜らしく、梅は梅らしく、桃は桃らしく、李は李らしく。It means that each flower looks like itself. There is no one who has noworth in this world, and every time I remember this word I think :「自分は自分らしくでいいんだ」, “You are good in the way you are”.
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Japanese Culture
Topic: Digging into the imperfective aspect with Okayama-ben（岡山弁の非完結相の示し方）
Name: Emily Owen （エミリー・オーウェン）
Home University: University of Edinburgh (Scotland)Favorite Japanese Word: My favourite Japanese word is 紅葉. Japan having as much of an appreciation for nature andthe changing seasons as they do has always been a part ofthe culture that I've admired. Having single words forseasonal phenomena that English requires multiple toexpress is representational of that in a way that I find
beautiful.
Topic: Traditional Japanese Architecture In Modern Society:
Case Study Kurashiki Bikan Chiku（現代社会における伝統的の建築：倉敷美観地区）
Name: Jordyn Murtaugh （ジョーディン・マートウ）
Home University: California State University Monterey
Bay (America)
Favorite Japanese Word: My favorite word is 花吹雪 (はなふぶき). This is my favorite word because it reminds meof spring time and spring picnics with friends.

Topic: Japanese Generation's Attitudes Toward Shrine Visits（日本人異世代の参拝の態度）
Name: Lauren Torres （ローレン・トレス）
Home University: California State University ofMonterey Bay (United States of America)
Favorite Japanese Word: My favorite Japanese word isactually the onomatopoeia 「ふわふわ」. In English I'mquite fond of onomatopoeic words, so naturally I also
like words in Japanese that are repetitive onomatopoetic
sounds. The meaning is also cute and it's fun to say!
Topic: The development of Yukata from the Edo to Meiji period（江戸から明治への浴衣の変遷）
Name: Hannah Elinor Charlotte Sudhoff(ハンナ エリノア チアロッテ スドホッフ)
Home University: Leibniz University Hannover (Germany)
Favorite Japanese Word: My favorite word would have tobe 懐かしい、meaning a slightly nostalgic feeling of
missing something, reminiscent of good memories, but
also: yearned after or longed for. I would describe 懐か
しい as a warm and sudden sentimental feeling that bringsback good memories, without wistful longing for what’s
past, but with an appreciation of the good times. To me, it is one of the mostbeautiful words of the Japanese language. It describes a deep and intense
feeling of mixed emotions in only one word, where other languages need so many
more.
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Multiculturalism
Topic: Immigration in Japan: the perception of foreigners
at the local level（日本の移民政策:移民の地域社会参加を事例に）
Name: Silvia Donato シルビア・ドナト
Home University: Ca’Foscari University of Venice (Italy)
Favorite Japanese Word: My favorite Japanese word is 別
腹. I like this word because I’m a huge fan of dessert
and usually when I’m full after a meal I always say “Ihave more room for the dessert” and 別腹 describes thisconcept in just one word.
Topic: 日本企業と外国企業が効率的・効果的に働くためのポイント(Points of working effectively and efficiently with Japaneseand Foreign Companies)
Name: Julian Andriulli (ジュリアン・アンダリウーリ)
Home University: Rhode Island University (USA)
Favorite Japanese Word: My favorite Japanese word would
undoubtedly be 「気」. A seemingly simple word, It’s
meaning is actually deceptively nuanced and can be used
to describe almost any type of mood, feeling,
disposition, or ambience, as well as being a fundamentalbuilding block amidst a plethora of 漢語（かんご）. To me, this character not
only is a testament to Japanese versatility and tenacity, but to their subdued
yet deep emotional side.
Topic: Multicultural Education in the Classroom(教室における多文化教育)
Name: Micah Watt (マイカ ワト)
Home University: Dallas Baptist University (USA)
Favorite Japanese Word: My favorite Japanese word is 物の哀れ because I learned it in a book when I was a kid
and there is no English equivalent for this concept. I
thought it was very bittersweet and it stuck with me.

Topic: Japan is my oyster: Japanese students’ concerns
behind studying abroad: Case study Okayama University students(日本は私のオイスター：日本人学生の留学に関する不安感)
Name: Ioana Bodean (イワナ・ボデアン)
Home University: University of Sheffield (UK)
Favorite Japanese Word: My favourite word is ムシムシ,
meaning unpleasantly humid hot. This is because inJapanese onomatopoeia can describe not only sounds foundin nature, like dogs' barking or the sound of rain, butalso situations or feelings. I find it interesting how
sometimes we can guess the onomatopoeia's meaning just by
the way it sounds like. For example ムシムシ sounded very “mushy” which is not
too far off.

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Political apathy and DPJ
政治に対する無関心と民主党
Federica Ghisalberti

フェデリカ・ギサルベルティ

Ca’Foscari University of Venice (Italy)

要旨： 日本の社会の問題の 1 つは、現在、若者が政界に興味を持っていないことです。そのような重要な問題になったから、若者を引き付けるため、近年、投票年齢が下げられました。「その無関心は野党が若い人々に考えを届けることができていないせいではないか」と思いました。このことが本当かどうかを明らかにするため、政治の調査で日本の大学生と日本人にインタビューをすることにしました。それに、野党の民進党の党史について調べることにしました。

Introduction
As the voting age in Japan has recently been lowered from 20 to 18 years old in June
2016 in an attempt to get more young people involved in the political world, the question on why
Japanese young people suffer of voter apathy has surfaced. If, at a first glance, this apathy could
be read from the rest of the world as the response of the citizens to a peaceful rich country where
there seems to be no pressing issues, anyone who has a deeper knowledge of Japan and its culture
knows this would be just a superficial and naive reading of such a complex and different country.
Because of the combination of a low birth-rate and longer lifespans, senior electors now accountfor a quarter of Japan’s population, and as older people are more likely to vote than young people,
this situation has led some people to argue that Japan has what is called a “silver democracy”,
that is to say a system in which elderly citizens’ votes have more political weight, while young
people’s needs tend to be neglected. Because Japan also has a history of one ruling party for many
years, I wanted to understand if this growing apathy towards politics was cause or effect of thedominance of the Liberal Democratic Party1 and more importantly because of the lack of a stableopposition party. To do so, I will inevitably have to follow the history of what was always
considered the rival to the LDP, the Democratic Party2.
Methodology
In this study, I surveyed 72 Japanese people trying to discover more about their idea ofpolitics and their opinion about the remains of the old DPJ, the only party which briefly managed
to gain a victory and establish a government against the always ruling LDP. Because talking about
politics is always an extremely delicate topic, I tried to keep the questions general and apparently
indirectly related to my topic of interest, the DPJ. I so decided to interview both Okayama
residents and Okayama University students about few general questions about politics, trying toassess first their interest, and then a bit of their political knowledge. To keep he survey easy tounderstand and fast to compile I asked just multiple choice answers and a couple of optional open
answers. The first 3 questions are about the interviewed personal information, as an attempt todiscern younger people and students from older people; from question 4 to 10 we have the7
EPOK 2019political questions: 1. 性別：男、女（Sex: Male, Female); 2. 年齢：20 才以下、21-30 才, 31-40
才, 41-50 才, 51-60 才, 61 才以上 (Age:<20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, >61); 3. 職業：学生、無職、求職中、就業中、退職者 (Profession: Student, Not working, Searching for a job,
Employed, Retired); 4. 投票権はありますか？ はい/いいえ (Can you vote? Yes, No); 5.
政治の世界に関心はありますか？ 全然 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 とても (Do you consider yourself
interested in the political world? Not at all 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 A lot); 6. 投票することは大切だと思いますか？ 全然 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 とても (Do you think it`s important to vote? Not at all 1, 2, 3,
4, 5 A lot); 7. 若い世代は、政治に対する関心が薄れてきています。どのようにすれば、若い世代がもっと政治に関心を持ってくれると思いますか？ テレビ報道を増やす, 学
校 で 教 え る , 家 族 や 友 人 と 政 治 に 関 す る 議 論 を す る , そ の 他 (Young people are
becoming less interested in politics, what do you think might get them more interested? More TV
coverage, School teaching, Political discussions with family and friends, Other); 8. 日本社会における問題・課題のうち、あなたにとって重要なもの何ですか？ 最大 3 つまで選んでください。出生率の低下, 低迷する経済, 高齢化社会, 脱原発（再生可能エネルギーの導入), 増える児童虐待問題, 増税, 職場における女性差別, 憲法 9 条の改正 (WhichJapanese society issue/problem do you find more important (to solve)? Choose up to 3. Low birthrate, Sinking Economy, Aging Society, Removal of Nuclear Energy (for renewable energy),
Rising Child Abuse Issue, Tax raise, Misogyny at work, Article 9 revision); 9. かつて最大野党だった旧民主党は、数年前に国民民主党と立憲民主党に分かれました。あなたはそのことをどう感じますか/どのように考えますか？気にしない, そのことについて知らない,
良いことだと思う, 悪いことだと思う, その他 (The old DPJ, one of the biggest opposition
parties in recent years has recently split into kokuminshintou and rikkenminshintou. How do you
feel/ What do you think about it? I do not care, I didn`t know about it, I think it`s good, I thinkit`s bad, Other) 10. あなたは現政権に満足していますか？全然 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 とても(Areyou satisfied with the current government? Not at all 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 A lot). Once the questionnaires
were collected, I analysed the answers mostly comparing student’s answers with everybody else’s.
Historical overview
The history of the Democratic Party of Japan is one of opposition to the rulingconservative LDP (Jimintō 自民党). In origin it was founded by Hatoyama Yukio and Kan Naotoin 1996 from previous parties like the Japan Socialist Party and the Sakigake, both of which did
not support an alliance with the ruling LDP, plus some of the deflectors of the aforementioned
LDP. Right after its foundation, it was the second-largest opposition party after the New Frontier
Party. However, because the New Frontier Party had then collapsed in December 1997, the party
gained new members, therefore becoming the largest opposition party; later in 2003 the party was
also joined by the Liberal Party of Ichirō Ozawa. Its popularity began growing from 1998 until itfinally got the majority in the 2004 House of Councillors elections, winning a seat more than the
LDP, and even though the LDP still maintained its firm majority in total votes, it still was the firsttime since its foundation in 1955 that it had gained fewer seats than another party. Finally,following the famous 2009 election, the DPJ became the ruling party in the House ofRepresentatives, de facto gaining the largest number of seats in both the House of Representatives
and the House of Councillors. For the sake of this essay, I will not go into detail as for why the
DPJ “suddenly” got the majority in both Houses, but political scholars all agree on 5 main reasons:the first one is definitely the 1994’s Electoral Reform, which not only changed the electoral rules,
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but it also and more importantly changed the way of doing politics; we then have the incrementof changing voters, more and more Japanese electors were open to the idea of switching sides
based on which party was more aligned to their interests and was more likely to actually
implement new regulations; then there’s the efficient strategy and organization, as example
having a clear Manifesto with the party’s ideas and propositions helped greatly when it came toconvince swing voters; some scholars also argue about a favourable Media representation for the
DPJ which helped spread a positive idea about the party; and last but not least, the economic crisisof 2008 had put a negative light on the LDP government. As we already mentioned before though,this was a short-lived victory, as the DPJ changed 3 Prime Ministers in the 3 years of government,
and it’s common perception between Japanese people that it did not live up to expectations. Again,
I will simply list the reasons why the scholars think this government was a failure, as for thisessay we don’t need to dig that deeply: first of all, the DPJ was not able to create many laws, theones which were actually implemented were way less than promised and less than the previous
governments (the DPJ was plagued by internal conflicts and struggled to implement many of its
proposed policies); instability about nuclear power after Fukushima, while right after the disasterthe PM Kan promised to close forever all the nuclear plants, but his successor Noda had a different
idea; they then passed the bill to double the consumption tax, which was understandably very
unpopular; it also seems that the DPJ was missing real differentiation from LPD in policies, andin order to appeal to both rural and urban voters, they tried to have different but clashing andincoherent policies; by that time Japanese economy was still stagnant and public debt was notdiminishing; after all this, the incapability to face the disaster of March 2011 was just the laststraw. On 27 March 2016 the DPJ merged with the smaller Japan Innovation Party (JIP) and
Vision of Reform preparing for the Upper House elections in the summer, thus becoming the
Democratic Party (while the English official name did not change much, it’s easier to see in theJapanese name: 民進党 Minshintō). The newly formed DP became the largest opposition
political party, even though it got marginalized again in the House of Representatives in 2017.
The majority of the party then split on September 2017, before the general election in October ofthe same year. While the Party of Hope was supposed to be the new grand rival to the LDP, theelection result was quite disappointing and only six months after that, on 7 May 2018 it mergedwith the DP to form the Democratic Party for the People (国民民主党 Kokumin-minshutō) . As
far as policies go, DP’s policies differed little from the policies of its predecessor, the DPJ, with
policies such as increasing diversity, contributing to world peace, preserving democracy, andpromoting prosperity, by raising the minimum wage of Japan, among other things. They are
considered to be open-minded in terms of North Korea. Like its predecessor, it’s opposed tonuclear power.
Survey analysis
Even though I only managed to survey 72 Japanese men and women, the answers I
received did cast a light on the reality of Japanese electorate as it is nowadays. Of the 72 peopleinterviewed, 46 (63,9 %) are to be considered among the “young” (less than 30 years old). Whatis particularly interesting is that, when asked about their interest in politics, young people tend tosay that they’re more interested than old people (16 young people answered with level 4 and 5 ofinterest, compared to the 4 of the rest of interviewees) but we have similar results with the “notparticularly interested” answers (level 1 and 2); they do seem to be similar when talking about a
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level 3 of interest, though. Moreover, they have a higher opinion on the importance of vote withthe 77% of them selecting level 4 and 5, while most of older people have selected the level 3(61%), and level 1 (23%). When asked about the satisfaction with the current government, it’s
immediately clear how, however older people seems to be less interested, they have stronger
opinions on the political world than younger people: 28 students selected the most neutral level(3), compared to the 2 of older people, who have selected more the other levels available. No one
has selected level 5 of satisfaction, though. The question about the recent disruption of the DPJ
was a tricky one; it both quickly assessed the interviewees’ political knowledge, while also
confirming their interest. As it was expected, the majority of students answered that they didn’t
care (24 people) or that they did not know about it (15 people), while within older people, only
10 didn’t know or care, while 18 had an opinion on it (whether the split was good or bad). As far
as their concerns about Japanese issues go, there doesn’t seem to be a striking difference in what
is felt to be more important. The problem of the aging society is felt by everyone as a pressuringissue, but way more from older people, who have selected it almost unanimously, compared tothe 73% of young people. It then follows the low birth rate in which both factions have similarinterest into (60% for the younger generations and 69% for the older ones), and the misogyny atwork, in which young people show a bit more of interest (43% against 38%). We have similar
results for the sinking economy (39% and 38%), child abuse (21% and 23%) and worries about
nuclear energy (4% and 0%). On the tax rise we can observe how older people are slightly moreconcerned (23% and 17%), but young people seem to be the only ones interested the revision of
Article 9 (21% against the 0% of the older people).

Conclusion
To conclude, it really does seem like young generations are less inclined to care about
politics, even though they say they’re interested and that they value the vote more than older
people. This shows that young people do think that voting can change the political status quo, butthey feel that the political world is too distant from them to actually care. Even though they dohave clear ideas of which issue has the priority, they cannot find this ideas reflected in the
opposition parties, especially in a party like the DP which seems to be more interested on social
10
EPOK 2019issues like the diversity, world peace, and removal of nuclear power, but that doesn’t offer enoughconcrete solutions for the demographic and economic problems Japan is facing. Moreover, DP’s
feeling of failure and lack of actual change is still lingering from the years 2011/2012, making
voters discouraged on the possibility of real change. This can also be seen as voters in their teens
and twenties seems to be some of the strongest supporters of the more stable and comforting LPD(40% choose it in July 2016), a party which doesn’t have a clear manifesto and that contains many
personalities with different, sometimes opposite, ideas, but that has a strong base, experience, andthat has the aura of an unchanging pillar of Japanese politics.

1 From here onwards, just called LDP
2 From here onwards, just called DPJ
3 Previous politicians of the same Sakigake Party.

Reference-Krauss Ellis S.; Robert J. Pekkanen. 2011. The Rise and Fall of Japan's LDP. Political Party Organizations as Historical
Institutions. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press.
-Kushida, Kenji E; Phillip Y. Lipscy (eds). 2013. Japan under the DPJ: The Politics of Transition and Governance.
Stanford: Asia-Pacific Research Center.
-Lechevalier, Sébastien (ed.) (2014) [2011]. The Great Transformation of Japanese Capitalism. Abingdon, New York:
Routledge.
-McCall Rosenbluth, Francis; Michael F. Thies. 2010. Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic
Restructuring. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
-Robert W. Aspinall (2001). Teachers' Unions and the Politics of Education in Japan. SUNY Press. p. 174. ISBN 9780-7914-5050-5.
-Quora, Why do Japanese youth seem largely uninterested in politics? 2016 https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Japaneseyouth-seem-largely-uninterested-in-politics-Nippon.com (2019)https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00488/less-than-half-of-eligible-teenagers-plan-to-

vote-in-upcoming-japanese-election.html

11
EPOK 2019Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Analysing the underrepresentation of women in
Japanese politics
日本政治における女性の過少表示の分析
Conor Fitzmaurice フィッツモーリス コナー
University of Kent (UK)

要旨: 日本の議会は、世界中の他の議会と比較して選出された女性代表の割合の点で世界に 165 番目にランクされています。衆議院議員のわずか 10.1％が女性であり、参議院議員のわずか 20％が女性である。2018 年に可決された政界法における男女共同参画推進は、国会の女性会員の割合を増やすことを目的としています。日本の国会での女性の過少代表は、日本
民主主義システムが社会全体を代表するものではないことを意味します。日本の政治的意見を集めるために世論調査を書きました。結果は、ジェンダーと政治的所属が、政治的関心のレベルなどの政治に対する、そして政治における女性に対する異なる態度をもたらすことを示していた。日
本の政治における女性の過少表示の分析を解決するためにジェンダークォータを導入する必要があるかもしれませんと思います。

While there has been a global movement towards increasing female representation in national, andsub-national legislatures, the Japanese political gender gap remains one of the most significant in theworld. In 2019, The Inter-parliamentary Union ranked Japan at 165 out of 193 of the world’s
industrialised nations in terms of the proportion of women elected to the Japanese legislature (TheInter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) 2019). Japanese National Diet (国会) is currently composed of
10.1% (47) women in The House of Representatives (衆議院), and 20.7% (50) women in The Houseof Councillors (参議院). Perhaps democratic political systems are designed to be gender neutral, but
democratic institutions are supposed to hold a mirror to the society they seek to govern.
Representative democracy is as much about citizenship rights, participation and inclusion as it isabout political parties, elections, and accountability. The quality of a democracy can be determined
not only by the form of its political institutions, but also the extent to which different sections ofsociety participate in such institutions.
The underrepresentation of women in Japanese political life seems to have resulted in democratisation
with a male face; a ‘male democracy’ – an incomplete and, perhaps biased form of democracy. As
women represent roughly 50% of the population, the presence of female legislators is essential inencouraging citizen engagement and the building a sustainable representative democracy. In addition,according to the United Nations Development Programme and UN Women, when women participate
in elections as candidates, and as voters, decisions better reflect the electorate, and democracy isstrengthened (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Women. 2015). It is clear,
therefore that the Japanese political system, is failing to truly represent the Japanese populace, andperhaps govern in the interests of women. The goal of this research project is to advance understandingof the factors which hinder the advancement of women in Japanese politics, as well as examining how
feasible the introduction of positive discrimination mechanisms such as gender quotas may be toincrease the proportion of female parliamentarians in Japan.

12
EPOK 20191) Historical and cultural BackgroundAt the 1946 General Election, the first time women were granted equal suffrage and the right to standfor election as candidates, 67% of women participated in the election, and 39 women were elected to
the House of Representatives (8% of the membership), yet throughout many changes to Japanesepolitical institutions: party and electoral systems, the proportion of female members of the House ofRepresentatives has never risen above 11% (the percentage of women in the House of Councillors ishigher owing to its more proportional electoral system.
The Gender Parity Law, which unanimously passed in The Diet in May 2018, encourages efforts toincrease the proportion of female candidates and parliamentarians (Ministry of Internal Affairs andCommunications 2018). However well-intentioned the legislation may be, it does not put in place any
concrete measures to increase female representation – it merely states cross-party ‘intention’ toincrease representation of women.
The ‘Womenomics’ pillar of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Abenomics agenda, aims to increase
female labour participation, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe outlined his intention to create a Japanesesociety in which ‘women can shine’, in spite of this, only one cabinet position is currently occupied
by a woman, Satsuki Katayama – Minister for Regional Revitalisation and Gender Equality.
Furthermore, the government target of reaching 30% female representation by 2020 will almost
certainly be missed. The number of female candidates for the upcoming House of Councillors election,
the first election since the enactment of the Gender Parity Law, is just 28％ (The figures for the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, are especially low at 15% and 8%,
respectively). The reasons the lack of significant progress towards increasing female representation of
women in politics, need to be analysed.
2) Literature Review
Academic research into Japanese politics, both in Japan and Internationally has often focused on theunderrepresentation of women. Studies have focused on either Political Institutions: the political party
system (Dalton 2015) and the electoral system(Eto 2010, 177-201); Or sociocultural explanations:traditional gender norms; particularly looking at opinions of conservative women (Osawa 2015, 4561).
Studies into the effect of the Political Party System in Japan have pointed to the role of party leadership,
and the dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), classified as conservative or right-wing,
and relative weakness of opposition parties in Japan. The LDP which has been the party of government
almost continuously since 1955 has played an instrumental role in maintaining the low number offemale parliamentarians (Dalton 2015; Solomon 2016). Party leadership has been hesitant towards
the advancement of women in politics, and the LDP has been strongly opposed to the idea of gender
quotas (Och and Hasunuma 2018, 177-193). Lack of support from party leadership has not been
limited to conservative political parties, politicians across the political spectrum have privately
admitted their fears, that female candidates may not attract the financial and volunteer support required
to win elections (Solomon 2016). And there is little financial support from party headquarters toactively support female candidates.

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Opposition political parties, particularly left-wing parties such as Constitutional Democratic Party(CDP) and Japanese Communist Party (JCP), have typically boasted greater proportions of female
candidates and elected members compared to the Liberal Democratic Party. However, the relative
weakness of the opposition, has meant the parties which elect greater proportions of female
representatives and thus the women politicians themselves have been at a greater distance from thelevers of government, much of the policy decision-making and deliberation made within the Liberal
Democratic Party has often been made behind closed doors, prior to debate in the legislative chambers(Eto 2010, 177-201). Meaning opposition members often have little opportunity to scrutinise, amend
and shape legislation.
Sociocultural research has shown the traditional gender norms continue to play a significant role inJapanese public opinion. In Japan, women are overwhelmingly responsible for domestic and family
responsibilities; they often face significant obstacles due to lack of familial support for their politicalcareers, because political activism may bring embarrassment on their families (Dalton 2015). Many
conservative women; full-time housewives (sengyo-shufu), believe in maintenance of the traditional
gender roles, with woman’s roles as mothers being a central part of society. Conservative women havehistorically been a key volunteer and electoral support base for the LDP, and have often demonstrated
negative views of working mothers, and female politicians; and they have been reluctant to support
female candidates (Osawa 2015, 45-61).
3) Methodology
This research seeks to bridge the gap between understandings of political institutions, such as politicalparty and ideological affiliation; and societal attitudes towards women in politics. Finally, building on
the Gender Parity Legislation, I want to assess public acceptance of the idea of positive discrimination
mechanisms, such as gender quotas, to increase the proportion of female parliamentarians in Japan. I
conducted an online opinion survey written in Japanese, the sample population consisted of 92
Japanese individuals, of different ages, genders and political affiliations. There were two categories ofquestions: (1) general political views, including level of political interest, and political party affiliation.
And (2) attitudes towards female representation in politics. I shall analyse the variation in responses
between genders and political affiliations.
In terms of political party affiliation: 45.6% of respondents aligned themselves with centre-right orright-wing parties (Including The Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito, The Democratic Party For The
People (DPFP) and Nippon Ishin); 21.7% identified with centre-left or left-wing Parties (TheConstitutional Democratic Party (CDP) and Japanese Communist Party (JCP)); 22% were not alignedwith any party; and 9.7% responded with ‘Other Party’(aligning with Reiwa Shinsengumi a newpolitical grouping established by House of Councillor Taro Yamamoto). In order to comparedresponses from across the traditional Left-Right ideological divide, I have grouped political parties
into two ideological categories Right-wing, and Left-wing (with Reiwa Shinsengumi being placed in
the Left-wing column; its anti-nuclear and pacifist policy proposals are typically associated with leftwing political parties in Japan.

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4) Analysis and Evaluation
How Interested are you in
When respondents were asked: ‘How interested
Politics?
are you in Japanese politics?’ ‘(1) Very 50%
32%
31%
30%
Interested, (2) Quite Interested, (3) Somewhat
25%
24%
interested, (4) Not interested, and (5) No Interest
18%
30%
12%
3% 31%
at all. The results revealed a general sense of
37% 4%0% 24%
1%political apathy, yet there some significant 0%
Total
男性
女性
differences in terms of gender (see figure 1). 67%①非常に興味があるof men answered either very interested or quite②かなり興味をがある③やや興味をがある
interested, compared to just 42% of women. 59%④ あまり興味がない⑤全然興味ないof women had either a neutral or negative interest
Figure 1 - Interest in Politics - Men vs Womenin politics.
Previous studies have revealed variation in political interest between men and women,sociocultural explanations have found that Japanese women exhibit a lack of interest in politics andlack the confidence to pursue a political career(Eto 2010, 177-201). Family pressure and lack ofsupport for female candidacies has meant that women are often discouraged from political careers.
LDP candidates overwhelmingly come from three main backgrounds in order to become Diet
members: (1) Former local or prefectural assembly members; (2) bureaucrats; (3) former staff of Diet
members(Ogai 2001, 207-210). While a high proportion (72.3%) came from political families(Ogai
2001, 207-210). Women are less likely to have followed the three career paths, and thus lack thepatronage networks required to succeed, women not from political families are even less likely to beendorsed as candidates(Eto 2010, 177-201). Socially conservative views of LDP leaders and malepoliticians regarding women meant that the party did not account for changing lifestyles of Japanesewomen and towards supporting female candidates, politically and financially(Eto 2010, 177-201;
Dalton 2015; Solomon 2016). Furthermore, in Japanese society, business and political success for men
is seen in a more positive light than their female counterparts.
The underrepresentation of women in Japanese politics has meant that female parliamentarians have
had to adapt to the masculine nature of Japan’s political institutions. Research interviews with elected
officials have revealed that prejudicial assumptions of women, particularly around their ability tobalance motherhood responsibilities with legislative duties, result in uneasiness among party
leadership towards active encouragement of the selection of female candidates, and limit theadvancement of female member’s political careers. Party elites also question the longevity of a female
candidate’s political career (Dalton 2015). These views may arise from the fact that most women in
Japan do not return to work after having children; financial incentives discourage women fromreturning to work after having children. Increasing numbers of Japanese women returning to work
after having children in recent years, and balancing career and family responsibilities.
Another aspect which may explain women’s lack of enthusiasm in politics is the absence of highprofile, female role models. In the 1980s there was increasing in the enthusiasm among women andactivists within the women’s movement, when Takako Doi became leader of the Japanese Socialist
Party (JSP) (the first female party leader in Japan), in what has been referred to as the ‘Madonna Boom’
record numbers of female candidates were elected to serve as JSP Diet Members, yet when the
popularity of the JSP decreased so did the number of female representatives and enthusiasm to elect
them.

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Women in Politics
Questions in this section asked: (1) Do men or
women make better political leaders? (2) How
important is the representation of women inpolitics? (3) Do you think Japan should introduce
gender quotas to increase the proportion of female
politicians?

Do men or women makebetter political leaders?
100%
50%

33%2%

76%

72%

64%

10%17%

24%7%

0%

Right Wing Left Wing
Overall
The variation between genders revealed thatwomen were more supportive of gender equality
男性
女性
両方
in politics overall compared to men, while
Figure 2 - Do men or women make better political leaders?
responses showed an ideological divide between
conservative and left-wing Japanese people. Conservative women were less supportive of female
politicians than their left-wing supporting counterparts.

While overall, respondents answered that both men and women make better political leaders. A higher
proportion of supporters of right-wing parties answered that men made better political leaders, whilea higher proportion of left-wing supporters answered women (see figure 2).
How important is the representation of women in politics?
The survey revealed that perceived importance of increasing the proportion of female parliamentarians,
varied between genders and political ideology. Figure 3 shows that, 76% of women said that female
representation was Very Important or Quite Important, 57% of men said the same. When comparing
right-wing and left-wing respondents, left-wing supporters saw the issue of female representation as
more important than right-wing supporters. Furthermore, the variations were also demonstrated
between conservative women and left-wing women; conservative men and left-wing men. 100% of
Left-wing women said female representation was Very or Quite Important, compared to 54% ofconservative women. While 94% of left-wing men said it was Very or Quite important, just 46% ofconservative men said the same.
How important is female
representation in politics?
60.00%
47.37%
50.00%
35.19%
40.00%
28.95%
22.22%
30.00%
16.67%
20.00%
2.63%
10.00%
24.07%1.85%
21.05%
0.00%
0.00%
男性
女性
①非常に重要である②かなり重要である③やや重要である④あまり重要ではない⑤ほとんど重要ではない

How important is female
representation in Japanesepolitics?
60%
40%
20%

38%
37%
48%
24%
14%
37% 11%
2%
1%
0%0%

29%
21%24%
24%

0%
Right Wing

Left Wing

Overall①非常に重要である②かなり重要である③やや重要である④あまり重要ではない⑤ほとんど重要ではない

Figure 3 - Importance of female representation in Politics (Men vs Women & Political Ideology)

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Do you think Japan should introduce Gender Quotas?
50% of respondents (68% when don’t knows
Yes
No
Don’t
are
excluded) said that they supported theKnowintroduction of a form of gender quota system,
Right62% (80%) 15%
23%
72% of left-wing supporters supported the
wing
(20%)
introduction, while just 33% of right-wing
Womensupporters said the same (see figure 4). The
12% (13%) 65%
23%
Righttable below shows that left-wing women were
wing Men(71%)
more supportive of introducing a positive
16%
Left-wing 84% (100%) 0% (0%)
discrimination mechanism compared to rightWomen
wing women. Just 12% of right-wing men said
18%
Left-wing 76% (93%) 6% (7%)
Yes, the figures in brackets reflect theMenpercentage if ‘don’t knows’ were removed
Should Japan introduce Genderfrom calculations. Given the overall strength of
Quotas?
right-wing political parties in Japan,
3%
24%
72%
47%
particularly the Liberal Democratic Party,
100%
26%
21%
24% 50%0% 33%
while positive discrimination methods such as
Right Wing
Left Wing
Overallgender quotas may be supported by Japanese
はい、そう思います。
people in general, political leaders particularly,
いいえ、そう思いません。
those in the current government may need
わからない・未定
convincing of the benefit of using gender
quotas to increase female representation. The
Figure 4 - Should Japan introduce gender quotas? increase in proportion of female members may
weaken the political power of the Liberal Democratic Party, and after all, party elites are often more
ideological than the average voter, and it is the male, conservative leaders in the government who
would ultimately be responsible for the introduction of any positive discrimination mechanisms. And
as mentioned above the LDP has been reluctant to fully embrace the equalisation of gender
representation in politics and has actively opposed any previous moves to introduce gender quotas.
In conclusion, the findings of this research project reveal varying political attitudes among Japanesepeople of different genders and political persuasions. The results conclude that women were more
supportive of women in politics and positive discrimination to resolve the underrepresentation of
women in Japanese politics. Yet conservative, right-wing supporters were more reluctant to embrace
equalisation of gender representation in politics. Conservative political leaders and those holding
traditionalist conceptions of gender norms, may need more convincing of the material benefits ofincreasing female representation in politics, as the UNDP has found, the more representative a
democratic institution, the more positive the policy outcomes. Measures to increase engagement andparticipation of younger women may be necessary as they exhibited as far greater apathy to politics
than their male counterparts. This could take the form of gender quotas, politics may begin to seem
more relevant when young women see people like them, more women, in politics; or political parties
could establish mentoring programmes for young women to encourage them to consider politicalcareers, similar schemes operated by British political parties such as The Labour Party’s ‘Jo Cox
Women in Leadership Programme’, have led to an increase in enthusiasm of women in politics andsaw increase numbers of female candidates and members of parliament elected at the 2017 General
Election.
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Reaching definitive conclusions in political research is difficult, particularly with a relatively small
sample size, large-scale political surveys such as YouGov and The British Election Study (BES) aim
for larger, more demographically representative sample population of around 1500-2000 people. A
larger sample size reduces the risk of sampling error, or margin of error. For a more representative
follow-up study, I would like to repeat the survey at different time periods, with a larger and moregeographically diverse pool of participants.

References
Dalton, E. 2015. Women and Politics in Contemporary Japan. London: Routledge.
Eto, Mikiko. 2010. "Women and Representation in Japan." International Feminist Journal of
Politics 12 (2): 177-201.
政治分野における男女共同参画の推進に関する法律 (Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in
Politics). Public Law (Act No. 28 of Heisei 30), (2018).
Och, Malliga and Linda Hasunuma. 2018. "Womenomics Under Abe's Leadership Signs of
Feminisation of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party?" Representation 54 (2): 177-193.
Ogai, Tokuko. 2001. "Japanese Women and Political Institutions: Why are Women Politically
Underrepresented?" PS: Political Science and Politics 34 (2): 207-210.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1350203.
Osawa, Kimiko. 2015. "Traditional Gender Norms and Women’s Political Participation: How
Conservative Women Engage in Political Activism in Japan." Social Science Japan Journal 18(1): 45-61.
Solomon, Elisa. 2016. Women’s Participation in the Japanese Government: Will Parliament Reachthe 30 Per Cent Target by 2020? Australian Institute of International Affairs.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). 2019. "Women in Parliament in 2018: The Year in Review".
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Women. 2015. Inclusive Electoral
Processes: A Guide for Electoral Management Bodies on Promoting Gender Equality and
Women’s Participation. New York and Geneva: UNDP and UN Women.

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HOW THE OKAYAMA STUDENTS PERCEIVE POLITICS: THE LDP CASE
岡山大学の学生が政治をどう感じるか―自由民主党のケースについて―Lorenzo Marinelli ロレンツォ ・マリネッリ
Cà Foscari University of Venice (Italy)

要旨： 4 月の統一地方選挙が過去最低の投票率であったことは、投票に対して国民の関心が薄れたことを示した[2] 。この選挙で日本の学生たちが政治をどのように認識しているか、なぜこんなに低い参加率であったのか疑問に思った。そこで、自由民主党に焦点を当て、若い日本人の政治認識を理解しようとした。アンケートの結果から学生の 70％以上が政治に関心を持っていないことが分かった。多くの学生は自由民主党について十分な政治的知識を持っておらず政治に関する意見がなかった。

Why the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)?
The LDP has been at the core of Japanese politics, pre- and post-reform of the electoral
system, even since its formation. Therefore, we cannot understand the politics and thepolicymaking of postwar Japan without understanding the LDP. Furthermore, the LDP wasprobably the most successful political party in the democratic world simply in terms of its numberof years in power. It ruled from 1955 continuously until 2009, fifty-four years. So, in my opinion,
it is important to understand how one successful political party was organized and why, and how
it reacted to the reform of the electoral system.
Focus
For the reasons explained above, for a better understanding of the Japanese politics it isnecessary an analysis of that party that has characterized Japanese politics for over half a century.
The first part of this research is a comprehensively study of the structure, internal organizationand history of such an important party. Furthermore, is pointing out the main changes suffered by
all the LDP organizational components after the reform of the electoral system in the year 1994
for a better comprehension of the evolutions in the internal dynamics of the party. The second partof this project consists in an exploration in Okayama city researching how the Okayama students
perceive politics and how the party is seen.
Methodologies
First I started with the literature review specialized in the historical analysis of the party
starting from its birth to the present day. After the historical analysis, the research went deeply
into at the city level. The Japanese Okayama students were subject to questionnaires in order tounderstand even more deeply what they think about politics and how this party is seen from thepoint of view of that generation that will become the future of Japan. The questionnaire wasdistributed using my network of Japanese friendships and at the L-cafè where other Japanese
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EPOK 2019

students can complete the questionnaire in the month of June, 2019. Seventeen students (10 malestudents and 7 female students) respond to the questionnaire, which attempted to reveal how
Japanese Okayama University students perceive the politics and the LDP and their reasons to votefor a party rather than for another. Moreover, given the very low turnout at the last voting, thequestionnaire will try to understand how many students actually went to vote.
Historical Background
The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (自由民主党 Jiyū-Minshutō), frequently
abbreviated to LDP or Jimintō ( 自 民 党 ), is a conservative political party, which has nearcontinuously been in power since its foundation, with the exception of a period of 1993-1994, andagain of 2009-2012. The LDP was formed in 1955 as a merger between two of Japan's politicalparties, the Liberal Party and the Japan Democratic Party, both right-wing conservative parties,
as a united front against the then popular Japan Socialist Party. [1]In the Single Non Trasferable Vote (SNTV) electoral system vote cast for one candidateof a party could not be transferred to another candidate of that party. Simply, the highest votegetters won election to the Diet, the number of winners determined by the district allocation of
three, four, of five seats. But after these electoral rules had been operating for almost half a century
they came to be perceived as undergoing the entire pattern of politics and policymaking that hadcome to be dubbed the ’55 system.
The SNTV system had numerous negative aspects, which had caused a real politicalcrisis in the early 1990s. In fact, this system caused the intra-party rivalry of the candidates of thesame party who had to stand out in order to be elected. As a result, local policies were fundamental
in order to emerge. Therefore, the main themes were not foreign policy, national problems,
economy, finance or society but were, for example, schools or hospitals. The SNTV was therefore
not a system that encouraged the citizen to form an opinion on the major political issues.
Furthermore, this system caused the phenomena of political corruption and non-transparent
relations between interest groups or category associations. The political discontent generated by
all these phenomena has led to the transition to another political system to try to eliminate these
problems: the mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system.
In 1993, LDP temporarily lost control of its Diet majority because some LDP members
defected from the party and formed a new party. This was a very significant event because up
until that point, the LDP had controlled the government for almost 40 years without interruption.
Perhaps the most important result of the LDP's temporary loss of power was the coalition
government's reform of the election system, enacted in 1994. Analysts predicted that theorganizational form and processes of the LDP in pursuing its goals would be fundamentally
altered by electoral reform. Moreover, the analysts predicted that many of the LDP institutional
components (koenkai, habatsu or factions, and Policy Affairs Research Council, (PARC, which
is now called Policy Research Committee)) would disappear because their origins lay in a rational
and intentional response by the party to its SNTV electoral environment.[1]Let us look as the major institutions of the LDP under ’55 system that came to be
attributed to the SNTV electoral system. The ’55 system is simply a term of convenience to mean
the period from 1955 to 1993 when the LDP developed its organizational components of:

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EPOK 2019

Koenkai;
Fanctions;
PARC

KoenkaiAt the heart of the LDP vote-gathering dominance under this system were the koenkai,a network of groups in which its individual Diet candidates constructed or incorporate with theirconstituents. Participation in this network induced loyalty to the candidate and members repaid
the services and attention provided by the candidate by voting for him or her and by mobilizing
friends, neighbors, and relatives to do the same. In other words, koenkai, as officially only privatesocial groups independent of parties or politics, allowed the politician to reach constituents andinduce a loyal, personal vote without violating the very restrictive campaign laws. Koenkai havesuffered a decline since the electoral reform in 1994 but continue to thrive as a widespreadorganizational form nearly in the same shape and playing the same role that they have for
decades.[1]Factions
Intraparty rivalry was encouraged because candidates from the same party, especially in
the LDP, competed against one another more than against the candidates of other parties. Factions
provided aid in getting candidates the party nomination in that district and financing to help
candidates win their seats, and party leadership factions managed the allocation of all positionsin the party, parliament, and government. Moreover, the faction leader provided extra funding tosupport the politicians’ koenkai and campaigns, and also represented the winning Diet membersin the annual interfactional bargaining over the distribution of party, parliamentary, andgovernment positions. The electoral reform of 1994 weakened the factions and changed theirpattern. Factions have become weaker because of the elimination of some of their roles andfunctions and thus, consequently, weakening the structure of the factions by nearly eliminating
their electoral functions and weakening others. Organizational complementary with koenkai andother electoral institutions such as the funding law were disrupted by the reforms but theorganizational form persisted because of the continued aligned incentives of leaders for careeradvancement, which remained relatively unchanged by the reform. [1]
PARC
PARC was a core organization in structuring both the policymaking process and theroles of LDP Diet members within that process; thus, it affected the status, influence, and electoral,
party, and governmental careers of the LDP politicians. PARC was the major policymaking bodywithin the LDP. Its members were the LDP representatives in both legislative houses, and it was
the basic forum in which the party discussed, negotiated, and decided party and, because the LDP
was the governing party for so long, government policy. PARC essentially was the organ that had
the most influence in shaping legislation. Electoral reform partially disrupted and altered manyof the previous patterns found in PARC but it continued its existence and remained pivotal inpolicymaking. [1]21
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The questionnaires analysis
The analysis of the questionnaires revealed many interesting points, especially the
results of the first question. The first question asked whether or not the student had voted in thelast general election in April because a very low percentage of young voters was recorded. The
results actually confirmed this trend as only 2 students out of 17 (11% of the total) voted in the
April election. The reason for why around 80% of the students who did not vote was the residencecard. These students did not change their residential address so they could not vote in Okayama.
PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS WHO HAVEAN INTEREST IN POLITICS

Other students did not vote for important
commitments. Another student forgot this election.
Another one did not even know it.

29%

As for thesecond question that asked if the student has aninterest in politics, as the pie chart shows, over 70%
of students do not have an interest in politics. This71%

could be a reason for the low turnout of students inthe last elections. Most students said they do notknow much about politics as it is never a topic of discussion. On the other hand, some students
have an interest in politics because it has a connection with everyday life. Some others are trying
to inquire about politics because they are worried about Japan's future destiny. The third question
asked the students if there was a particular feature or opinion in a political party that made themvote for that party. Eight students out of 17 do not have a real reason or motivation to vote for one
party rather than others. On the contrary, 9
students have a clear idea about what features or
opinion a party should have to be voted on.

PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS WHO KNOW LDP

6%

Example of such features whether the politicalparties have a clear and transparent political

94%

program whether the parties deal with the
problem of falling birth rates, and whether parties

YES

NO

actually accomplished what they claimed inpolitical programs. The fourth and fifth questions were more focused on the LDP because I would
like understand how this party was seen by the eyes of young Japanese students. In the fourthquestion I found that all but one person out of 17 knew the LDP. They came to know the party
thanks to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo but about only half of them have been able to express theirown personal opinion of the party. Among them, some said that the LDP is a good party that has
ruled the country for a long time. On the contrary, there are some students who do not have a good
opinion of the party. Some thought that the proposal for tackling deflation will not be realized.
Others thought that the LDP is an old party that does not leave too much space for youthful ideas.
About half of the students who knew the LDP have not been able to express their own personal
opinion of the party due to a lack of knowledge of the party and politics. It is no coincidence that
22
EPOK 2019they are those who have declared that they have no interest in politics in the second question. The
fifth question asked if the students think that the LDP is the right party for the future of Japan.
Seven students out of 17 (41%) think that the LDP is adequate for Japan's future, while 8 (47%)
students believe that this party is not right to rule Japan in the future. Two students out of 17
wanted to refrain from answering not having the appropriate knowledge. There are several reasons
for why some students believe that the LDP is the right party for the future of Japan. For example,
this party has improved the economic conditions of the country; therefore, it is the party, which
can raise the Japanese economy in the future. Another student claimed that the Japanese politicalsituation was worse when the Democratic party ruled. This shows how in recent years Japanesepolitics has been conducted mainly by these two big parties and how political choices are often
based on the “least worst.” Other students like the way the LDP conducts politics and are satisfied
with the current condition of Japan. This makes it clear once again how the students who have nointerest in politics do not inform themselves of the real and not-so-flourishing political andeconomic conditions that Japan is currently experiencing. Among the students who believe that
the LDP is not the right party for the future of Japan, some think that the LDP is not a suitable
party for a substantially change of the Japan’s conditions. Moreover, some others thought that the
LDP is not an honest party and this party has caused the increase in the country's debt. In
conclusion, it is clear from the analysis of these questionnaires how the politics is perceived andexperienced by young Okayama students is not positive. It is impressive that only a student has
fulfilled his duties as a citizen by going to vote. In fact, this low rate of voting participation isreflected in the results of the second question where only 29% claimed they have an interest inpolitics. Another negative aspect that resulted from the analysis of these questionnaires is thatabout half of these students do not have specific reasons or ideals that help them in choosing theparty to vote for. These students do not have the criteria to vote for one party rather than another.
I think this is a very serious aspect because a good citizen should always follow his or her ideals
when voting because even a single vote could make the difference. As for the questions about
LDP, it is a good result that only one person did not know this party but at the same time morethan half of the students who claimed to know this party did not know how to express their idea
or opinion because they don't have enough political knowledge, which is not good. From a student
point of view, about half of the interviewed people has positive and hopeful ideas about the LDP,
while the other half considers this party too old and not useful for Japan's economic recovery.

Reference
1 Krauss, Ellis S. and Robert J. Pekkanen (2010) The rise and fall of Japan’s LDP. Cornell Paperbacks
2 Wada, Hiroyuki (2019) “Voter turnout in Japan's unified local elections marks record lows in cities,” The Mainichi(online) available at: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190423/p2a/00m/0na/012000c [Last accessed:10 July 2019]23
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Digging into the imperfective aspect with Okayama-ben
岡山弁の非完結相の示し方
Emily Owen エミリー・オーウェン
University of Edinburgh (Scotland)

要旨： 言語学では、時制と相という二つの関わりが強い現象があり、言語によって示し方が違う現象である。時制は時間を示す文法範疇で、日本語の場合は、文章の動詞を見たら、その時制の働きが見られる。例えば、過去形は「V + た」で示す。相は複雑だが、このプロジェクトでは非完結相を焦点にする。非完結相は、助動詞「ている」で進行相か完了相を示すことである。標準語では、その二つの相が区別していないが、岡山弁と他の西日本の方言には、区別している。このプロジェクト
は岡山弁の非完結相の示し方を検討する。

Introduction
Translation of media from one language to another always poses its own set of challenges.
It was through my own work in translation that I happened to notice the way English and Japanesediffer in terms of how they express the imperfective aspect, a grammatical form which
encompasses meanings such as progressive, or habitual, for example, He is walking the dog.
Unlike English, Japanese has a specific marker for the imperfective, -teiru, that is used. English
having no general marker makes it easier to tell without context what meaning is being used, but
in Japanese, as the imperfective is expressed solely by -teiru, and a verb is all that is required tomake a grammatical sentence, ambiguity can be deliberately utilised to create a sense of mysteryor suspense in fiction. Interestingly, however, there are dialects of Japanese, mainly in the west,
which have two different forms of the imperfective marker, which helps to visibly differentiate
between a progressive action, and state. The dialect spoken in Okayama is one of these dialects.
In this project, I will look at the Japanese imperfective marker, -teiru, and how Okayama-ben can
inform us more about the underlying workings.
Literature Review
i. The Japanese imperfective marker -teiru-teiru in Japanese can be broadly separated into two different usages: the progressive, andto show a continuing state (known in the field of linguistics as the “present perfect”). On thesurface, nothing about these usages are different.
(1) 彼は結婚している
kare wa kekkon shiteiru
He is married.
(2) 彼は走っている。
kare wa hashitteiru
He is running.
24
EPOK 2019Both of these end with -teiru, but while (1) represents a continuing state of someone being
married (something which is interestingly represented with the past participle in English), (2)represents a verb that is in-progress – the person is still doing the verb of running. As we can see,in Standard Japanese, although the same marker -teiru is used in the above sentences, the aspectof the verbs is different.
ii. The use of the imperfective in Okayama-ben
The dialect of Japanese spoken in Okayama Prefecture is widely-known as Okayamaben. It can be split into the versions spoken in the Bizen, Bichu, and Mimasaka areas, but there isno clear line that can be drawn between them, as they each hold common structures to each other.
The imperfective aspect markers are one structure that remains common to the three versions of
the dialect.
A key feature of this dialect is that there is not only one imperfective marker, but two: yooru, and -toru. An interesting phenomenon occurs where -toru can be used to represent boththe progressive and the present perfect (idea of continuing state), but -yooru can only be used torepresent the progressive.
To conjugate a verb with -yooru, take the verb in -masu form, and replace the -masu with -yooru.
行く
iku



行きます
ikimasu

行きょーる
ikyooru

To conjugate a verb with -toru, take the verb in -te form, and replace the -te with -toru.
知る
shiru



知って
shitte

知っとる
shittoru

With this, it seems possible to simply use -toru all the time, but the idea that there are
dialects which make these visible distinctions between the progressive and the present perfectwhen Standard Japanese does not cannot be ignored.
iii. Verb categories
In order to try and delve into the usage of these two imperfective markers in Okayamaben, I will utilise the proposal by Vendler (1957) that verbs can be split into four different
categories: State, Activity, Accomplishment, and Achievement. What category a verb lands in
depends on the inherent aspect of the verb, which can be mapped onto a time axis.
State terms (e.g. love, contain, know) are continuous with no endpoint unless someoutside force interrupts it. The “consequences” of this verb remain in the present.

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Activity terms (e.g. run, walk, play) are continuous along the axis, but will eventually
come to a natural end – they have an arbitrary endpoint.
Accomplishment terms (e.g. make a chair, walk to school), while similar to Activity
terms, have a natural endpoint that is clearly defined.
x
It is important to bring attention to the notion that the difference between Activities andAccomplishments is whether or not there is a clearly-defined criteria for that verb to be completed.
If you cannot mark a definite endpoint on the time axis before the verb is complete, it is an Activity.
If you can mark a definite endpoint (for example, with “run a mile”, it would be when a wholemile has been ran, compared to simply the verb, “run”, where there is no clear definite endpointor goal), it is an Accomplishment.
Achievement terms (e.g. die, drop, win the race) are not continuous, and can be reduced
to a single point on the time axis.
Smith (1997) also proposes a fifth category known as Semelfactives, used for iteration(repetition) of punctual verbs (e.g. sneeze, cough) which I will also make use of here. They canbe considered a subclass of Achievement verbs.
Methodology
I prepared a series of sentences which use verbs from the five verb categories mentioned
above, placed them into sentences in -teiru form, and had interviews with native speakers of
Okayama-ben where they would choose what version of the imperfective in Okayama-bensounded most natural: -yooru, -toru, or both of them. This would make it possible to examine if
the verb categories have a hand in the underlying workings of the usage of -teiru. I have compiled
the verbs tested in the table below:

State
愛している
(love)

Activity
走っている
(run)

入っている
(contain)

歩いている(walk)

知っている(know)

遊んでいる(play)

Accomplishment
椅子を作っている(make a chair)
通学している(travel to school)

Achievement
死んでいる
(die)

Semelfactive
瞬きをしている(blink)
命を落として くしゃみをしいるている(lose one’s life)(sneeze)
勝っている
ドアを叩いて(win)
いる(knock on adoor)

All of the Accomplishment verbs, Activity verbs, and Semelfactives were natural using
either form. The State verbs sound natural with -toru, except for 愛する aisuru (to love) whichused both. The Achievement verbs also sound natural with -toru, except for 勝つ katsu (to win)which used both.

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Discussion
As can be seen, Accomplishment verbs, Activity verbs, and Semelfactives work
similarly, allowing both markers to be used. This makes sense for Accomplishment and Activity,
given the arbitrariness of the endpoint is the only part that makes them different. But
Semelfactives having a different result from Achievement verbs, which they are a subclass of, isan interesting result of note.
What differs these three categories from State and Achievement is the importance of both
the duration and the existence of an endpoint. Semelfactives take these punctual Achievement
verbs (which have no duration, only an endpoint), and create a durational event through iteration(repetition) of the verb, creating multiple endpoints along the axis. For example, if we take theverb to sneeze, if someone sneezes once and no more sneezes come after that, we say that theperson sneezed. If someone sneezes more than once, we say they are sneezing, as each sneeze isgrouped into one event. A visual representation of this sneezing event can be seen below:
x
x

x

x

Each x represents a sneeze, with the bold orange line representing the length of the eventon the time axis. If you say that someone is sneezing, you are not treating each sneeze like aseparate event, but as one big event that starts from the first sneeze, and ends with the last sneeze.
This creates both a duration and an endpoint for Semelfactives, as well, allowing it to fit into thecriteria posed by Accomplishment and Activity.
On the other hand, both State and Achievement primarily use -toru. To reiterate, State
verbs are continuous, but have no endpoint, whereas Achievement verbs are the opposite punctual verbs, having only an endpoint, but no duration. So it appears that usage of -yooru
requires both duration and an endpoint to be naturally used as an imperfective marker.
I would like to take a moment to consider the verbs that broke the patterns beginning tobe established.
The only Achievement verb that changed from the pattern was to win, 勝つ (katsu). Thiscan be easily explained by examining the context the verb was used in the example sentence:“Who is winning right now?” 今はどちらが勝っているのですか。Worded slightly different,
the question is “Who is currently in the process of winning?” /“Who is in the lead at the current
point in time?” This is something that has a potential endpoint, as the other player or other team
could score more points before the end of the match, changing who is in the lead.
Among the State verbs, the one that didn’t use only -toru was to love, 愛する(aisuru).
The context of the example sentence I had given was, “He loves her,” 彼は彼女を愛している.
Further research would be required to fully study this, but I believe this could be down toperception by the individual person. From the conclusions drawn above, -yooru sounds natural inusage when there is both a duration and an endpoint. This suggest that if a person viewed love as
something that would come to an eventual end, it would result in both. But if another person
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EPOK 2019

viewed love in a more romantic light, as something endless, perhaps they would mark only -toru
as sounding natural.

Conclusion
The imperfective aspect is interesting in the many ways it is expressed across languages,
and even within languages. Dialects like Okayama-ben with more distinct markers than thestandard version of the language makes it easier to study the underlying behaviour of theimperfective within the language, as it gives something visible to look at. It can be seen from theresults of using verb categories and placing importance on looking at the temporal aspect of themthat the Japanese language places much more focus on the precise duration of verbs, as indicatedby -yooru, with its requirement of both a duration and an endpoint to appear natural in its usage.

References
Smith, Carlota S., 1997. The parameter of aspect. Second edition. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Vendler, Zeno, 1957. Verbs and times. The Philosophical Review 66: 143-160.

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Traditional Japanese Architecture In Modern Society:
Case Study Kurashiki Bikan Chiku
現代社会における伝統的の建築：倉敷美観地区
Jordyn Murtaugh ジョーディン・マートウ
California State University Monterey Bay (America)

要旨： 私の EPOK プロジェクトは現代社会における伝統的な建築についてです。私の研究は倉敷美観地区に焦点を当てています。なぜなら、この場所はたくさん伝統的な建築様式があるからです。
倉敷美観地区は岡山大学の近くです。近代社会は、倉敷美観地区で保全活動、観光産業、そして伝統的建造物の再利用という 3 つの方法で相互作用していることがわかりました。これらの発見
は、記事の調査、倉敷美観地区で行われた現地調査、そして NPO 法人倉敷町家トラストとの個人
インタビューを通して発見されました。

My topic of interest and focus is on how modern society interacts and uses traditionalarchitecture in Kurashiki Bikan Chiku. What drove me to choose such a topic was my belief thatmodern society has a unique role when it comes to traditions and culture. Society decides whatrole and influence these aspects have in their life and country. They are what keeps traditions aliveand prevalent in society. Because of this, I believe society should be knowledgeable and aware of
their traditions and cultures, so that they have a deeper understanding and appreciation. The
reason for choosing Kurashiki Bikan Chiku as a case study was because the more I looked into
the historical quarter, the more it seemed to hold the answers for my questions. Kurashiki Bikan
Chiku has also earned the recognition as an “Important Preservation District for Groups of
Traditional Buildings.” The town is preserved to look as it did in the Edo Period, which meansthat this is a perfect place of traditional architecture where modern society has a chance to interact
with it. This historical quarter is also near Okayama University and would allow for easy accessto do field research so that I may go beyond merely researching articles. Upon further
investigation, I discovered that modern society in Kurashiki Bikan Chiku interacts through threemain methods: repurposing of traditional buildings, tourism industry, and preservation efforts. I
discovered these findings through article research, fieldwork performed in Kurashiki Bikan Chiku,
and a personal interview with the NPO Corporation, Kurashiki Machiya Trust.
To begin, some history is needed as it has influenced the town, society, and current useof Kurashiki Bikan Chiku. Historically, Kurashiki was a town for merchants to store their wares
29
EPOK 2019before sending them off to the capital and other large cities. In order to do this, canals were madeto transport those goods from the bay to the warehouses. The canals and warehouses were bothmaintained throughout their history and now have very different uses. Because of this unique
important history in Kurashiki, the Japanese government and city of Kurashiki have madeKurashiki Bikan Chiku a historical preservation district. The warehouses are now repurposed as
store fronts, restaurants, and museums. For example, the Museum of Folkcraft where visitors canlearn more about traditional Japanese folkcrafts, and the Archeological Museum where visitors
can learn about the preservation of art and other information are some of the few repurposedbuildings. Even tourist information centers and a local bank make use of the historic buildings inorder to prevent the destruction of these cultural places.
During one of my field research trips, I found the canals are currently used in the tourism
industry as a place to take historical boat rides. This is a popular event that is well advertised in
the town and online on many tourism websites. Kurashiki Bikan Chiku’s main attraction totourists is its unique appearance and traditional atmosphere. Many visitors will notice that there
are no visible powerlines.
In keeping with the preservation and appeal of the merchant town to look as it once did in the Edo
period, modern technology is hidden from sight to maintain this image. The buildings in Kurashiki
Bikan Chiku all maintain the same historical look with black rooftop tiles, white plaster walls,
bottom storefronts, wooden bars over small windows, and narrow alleys connecting to otherstreets. The canal has also maintained its original look of large stones and only a small portion
was opened for the previously mentioned boat rides.
Modern society has also made a point of renovating buildings in Kurashiki Bikan Chiku.
While there, I noticed a few buildings that were under construction. On closer inspection I
discovered that on the outside of these buildings there were notifications in both English andJapanese. These notifications explained what was happening to the buildings and why they neededrenovations. There were also signs in both languages that informed visitors about Kurashiki Bikan
Chiku being a part of “Japan Heritage” and why the town is important in preserving traditional
culture, architecture, and history. The reason there were signs in both languages is also because
Kurashiki Bikan Chiku has become a popular place for international tourists to visit.
During my research I came upon a group called Kurashiki Machiya Trust, an NPO
corporation, who also works hard on preserving architecture in Kurashiki Bikan Chiku. They
work for “the purpose of inheriting, cultivating and maintaining local lifestyles, and preserving
the landscape through the revitalization and utilization of town houses.” The activities of theKurashiki Machiya Trust are very diverse. The main activity is to repurpose and utilize
townhouses, which are called machiya. These buildings are no longer used, which is why the
corporation uses them for town house life experiences, lodging, and community activities. Theirgoal in creating the machiya is to create a place in Kurashiki where people will want to gather
and live. In the future, their goal is to also increase the number of reclaimed properties and spreadtheir community works.
Kurashiki Machiya Trust utilizes the help of donors, local residents, and volunteers. For
their first project of Misaki House, completed in November 2007, the Trust and volunteers
repaired and revitalized this home into a machiya. This home is currently used as a short-term
rental house for the use of tourists and locals. Misaki House was renovated in the traditional
Japanese style, and is away for tourists to experience first-hand the architecture and lifestyle oftraditional Japanese life. The Trust’s wish for revitalizing the building is “for people to stay in the
30
EPOK 2019house, turn on the lights, talk, and to enjoy the town life.” Once I learned about Kurashiki Machiya
Trust, I knew I had to interview them. They are a perfect example of modern society interactingwith traditional Japanese architecture through preservation and renovation efforts. I set up aninterview with Mr. Nakamura, a member of Kurashiki Machiya Trust, to learn about theirreasoning behind creating the NPO corporation and their revitalization efforts.

Interview:
なぜ倉敷町家トラストを作りましたか。Why did you create Kurashiki Machiya Trust?
- “We created Machiya Trust to keep and maintain the traditional buildings. There havebecome an increased number of empty houses in Kurashiki due to the aging society
and we wish to renew these places.”
トラストの家にはどのような方が泊まりにきますか。Who stays at the Trust houses?
- “We have tourists from all countries stay in our machiya. Friends of residents inKurashiki also have stayed in our houses. We have also had people who used to live inthis area come back to visit the nearby grave site. Because they do not live here any
longer they need a place to stay while taking care of the grave site, they have chosen tostay at our machiya.”
次のプロジェクトは何ですか 。What is your next project?
- “Our next project is another machiya house. We are currently debating if we should
try a more modern aspect inside the house or continue the more traditional interior.
Keeping it more traditional will cost more money.”
倉敷美観地区の店主はトラストでボランティアをしますか。Do shop owners of Kurashiki
Bikan Chiku volunteer at the Trust?
- “No, most shop owners currently in Kurashiki Bikan Chiku come from other areas
such as Osaka. They usually don't involve themselves in the community. The membersof Kurashiki Machiya Trust volunteer, and those members are people who have grown
up here and currently live in the surrounding area. The Trust also receives a little
government funding through subsidies to help fund our projects.”
トラストは倉敷美観地区の外の建物で活動しているのですか。Does the Trust work on
buildings outside of Kurashiki Historical District?
- “No, we only work on buildings in the Kurashiki Bikan Chiku area.”

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EPOK 2019

観光は倉敷美観地区を守るのに役立ちますか。Does tourism help preserve the Kurashiki
Historical District?
- “I believe tourism both helps and harms Kurashiki Bikan Chiku. Tourism is helpful inthe way of bringing in money to the area but it also changes the historical district. The
tourists do not come to look at the architecture of the area but only to shop. Most
tourists want a more modern style. Because of this the inside of buildings havechanged to accommodate the tourists and make it more comfortable for them. This haschanged the building’s interior from that of traditional architecture and will continue
to change the lifestyle of Japanese traditions. I wish for people to come here andexperience what it was like during this period. I want them to personally touch, smell,hear, and see what it was like, instead of learning about it in history books.”
During the interview, Mr. Nakamura also discussed the materials used when renovating as wellas their goal of sustainability when creating their machiya houses.
- “When building and renovating buildings, in the past we only used exclusively
Okayama materials. Now we try to use materials that are from all over Japan and if
Japan does not have the materials we need, only then do we use products from othercountries. When building we also keep in mind sustainability and renewable energy.
The traditional style and architecture of Japanese machiya is very sustainable. Throughthe use of tatami and windows, we make use of natural wind and air flow to cool thehome. This allows us to not use air conditioning. Most homes are also made ofrenewable materials and energy. When tearing down these buildings we can easily
reuse the materials. Many of these old traditional homes have been used to create newthings.”Kurashiki Bikan Chiku is a hub of traditional Japanese architecture that has been recognizedby the people as a historical district. Since its recognition, society and especially the locals, havemade it a priority to maintain and preserve its history. The government and small corporations
such as Kurashiki Machiya Trust, work hard to revitalize these cultural buildings and aspects ofJapanese traditions. Kurashiki Bikan Chiku has allowed many generations and even international
visitors to experience first-hand the unique tradition of Japanese architecture. Through thesevarious means, traditional Japanese architecture still maintains to play an important part inmodern society.

Reference:“Kurashiki Bikan Historical Area: Website of Sightseeing in Kurashiki.” Kurashiki Bikan Historical Area | Website ofSightseeing in Kurashiki, www.kurashiki-tabi.jp/for/en/bikan.html/ Accessed Nov. 2018.
Canal Area (Bikan Historical Quarter). www.japan-guide.com/. Accessed Nov. 2018.
倉敷町家トラスト. (n.d.). Retrieved February, 2019, from http://www.Kurashiki-machiya-trust.jp/
Okayama Prefectural Tourism Federation. “Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter: Okayama Prefecture Official Tourism
Guide Explore Okayama, the Land of Sunshine.” Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter | Okayama Prefecture Official
Tourism Guide Explore Okayama, the Land of Sunshine, Nov. 2018, www.okayama-japan.jp/en/spot/886.

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Japanese Generation's Attitudes Toward Shrine Visits
日本人異世代の参拝の態度
Lauren Torres ローレン・トレス
California State University of Monterey Bay (United States of America)

要旨： このレポートの目的は、日本人異世代の参拝の態度を分かることです。色々なな年齢の日
本人にインタビューし、神社で参拝客を観察しました。人々が神社を訪れる理由はたくさんありますが、若い世代の理由と老い世代の理由は通常違います。インタビューした人の答えによると、どちらの世代もが最初に神社に到着した時に同様のことをしているようです。しかし、観察によると、若い世
代は老い世代が行っている手順の一部に従っていないようです。どちらの世代も神社に参入するときにはほとんど手続きがあるようです。世代は参拝と手続きの理由に関連して神社に異なる態度をします。しかし、尊敬はまだあります。

Introduction
Shintoism is seen, especially by foreigners, as one of the primary religions of thepeople in Japan. There are tens of thousands of Shinto shrines all over the country and people
may visit them for a variety of events such as New Years, setsubun, shichi-go-san, or manyother festivals (Japan Guide). There is even proper steps and procedures a visitor should follow
when making a shrine visit, such as bowing at the torii gates or purifying yourself at the waterbasin called chozuya. As I visited shrines and partook in these little, but important, actions I
noticed how there was sometimes a difference in how the people went about the procedures andwhat they actually did at shrines. I wanted to see if there was indeed a difference and if thedifferences might be due to the ages of the people and the way they look at shrines, according tothose actually visiting the shrines. I also wanted to see if the younger Japanese generations are
more similar to foreigners than they are to the older generations,. This is to see if their idea of
shrines is less religious and more for the purpose of tourism, which is seen as the primaryreasons foreigners tend to visit shrines.
In order to find out more I posed several questions to those that I saw visiting shrines
to see how they thought they acted. I also simply observed some people as they entered andwent about the visit to see it the responses people were giving me matched the actions.

Number and Nationality of Interviewees

Japanese: 18/ American: 4/ British: 2/ Korean: 1
Since I wanted to focus on the generations in Japan most of the people were Japanese.
However, I did interview some people from other countries to have a more general idea of how
people from other countries may approach shrines visits.

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Age Range of Interviewees

I tried to have a wide range of respondents in relation to age due to the topic of myresearch. I tried to get a wide variety as to be able to see how different generations approach
shrine visits. However, the foreign interviewees have less of an age range than the Japanese
ones due to most of them being college students. The age of people I have interviewed ranges
from 18 to around 60 years old, with many years in between the ages as they increase. In orderto make things simple I split the generations into two groups, instead of three. The two age
groups are 18 to 35 years old and 36 years and older.

Religious Beliefs of Interviewees

Since shrines are affiliated with the Shinto religion I felt it necessary to ask whatreligion the interviewees most associated themselves with. The Japanese respondents had more
Buddhist, Shintoist, or non-religious people. While the foreigners had altogether different
religious, or also no religious, beliefs.

Interviewees’ Shrine Visits

Since the point of the survey is to find out about the generation’s take on theprocedures of a visit to a shrine. In order to gather some background about the interviewees’
shrine visits I asked some basic questions on the subject such as how often they may do so andfor what reasons. Most of the interviews, and the observation, was done at shrines, so we knowthat everyone has visited a shrine at some point int time. These interviews did take place at
different times in the year, however, some were shortly after New Years, so the primary reason
for some of these interviewees to visit the shrine at that time was most likely for the holiday’s
associated pray and charms. The shrines I conducted interviews at were also mainly local small
shrines like the Okayama Shrine, while I observed the people actions at bigger, more famous
shrines like Kibitsu Shrine., which is often a touristy spot due to the story of Momotaro.
The first background question was about how often the interviewees visit shrines.
Many of the interviewees had visited multiple times a year. The most common answer being a
few times a year for major events such as a New Year’s visit. However, some stated they may
visit a few times a month. Many of those who visited this often were foreigners doing so forsight seeing, however, one Japanese person also visited as often.
The next question was about how many shrines they have been to. The interviewees
also visited a different variety of shrines. Some had visited various since they were from otherareas such as Kyoto and Tokyo, so they would travel and end up seeing shrines. However, mostJapanese interviewees stated they only have visited local shrines.

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1. Why do you visit shrines?
The main reasons the interviewees answered as the reason they chose to visit shrines
were to either pray, buy charms/ fortunes, or to collect stamps for their shrine book. Sometimes
they had various reasons for being there not just one. On the other hand some interviewees had
a more individual answer, such as looking at the shrine’s architecture or the art.
The older generations, as seen in the chart, tended to visit more for the standard
reasons of praying and buying charms or fortunes. However, some also chose to purchase astamp for a shrine book or visit for other reasons as well. However, for all of them the primary
purpose was still to pray.
The younger generations and foreigners had more similar responses for why they
visited shrines. However, even though less came for the primary purpose of praying, it may
have still been something that they did when there. The younger generations of Japanese alsotended to have the more interesting responses as to what was the primary reason for their visit.
Overall it seems as though they have more similarities to the foreign tourists, but still retains
some similarities to older generations.

2. What is the first thing you do when visiting a shrine?
Since I asked this question without giving much prompt in the way of answers theanswers vary. Many of their answer were in some way related to the procedures one s expect tofollow when making a shrine visit. However, the interviewees’ answers may have not been in
the correct order due to them forgetting about a step or not deeming it important enough when
thinking of the first thing they do at a shrine. The proper procedure that I am talking about isfirst cleansing themselves at the water basin, bowing to the torii as they enter, going to theshrine to pray, and lastly going about any business that they may have, which I have grouped
into the category: go to souvenir area.
The older generation seemed to possibly follow this general procedure. At least noneof them chose to go strait for the souvenir, instead choosing to pray first. Those who forgot
about the other two steps probably deemed them as repetition and not the type of answer I was

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looking for. To add to this interview question I also observed people to see what they did whenentering. Many of the older generation Japanese seemed to do everything in order.
It didn’t seem to be the same for the younger generation Japanese in my observations.
Although they answered very similarly to the older generations, with a few exceptions, when
watching them I didn’t see as many cleansing themselves or praying. I am not sure if theinterviewees lied or if the ones that I observed where just a few exceptions. In this case theforeigners were not like any of the groups, maybe because they are just tourists many seem tofocus on the souvenir aspect of the shrines. Some, however, did seem to go through the motions.

3. Do you have a procedure you follow when visiting shrines?
The last thing I asked is if the interviewees had their own sort of procedure when
visiting a shrine, or if they sort of did what felt right at the moment. Surprisingly, many statedthat they did have some sort of set procedure for shrine visits. Though, the older generation did
tend to more so than the younger generations. I felt that this was a sort of a shock. Even though
there is a sort of procedure people may follow when visiting a shrine I thought it would be moreof an unconscious thing that they do, I didn’t think the interviewees would actually reallyconsider themselves to have one.
After finding this out I asked some follow up questions about what they do as part oftheir own procedure. Many seemed to answer in a similar way of cleansing and praying before
doing anything else that may have brought them to the shrine. Only a few, mainly foreign
tourists, did other things that, were their primary reason for visiting, first. Some said theyusually didn’t even pray at all. The foreigners may have differed, but the Japanese generations
mainly stayed the same in this aspect.

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Conclusion
After these interviews with the different generations of people in Japan, my idea of
shrine visits when I first came to Japan was wrong. I had thought that people had always done
the same thing when visiting shrines, and that the main reason was to pray or buy charms for theyear. However, after coming here and conducting these interviews there appears to be a varietyof reasons one may visit a shrines. Also, the data I have collected from the interviews suggeststhat maybe the different generations do approach shrine visits differently. They seem to show
the same sort of respect when entering the shrines, but their overall procedure when doing so
may be different. Also, their reason for visiting tend to be more varying. The younger
generations seem to have more reasons for shrine visits than the classic ones the older
generations tend to have.

Reference
Japan Guide (Shinto Shrines, N.A.) [Internet], at: https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2059.html.
accessed: July 7, 2019][Last

Japan Travel (Etiquette at Shrines and Temples, Yagisawa, Edward) [Internet]. At
https://en.japantravel.com/guide/shrine-temple-etiquette/20924. [Last accessed: July 7, 2019]
Kári Vilmundarson Hansen. (2012) Participation and Motivation in Shinto Rites and Rituals in Modern
Japan, University of Iceland

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The development of Yukata from the Edo to Meiji period
江戸から明治への浴衣の変遷
Hannah Elinor Charlotte Sudhoff

ハンナ エリノア チアロッテ スドホッフ

Leibniz University Hannover (Germany)

要旨： 日本に来たばかりのころから、私は様々な方法で日本の文化を体験することができ、特に浴衣のような日本の伝統的な衣服に興奮しました。私の研究中、私はさまざまな都市を訪れ、トピックに関係した多くの情報を集めるために多くの人々に話しかけました。私が話をした中で、私の日本人の友達のお母さんは、浴衣の歴史について私にたくさん教えてくれました。その上、また日本人ルーム
メイトの家族の祝い事に参加させてもらった時に、私は浴衣を着ることができて光栄に思いました。私のレポートでは、浴衣の魅力や浴衣を着る時期、浴衣の着方を紹介していきたいと思います。さらに、浴衣と着物の違いについても話をしたいです。江戸時代と明治時代を例にあげて、浴衣がこれらの時代にどのようにデザインされたか、浴衣がどのような状況で着られていたか、そして当時特に人気のあったと技術とその模様の特徴は何かについて見ていきたいと思います。レポートの終わりに少しですが、今日、日本では、浴衣がどのように、どのような場所で、そしてどのような場合に着用されるのかについて簡単に触れようと思います。

What is a Yukata
The nowadays Yukata was invented as a simple robe made from asa-hemp. Back in the
Heian-period baths were not taken nude, instead they were taken in the Yukatabira. As it was the
only layer worn next to the skin, the Yukata was practically an undergarment or a kind of anancient bathing suit.
The word Yukata literally means bathing suit and is written with the Kanji for hot water(yu) and undergarment (katabira), which got shortened over the time to Yukata.
The Yukata still is a traditional Japanese garment with the cut of a T-shape. Nowadays it is mainly
worn during the summertime, especially for events like matsuri festivals or at Inns. It is lessformal and more casual clothing then the Kimono and made from cotton and linnen (nowadays
sometimes also from polyester). The cut of the Yukatas length reaches the ankles and is worn with
Geta, traditional Japanese shoes made originally out of wood. Typical for the shape of the Geta
are the two ‘teeth’ on the bottom. With the Yukata, the Geta are worn barefoot.
The Yukata itself consists out of on single layer and can either be traditionally worn witha Hada-juban underneath or nowadays with any other shirt as an undergarment. Both, theundergarment and the Yukata are worn left side over right side. The other way around is only used
to dress dead bodys for a funeral. It is said to bring bad luck if it is worn incorrectly. The Yukata
is worn by men and women, but with different patterns. Regarding the Kimono, there areformalities for the Yukata are less strict, as long as the garment itself is worn correctly and moreof a traditional advice.
In general, it is more common that younger women and children wear brighter colours, which issaid to be more garish. More mature women wear subdued browns and greys. For men it iscommon to wear dark and solid colours with less bold patterns.

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Materials like silk are used to create a more luxurious look and would be worn to moreformal occasions. Wool would be used for Yukata which are used during colder seasons, very
common at Inns like Ryokan. For that occasion, the colours are often in deep shades of blue orgreen.
Differences to Kimono
The Yukata is often mistaken to be a Kimono, because the appearance has somesimilarities, but there are a lot of differences as well.
The Kimono is more formal and is usually worn for ceremonial occasions and gatherings,
still nowadays. There are indeed more “casual” Kimonos, but they are still worn for the sameoccasions. Other than the Yukata, the Kimono is made of silk and nowadays also often out of amix of polyester. The cut is longer and goes over the ankles and is worn with Geta or Zouri. Even
though the shape of the shoes is very similar, the difference to Geta is the flat bottom of the Zouri.
With a Kimono they are worn with Tabi, special socks which have a little gap between the first
and the second toe. The traditional Kimono consists out of many layers and can have over 12parts of it. The first layer is the Nagajuban, a Kimono-shaped robe worn as an undergarment. For
the Kimono there are a lot of formalities, referring to age, occasion, civil status and many more.
Through these formalities, the colour and the length of the sleeves may change per individuum.
In addition to that, a Kimono can be very expensive because of material and additional
undergarments and accessories. Furthermore, it is difficult to put on and often takes more than
one person, or a special dresser.
Yukata during the Edo Period (1603-1868)
This picture shows an Ukiyo-e from Torii Kiyonaga, afamous artist from the Edo period. An Ukiyo-e is apainting, or a print made to show the everyday life, inthis case a scene of a public bath.
In this scene one can see 3 typical but different styles of
Yukata during the Edo period.
On the left side one can see a young woman in an
Arimatsu style Yukata. Arimatsu is a tie-dye techniqueand with that part of the famous Shibori technique thatwere especially popular for that period.

Ukiyo-e, Torii Kiyonaga, 1752-1815, Bathouse
women

The development of the Yukata during
the Edo period was mainly influenced through the reintroduction of cotton, the increasing wealthof the merchant class, the public baths and the new sumptuary laws.
Cotton has been introduced during the 8th century, but during the Edo period asa-hemp
was mainly used for Yukata or simple clothing in general. It was also a trend to wear regular silk,
within the wealthy merchant class. This fact changed through the sumptuary law in 1842, which
forbit the merchant class to wear regular silk anymore. This law was passed to prevent
extravagance within the lower classes. Instead of regular silk, cotton and tsumugi-silk (a nubby
silk, made from the hatched cocoons of the silkworm) were commonly worn then.

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Because of conflagration it was forbidden to have own baths at home during the Edo
period, so the public baths were the only opportunity left and it was permitted that men and womenbath together. Therefor women wore yumoji for decency, a light robe which later became a
Kimono undergarment. After the law changed in 1791, sexes got separated and the Yukata were
mostly worn from and to the bathhouse. But even in this time the Yukata was not only worn as abath suit or sleepwear, it was also a fashionable summer-dress.
Within that technique the fabric gets tied before dyeing, so the dye will not reach certain
spots, what creates the pattern. The pattern shows a flower, the morning glory, a famous flower
and pattern-symbol, also nowadays.
Right to that woman knees another woman in an Asa-no-ha patterned Yukata. This patterndisplays a stylized hemp-leaf pattern. The two women at the right are wearing Kasuri-dyed Yukata
in red and a dark blue colour. The Kasuri-dye is another ancient technique, where the pattern ismade by waving fibres into the material before dyeing the fabric and therefor is another resistdyeing technique.
The geometric but simple pattern is very common for the Kasuri-technique. These
techniques, especially shibori are very labor-intensive and also at a very high price.
The traditional Yukata during that time were most of the time made from white cotton and dyedwith indigo ink. Particularly this dye has been very famous because the smell of the blue dye kept
away mosquitos and has antibacterial and dirt-repelling qualities. These qualities have also beenvery helpful to the Samurai, because it helped wounds to heal better and faster referring to theantibacterial effect.
During the Edo period the Kabuki theatre was very popular, and a lot of famous Kabuki
actors had their own pattern for their Yukata. These patterns then became a trend through themand were adapted in the regular Yukata and Kimono pattern, like the Rokuyatagoushi patternwhich is a geometrical pattern with many meshed squares.
In general, it was common that younger women and children wore more bold and thicker patternand designs. Mature women wore more subdued patterns instead.
Yukata during the Meiji Period (1868-1912)
In the Meiji period Japan was forced to end its policy of being an isolated feudal
society. At this time China was thought to be no longer a suitable role model for the Japaneseculture, because it was then under the yoke of western imperialism.
After the shogunate collapsed, the elite of Japan embarked upon a serious program.
Part of this program were the studying and emulating of the Western-technology and customs,
including also the dress. In addition to that, the Meiji empress issued a statement, where shedenounced the wearing of kimono as harmful to the female body and supported the Western
blouse and skirt. From the point of view of the Meiji empress these clothing would be a morepractical form of women's wear.
Indeed, only the wealthy women felt the need and had the financial option to dress in a
Western style, mostly for the occasion of international gatherings.
With the Western clothing came the western furniture and the long Yukata and its wide, tightly
bound obi made sitting on chairs or couches a real challenge. Most women continued to wear
Yukata and Kimonos in general and did not lead public lives. Therefor they had no occasion toexperience Western-style furniture.
40
EPOK 2019As a reunification of both fashion-styles some younger generations wore their kimonos
tucked into their Hakama. The Hakama is a traditional trouser, which had most recently
functioned as a formal dress for samurai-class men during the Edo period.
For urban men, whose worked in public or were part of the international communities,
uniforms based on European models were worn. They were mainly made for the exercise ofcertain professions. It was also possible, but very expensive to visit a tailor and be fitted for a suit,
which would invariably be made of imported wool, a fibre Japan itself never produced during the
Meiji period.
During that time bolder colours like a bright red or violet became more famous,
influenced by the bright coloured dresses from the West. Furthermore, the patterns changed, forexample roses as a flower print became popular.
Printing colours and patterns in general were highly influenced through newer technologies,
which made them additionally cheaper and gave an easier access to it. In particular, a newtechnique to dye yukata called was discovered, the chuusen technique, seen on the Yukata on theright corner in the upper row.
Not only the West influenced Japan, but also got influenced by it. Kimonos now
appealed to some sophisticates who developed a passion for Japanese things, especially clothing.
During the nineteenth century portraits of Western women in Kimono or Yukata were painted andalso fashion designers were inspired by the shape of it.
From time to time the Yukata replaced the Kimono as an everyday garment, although
the traditional Kimono remained popular amongst Geisha, actors of the traditional Japanesetheatre and Sumo wrestlers. But also, for the use on special occasions such as weddings,
festivals and tea ceremonies.
However, Japanese people slowly started to adopt western clothing and the occasions towear Yukata slowly declined.
Displayed on the fotography one can see thechange of the Yukata style during the Meiji
period. The Western influence is clearly visible in
the pattern and, for example the chequered Yukataof the girl on the right upper row. On the other
hand, we can also see traditional patterns like theKasuri dyed pattern of the girl in the right cornerof the picture.
Fotography from Meiji-era 1890

Yukata nowadays
The Yukata that are now available in shops, including local department stores, are in afull range of colours and patterns of different periods, while remaining in their original cut. The
wearer themselves can decide through colour, pattern and accessories how traditional or modern
the style should be. Nowadays girls and women wear an ever-changing array of it. There is nolimit for any kind of print or colour or pattern, from traditional Indigo blue to neon pink and froma traditional Van to a Van with Anime print, everything is possible and worn.

41
EPOK 2019Today, the Yukata is less worn as a casual wear in summer, then in festivals.
Furthermore, the Yukata is also often worn in traditional Japanese inns, theRyokan. Therefor the preferred colours still are a dark blue or green or
various brown colours. For a more formal appearance the Yukata is wornwith an obi belt, along with a matching Geta and a purse.
Since 1990 the Yukata seems to have a comeback and the numbers of sold
and worn Yukatas are still increasing. In addition to that, some famous
designers are creating new patterns and collaborate with bigger stores like
Uniqlo.
Even in Germany, my home country, Yukatas can be worn for very special
occasions, like the Japan-day in Düsseldorf once a year.

Modern example of a Yukata

Summing up one can say, that the Yukata developed over many centuries
and still is developing. In my opinion the Yukata reassembles a huge partof the Japanese culture and I am glad that it is still a part of it.

Reference
Yumeji Art Museum (last visit 3.6.2019)
From Pyjamas to Summer Kimonos, the Unknown History of the Yukata, (2017) SMU
https://samuraimeetups.or.jp/culture/from-pyjamas-to-summer-kimonos-the-unknown-historyof-the-yukata (last accessed: 8.7.2019)
Nara Prefecture Complex of Man’yo Culture, special exhibition (last visit 29.4.2019)
Geta and Zori – Japanese Encyclopedia (2017), Niko Greg
https://matcha-jp.com/en/3536 (last accessed: 7.6.19)
Karan J Mack. (2014) The History of Yukata Fashion: Part I Edo Period, Atomi College
Documentaries: Japan – Meiji Reforms (2016) International School History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIiCsR9rZS8Drawing history, a unique Yukata by Edo-style stencil artist Mitsuko Ogura (2017), WAttention Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIiCsR9rZS8
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2Fb7%2Fc
6%2F66%2Fb7c666fc5cecbcfe67cc9dfc8407f9dd.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F261701428316892255%2F&docid=4gGIh300NcgjeM&tbnid=XyyibCERRgCbU
M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjo4LHDobjjAhViyIsBHbwnDFMQMwhmKBcwFw..i&w=500&h=298&it
g=1&client=firefox-bd&bih=607&biw=1280&q=yukata%20photography%20meiji&ved=0ahUKEwjo4LHDobjjAhViyIs
BHbwnDFMQMwhmKBcwFw&iact=mrc&uact=8 (last accessed 10.7.19)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torii_Kiyonaga#/media/File:Kiyonaga_bathhouse_women-2.jpg (lastaccessed 7.6.19)

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/92675704815724035/ (last accessed: 12.6.19)
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Immigration in Japan: the perception of foreigners at the local level
日本の移民政策:移民の地域社会参加を事例にSilvia Donato シルビア・ドナト
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy)

要旨： 「移民」は非常に広範に渡る研究課題である。国々により、移民の歴史は多岐にわたる。多くの国では 移民に関係する法律はすでに整備されているが、移民による社会 参加のプロセスは未だに解明されていない。本論では、近年の日本における移民の地域活動参加状況について述べる。特に、岡山市の事例研究を通じ、移民による地域社会への参加の過程を研究する予定である。本論は以下の三つの点に着目する。まず、日本における移民の歴史を概観する。ついで、日本における移民の現状データを分析する。最後に、岡山市のケースを具体的に説明する。

Introduction
This Research Project Essay aims at analyzing and discussing the immigration problem
in Japan, focusing especially, after a general introduction of the problem, on the local level.
Thanks to the months spent in Okayama, I had the chance to survey some representative of thelocal 華 僑 (kakyō, overseas Chinese) community and understand a little more from theforeigner’s prospective. Since the origins, the migratory phenomenon has been shaping the historyof communities and countries all around the word. When it comes to Japan, the idea that usuallycomes to our mind is the image of a non-open country, where non-open means closed to theacceptation of the other and the different. However, the number of foreign people living in Japan
today is increasing more every day. Therefore, can Japan be considered a closed nation after all?
Through a research of historical data and information regarding the migratory problem in Japanand how the foreign is perceived at the local level, I will try to start understanding the point ofview of today’s Japan regarding this matter. Being this issue a particular important problem of thecontemporary society, these pages will not be enough to fully understand Japan’s position, but
can be a good starting point for those interested in further analyzing in the future the immigration
problem in Japan.
Migration in Japan after the Second World War
As history teaches us, large-scale immigration almost always provokes negative reactions
from the member of the receiving society. However, even though the foreign community in Japan
has growth rapidly, it still makes up less than 3 percent of the total population. This means thatJapan has the smallest percentage of foreigner within its population. Compared to otherindustrialized countries, Japan still face the challenges of incorporating postwar immigrants. Afterthe Second World War, Japan rapidly became one of the greatest countries in the world for its
economic growth. As can be expected, people moved from the rural areas to the city center,interested in the new promising life that was flourishing around them. For this reason, a big
number of agricultural lands were available, and a number of Asian immigrants started moving
toward Japan, searching for the possibility of a new life. It was thanks to the Izanagi boom (aperiod of rapid economic growth experience between November 1965 and July 1970) that people
became debating about the possibility of using foreigner workers. However, as the debate spread,also problems regarding the migratory policies and the lack of international agreements on thematter arose, limiting the potential spread of the debate. In 1989 Japan witnessed another periodof growth, called Heisei boom. The need of new workforce combined with a period of low natality
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EPOK 2019

rates, gave a reason to talk about the possibility of accepting new workforce coming from other
Asian countries. It was time for the government to accept foreign workers and to put them inside
the national labor market. The government didn’t manage to find a solution that could control theflows of immigrants entering the country and that could legally protect this workforce. Hence,
many foreigner workers began entering illegally in the country. One big step in the migration
policy field was made in 1990 with the introduction of the Immigration Control and Refugee
Recognition Act (ICRR). This important document made the access to the country easier andpunished harshly those who entered illegally, but the most important aspect was that added new
categories for obtaining the Zairyū Shikaku (在留資格, resident status). However, the acceptanceof foreigner workers was far from being accepted.
Included in the foreign workers category we can found the nikkeijin. Nikkeijin (日系人) is used to indicate those second- and third-generation “Japanese” who were born and raisedabroad. Nikkeijin can be considered as Japanese for their ethnic, but their foreign birth andupbringing make them “foreigners” when considered entering the country. They were part of the
migratory waves of Japanese to South America that occurred in 1923-1941 and 1953-1973. Inthat time the government supported these migrations, as well as the subsequent acceptance of theSouth America- born “Japanese” that came back to Japan during the 1990s. The government gaveto the nikkeijin the legal status of “spouses or children of Japanese” or “long-term residents”,
putting them above most of the other foreigners entering the country. What can be foundinteresting is that after the introduction of the ICRR, the number of nikkeijin increased from
20,000 in 1990 to over 371,700 in 2006 (Apichai, W. Shipper, 2008). Nikkeijin are not considered
as ethnic immigrants returning to their home country but as migrants coming to work in Japan,
consequently they can live and work temporarily in the country, but they cannot vote or work in
the civil service. They usually receive good salaries, but they cannot receive bonuses or welfare
benefits and they can just rely on pay increases and promotions according with the length of theiremployment. Nikkeijin represents an important category, being a huge part of the foreign newcomers from the 1990s to today.
Foreigners in Japan today
In January 2018, the foreign resident population in Japan hit a record of 2.5 million people,
2 percent of the total population (Japanese and foreigners). Compared to the data of 2017, we canobserve an increase of 170,000 people. These data also reveal the age of the foreign workers,
making clear a younger age distribution than Japanese people (Okada, 2018). If we have to divide
these foreigner workers in every prefecture, we can observe that of course the biggest cities get ahigher number of foreigners. Tokyo ranks at first with 520,000 people, followed by Aichi andOsaka. The foreigners residing in these three big metropolitan areas consist of 70% of Japan’s
total foreign population (only 40% of them residing in Tokyo). However, what is interesting isthat recently also the rural areas have shown a positive trend and the increasing of foreigners
among its residents: this result suggests that the increase of foreign residents in the rural areas is
helping to slow the decline of their population. Moreover, we can also observe an increase in thenumber of permanent residents: especially among foreigner students 90% of them after graduation
find a job and decide to remain in Japan (Okada, 2018). In particular the four types of resident
status (permanent resident, student, technical intern training and specialist in
humanities/international services), that consists in 60% of the foreign residents in Japan, haveseen an increase in recent years. As these data show us, the number of foreign in Japan isincreasing every year. This means that the government has to find new solution to guarantee thepresence of new comers even for the future. In particular, based on the data examined, what need
to be done is a deregulation on the status of technical intern training. In this regard, thegovernment approved in June 2018 the Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management andReform 2018 – Realizing Sustainable Economic Growth by Overcoming Decreasing Birth Rateand Aging Population. The aim of this policy is to expand the acceptance of foreign workers,
trying for example to create a new resident status with a period of stay up to five year for thoseforeign residents that have completed the technical intern training. It’s clear that accepting
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EPOK 2019foreign workers can ease Japan’s total population decline and it will also have effects primarily
on industries and local governments. However, even if hiring new foreigners can help overcomelabor shortage, creating a work environment that include non-Japanese can be very hard forindustries. Moreover, local communities can also beneficiate from the acceptance of more 外国人 (gaikokujin, non-Japanese native, foreigner), helping slowing the population decline.
If it is true, as mentioned before, that metropolitan areas are where we can find most of
the foreigner residents in Japan, we have seen that also rural areas have been showing a positive
trend, accepting more and more foreigners in their community. Of course, there is a big gap
between living in a multicultural, always innovating city like Tokyo or Osaka, where seeing nonJapanese faces is something common, and living in small communities and village. The first, big
obstacle that a new comer might encounter regards the linguistic barrier. If it is true that now-days
Japanese citizens are trying to improve their language ability and communication skills, it’s notalways easy to find English-speaking person outside of the big, multicultural areas. The linguistic
barrier can represent a big problem, especially in the first stage of settling down in a new place.
Not being able to communicate can create embarrassing situation, especially in small villages
where the respect and formality is much higher than in bigger cities. I had the opportunity to live
in Okayama for five months as exchange student and I studied the way foreigners peopleinteracted with the society and how the local government and institution interacted with them. In
this paper, I will try to explain the point of view of some Chinese immigrants residing in Okayama.
Why I decided to take interest in the Chinese community will soon be explained.
The Okayama caseOkayama City (岡山市) is the capital of Okayama Prefecture (岡山県) in the Chūgoku
region (中国地方) of Japan. As of 2017, in we can find 24,588 foreigner people residing inOkayama Prefecture, 8,254 of them are Chinese immigrants, according to the statistics ofForeigner Residents Registered conducted by the Ministry of Justice. Since the beginning of the
migratory phenomena, the Chinese community has represented a huge part of the percentage ofthe foreigners. If it is true that in Japan we can find some well-known Chinatowns (like in
Yokohama and Kobe), the majority of Chinese people in Japan live outside Chinatowns, in theregular community. Chinese migration toward Japan began 2300 year ago, according to anumerous of legends, even if the most significant numbers were registered during the Meiji andTaisho era, when students began coming to study to Japan because it was considered closer andcheaper than any other country. However, after the Second World War we can find the biggest
movement of migration, with the shin-kakyō (新華僑, overseas Chinese of the new generation),
people of Chinese descent who immigrated to Japan from Taiwan and Mainland China. In the cityof Okayama, the Chinese community represents the biggest foreign community in the territory.
As every other big and foreign community, the 華僑 (kakyō) can count on a local organization
made of Chinese people ready to help the new foreigners coming to the city. In Okayama city wecan find the General Assembly of Overseas Chinese of Okayama Prefecture (岡山県華僑華人総会), that this year celebrates its 40th anniversary. The Association was founded in 1981, since themigratory movement towards Okayama began in 1979 and today counts 8000 people part of it.
When the first Chinese arrived in Okayama, there wasn’t any kind of association dedicated totheir community, so they had to start from the beginning together, in the spirit of “community
gives us power”, to say it with the words of their President. The reason behind the decision ofmoving to Okayama may differ from person to person, but the most common answer I got was
related to working reasons (specifically: 4 people decided to move for working reason, 3 to follow
their husband/wife, 3 to study and remained in the country to work). As also the research showed
the declining birth rate in Japan and the need of workforce, especially in the field of heavy labor,
seem to be concerns also for the Chinese immigrants coming in Japan. However, immigration in
Japan seems very difficult due to the strict immigration policies still tight around a lot of laws.
Trying to enter the country without a work and the proof of being economically able to support
yourself can be very difficult as trying to obtain the status of permanent resident. However, if
compared to the Chinese migration policy, where it is not possible to enter the country for
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EPOK 2019foreigners if not for marriage cause, Japan seems open to accept foreigner workers coming to its
country. When asked about the reception they got from the citizens of Okayama, the answers
given by all the interviewees showed a positive attitude of the city of Okayama towards theacceptation of foreigners. Even if for just 5 months, I can certainty agree with the data collected.
I had the opportunity to visit the OPIEF (Okayama Prefectural International Exchange
Foundation) Center, a space created by the Prefecture to welcome and help any foreigners coming
to Okayama. With the help of volunteers, the center offers the possibility to attend international
event, language classes (of Japanese or other foreign languages such as English, Chinese,Indonesian, Korean), but most of all it offers support in the activity of everyday life (finding
accommodation, stipulating health insurance and other matters). This kind of centers andassociations are distributed in every city and sometimes also financed by the local government,
to help settle down the new comers and help them step into the process of the adaptation to the
new socio-cultural environment. For this reason, they represent a sort of bridge for the foreigner
to the local and national institutions. I asked if they received any kind of help from the local
institutions and they explained that in some cases they initially didn’t know about the existenceof any of this kind of help (３人, san’nin, 3 people), some didn’t ask for any kind of help (３人)and other did receive assistance and support in the transition period (４人). These collected data
show us the importance of this support center, but the need to maybe publicize them more andmake people aware of their existence. When asked about their process of integration in Okayama
I got different answers: some explained how it was an important part of their process participating
into social activities and how that helped to create new connection with the local community (３人), others were introduced to other members of the community thanks to friends (４人) andothers were able to be integrated in the local community thanks to their work place (３人) . Also,
the General Assembly of Overseas Chinese of Okayama Prefecture took part into a series of
initiatives together with the local government, such as for example the support of the people
affected by the rainfall disaster (西日本豪雨災害, West Japan Heavy Rainfall Disaster) last year.
Another important activity that they promote together with the related department of thegovernment, regards the opportunity for the new people coming in Japan to understand Okayama
culture and hand down the history of Sino-Japanese friendship, in order to understand better the
relationship existing between their country of origin and the country that will now host them.
In conclusion, I tried to give a brief presentation of the immigration problem in Japan,
analyzing some historical data and some of the most recent approaches of the government to the
problem. In particular, I focused my research on understanding the reception of the biggest foreigncommunity in Okayama city. If it true that both the government and the local communities aretrying be more open and welcoming to the acceptance of new foreigners coming to Japan, there
are still more things that need to be done: smoother procedures for those willing to come working
in the country, more assistance on the local level and more publicity for those associations thatare already operating in support of the new comers. For my research work I had the possibility togive my questionnaire to the president of the General Assembly of Overseas Chinese of Okayama
Prefecture, who answered my questions regarding the association. I then distributed a different
survey to a sample of Chinese immigrants in the city of Okayama. Being the aim of this research
the understanding of the acceptance of immigrants in Japan, the person being interviewed had tobe living in Japan for several years, for this reason I couldn’t give the survey to an extended
number of people. However, the limit encountered in this research can be a starting point for
future further analysis on the matter.

46
EPOK 2019Reference
APICHAI, W. Shipper, Fighting for Foreigners. Immigration and its impact on Japanese Democracy, Ithaca, Cornell
University Press, 2008
CHUNG, Erin Aeran, Immigration and citizenship in Japan, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2014
COSTALUNGA, Nicola. Immigrazione in Giappone, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Article online (Foreigner Residents in Japan) [Internet] at https://stats-japan.com/t/kiji/11639 [Last access July 5,
2019]
Article online (Japan’s foreign population hitting a record high. The government announces the acceptance of more
foreign workers, OKADA, Yukata) [Internet] at https://www.mizuhori.co.jp/publication/research/pdf/eo/MEA180913.pdf [Last accessed: July 8, 2019]47
EPOK 2019

Points of working effectively and efficiently with Japanese and Foreign Companies
日本企業と外国企業が効率的・効果的に働くためのポイント
Julian Andriulli

ジュリアン・アンダリウーリ

Rhode Island University (USA)

Summary: There is a tangible, distinct set of shared traits between every American that makes
them American, or every Japanese person that makes them Japanese. These traits then go on toaffect the differences in a country’s food, culture, art, business, service, design, manufacturing,and every other facet of a country. So, this begs the question; What is culture? How can we
differentiate between Individual traits and National/Cultural traits? How much of a person’s
character is their Individual personality, and how much of it is a cultural product of theirenvironment? And most importantly, WHY is knowing this important, and HOW can we tangibly
apply this knowledge to create effective change in the real world and contribute to a global
economy and society? Through my research in an engineering lab, internship at a manufacturing
company, and interactions with the Japanese people at varying levels and contexts, I have sought
not only to answer these questions, but strived to understand their value, potential usage, andtangible application. WHAT makes Japanese people Japanese and Americans Americans, WHY
is understanding this cultural difference important, and HOW can this understanding bepractically applied to create effective change in the real world as a technical liaison.

はじめに
この研究は、岡山大学工学部の研究室と岡山県内企業での経験を通じて、日系企業と海外企業がより効果的・効率的に業務を進めるためのポイントについて明らかにすることを試みたものである。本研究の動機は、将来、日系企業と外国企業の連携を促進する
技術リエゾン職に就くためのスキルを学習し、身に着けることである。
大学の研究室での活動
岡山大学工学部の阿部研究室に入ったのは、2018 年 10 月。研究室では、プログラミ
ング言語 Python を通して歌声音声合成研究を取り組んだ。研究だけでなく、日本語から英語、または英語から日本語の翻訳・通訳も行った。また、新しい室員に英語のレッスンを提供し、異文化間の違いやコミュニケーションについて教えた。さらに、科学記
事・専門用語を英語から日本語へ翻訳するという役割もあった。
最初に研究室に入った時は、言語の壁が高く、日本の文化にも習慣にもなかなか馴染めなかった。それに輪をかけて、建前と思われる態度に苦労し、孤独感を感じていた。
しかし、諦めずに、「日本はいい国だから、この研究室の皆もきっといい人だろう。だから、今の時期を乗り越えて、この人たちをもっと知ろう」と決意した。それから研究室の皆も、日本語も、日本のことも深くわかるように沢山の努力をし、そのおかげで皆との親密感が少しずつわいてきていると感じるようになった。それが３か月進むと、「ああ、研究室の仲間に入れたなぁ」と思うようになった。
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EPOK 2019

この研究室の経験のおかげで、工学上のことがたくさん学ぶことができた。たとえば、
音声合成、Python、日本語の専門用語。また、日本人のエンジニアの考え方・感覚、日本式上下関係と様々な工学的な手順・工程・プロセスも学習できた。しかし、そのような、工学的なことだけでなく、文化・習慣のようなことも沢山学べた。たとえば、日本の「仲間」はどういうものであるかが、もう少しわかるようになった。次に、日本式の思いやりについて理解できるようになったこと等である。そのおかげで、日本の良いところを沢山見られるようになっただけでなく、その文化と習慣の重要さを実感することができた。そして今「これは本当に充実している経験になってきたんだなぁ」と心から思うようになった。
県内企業でのインターンシップ
2019 年 5 月 8 日から、システムズナカシマという岡山県の企業でインターンシップを始めた。最初は、Python のプログラミング、また AI データセットの学習方法を勉強
し、TensorFlow によるトレーニングを実施した。それから、本社で生み出された ANDES
電匠というプログラミングにおいて、様々な機械学習用データを作成した。その作業と並び、色々なミーテイング・打ち合わせに参加した。
まず、職場に入って驚いたのは、職場の雰囲気である。アメリカは、就業時間内の飲食は自由であり、与えられた業務を進めていれば大きな問題とならない。また、音楽を聴きながらの業務も可能である。大切なのは与えられた期日内に成果を出すことである。
一方、インターンシップ先では、不要な会話はほぼなく、皆、静かに姿勢を崩すことなく業務を進めていた。ミーティングでは、部下が発言や提案をすることは少ないように感じられた。部下が思ったことを自由に発言することができない環境は、企業にとってデメリットであると思われた。しかし、もう少しミーティングを観察してみると、部下がアメリカと異なった形で提案をしていることに気が付いた。部下が提案したい際は、直接、非難やコメントすることはなく、質問する形で提案する傾向がみられた。（例：
上司が示した展示会のやり方に反対の場合「XX といった展示の仕方は上手くいかなかったと、XX さんから聞いたことがあるのですが…」）。これは日本の「相手の気持ちを大事にする」文化が影響していると考えた。
興味深いことは、この「相手の気持ちを考える」文化と効率は相反するものであることである。効率的に早く製品やサービスを提供することを求める一方で、日本の企業は「お客様のニーズ」を満たすために時間を費やすことを惜しまない。この「相手の気持ちを考える」文化は、日本滞在中、あらゆる場面において感じることができた。ただ、この「相手の気持ちを考える」文化を維持している限りは、効率第一主義を掲げるアメリカの企業の効率性に追いつくのは難しいと考える。ただ、効率を犠牲にしてでも「お客様」
を考える文化があるからこそ、日本の企業は世界トップレベルのサービスと商品の質を可能にしている。
次に強く感じたのは、上司と部下の上下関係である。上下関係は「息苦しい」という意
味でとらえられることが多いが、私が見たのは「上司が責任をもって部下の面倒を見る」という家族的な温かさである。このような上下関係があるからこそ、日本の企業には連帯感が強く見られるのだと考えた。
このインターンシップを通して、日本の会社においてどういうプロセスで業務・作業をやるか、どのようにサービスを提供するか、また、どのように製品をデザインしたり製造したりするかを学ぶことができた。また、会社の組織、日本式マネジメント、働き方、問題解決方法、そして日本式の考え方についても経験できた。
49
EPOK 2019岡山の経験に基づいたアメリカと日本の比較
アメリカでは業務の効率、同僚を大人として信用すること、結果、平等、カジュアル
さ、人材、意見を自由に交換するということが大事にされ、上司は担当者に役割や目標を明確に伝え、あとは担当者に仕事を任せる傾向がある。これはスキルを持ったメンバー（専門家）が集まって業務を進める傾向が強いためである。上司はジェネラリストであり、幅広い知識と経験をもとにプロジェクトをまとめることが求められる。進捗管理に関しては、上司が定期的に部下の業務を管理するということはまれである。上司による管理が行われるのは、部下の意思で上司に報告がなされる時である。一方、日本では
プロセス、改善、上下関係、報連相（報告、連絡、相談）、共同体感覚、協力、努力、忠誠さということが大事にされ、上司が進捗状況を詳細に知りたがって、部下によく業務について相談する傾向がある。業務の進め方は、主に上司が決定し部下は従う。これは日本の上司は、一般的に業務経験が部下よりも豊富なためである。これを可能にしているのは、日本の長い雇用形態にあると考えられる。進捗管理は、その経験をもとに優し
く丁寧に行われる。
これらの違いを表１にまとめた。
表 1 日本（岡山）とアメリカの企業文化の違い
項目

日本（岡山）

アメリカ

上司と部下

近く家族的

遠く成果ベースの関係

上司には部下を育てることが上司は部下（専門家）を求められる（傾向）

調整し全体をまとめる（傾向）情報共有

定期的な報連相

現状と結果の報告

意思決定

トップダウン

メンバーによる

家族的な優しい合意形成

最も効率的な案の探求

定期的に優しく確認

部下からの報告により管理

進捗管理
まとめ

本研究では、岡山での経験をもとに日本とアメリカの違いを明確にし、そこから得られた経験をどうやって実用的に活かすか？ということついて検討した。その経験を通して理解したのは、日本ではプロセス、改善、上下関係、報連相、共同体感覚、協力、努
力、会社への忠誠ということが重要とされていることであった。そのため、日本の企業と仕事をする、または、日本人と業務をする場合は、上記のポイントを理解・実践することが肝心であるとわかった。それらのポイントを実践することができれば、商品・サービスの質が著しく上がり、連帯感がわいてくる。また、会社への忠誠を示すことができる。しかし、これらのバランスが崩れた場合、残業、長時間にわたるミーテイング、
人間関係を保つための時間（例：飲み会）が増え、仕事の効率が悪くなると考えられる。
また、上下関係が厳しく、仕事の量も多い、職場においてストレスがかなり高いとも考えられる。そのため、今後、職場において技術リエゾンとしてするべきことは、後者の悪いところを調整しながら、会社に対しての忠実感、商品・サービスの質、連帯感の改善のため、前者のいいところを活かしていくことであると考えられる。
50
EPOK 2019参考情報「日本式マネジメントは通用しない!?アメリカ人が戸惑う日本人上司像とは」『読んで身に付く英語勉強法マガジン | Cheer up! English』（2019 年 07 月 17 日）「5S とは何か」、『5S コーナー』https://www.navigateinc.co.jp/5s/5s_purpose/001508.html、 （2019 年 07 月 17 日）「改善活動の考え方と進め方【改善活動の基礎講座－カイゼンの基本編：第２章】」『kaizen-base』https://www.kaizen-base.com/contents/kall-42437/、（2019 年7 月 17 日）

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Multicultural Education in the Classroom
教室における多文化教育
Micah Watt マイカ ワト
Dallas Baptist University (USA)

要旨: 本研究では、岡山大学の EPOK プログラムをケーススタディとして、日本語教師の指導方法を分析して、世界中の多文化学習における西洋教育学および教授法の影響を判断します。この研究の意義は、言語プログラムがそのようなモデルの文化的な意味についての重要な研究なしに特定の西洋のモデルの周りに彼らの教育学を形作っているという事実にあります。人気のある FL の研究の多くはアメリカ、カナダ、そしてイギリスで始まっているので、それらは教育の西洋的な見方に基づくモデルです。多くの研究者は、西部のモデルに基づいている東部文化における教室の文化的意義に関心を持ち始めています。このケーススタディを通して、日本の大学が多文化教室で西洋の教育学を受け入れたか拒否したかがわかります。このような懸念に対する答えを提示するのではなく、この研究は、このトピックに関して学者の懸念に近づくときに尋ねるべき正しい質問を見つけることができる基礎を形成するための例を提供します。現在の方法と比較するために、大学の標準的な日本の教室がどのようなものであるかをさらに判断するために、学術的な資料を通じて背景調査が行われます。最後に、データはトピックをより深く理解することを可能にし、この分野でさらなる研究が必要な部分を提示してくれます 。
Introduction
Japan has continued to develop a focus on the quality of instruction and educational
methodology in its higher education throughout the past few decades, moving from teacherfocused to student-focused classroom models. There has been much lacking in Japaneseclassrooms compared to other countries, and top universities within Japan have expressed a desire
and initiated an effort to raise the standards of Japanese university education (Japan Times, 2013).
However, there are concerns in large Universities that the larger class sizes will limit their ability
to reach their goals, despite their efforts. Much of this push for improved educational models hascome from international pressure for academic significance and the competition for bringing ininternational students to increase revenue. This has also developed the greater push for English
Language Learning and English based education programs. As this research focuses on the push
for educational reform, one will be able to see that these pushes for international educationalmodels have allowed eastern cultures like Japan to adopt Western styles of pedagogy and theconcerns that have been brought forth in relation to this trend. More educational scholars arecontinuing to wonder if the cultural implications of these teaching models will affect the successof them in the Eastern cultures of the world. As the world continues to push for international
educational models, these issues are in need of being thoroughly discussed and understood bymore than specialists. Schools ought to consider the implications of their models on their own
culture and student body. This becomes more complicated with schools focused on a greatly
diverse student body. This research will then consider the EPOK Program of Okayama University
in Japan and the methodology being used to teach international students Japanese language andculture.

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Learning Styles in Education
Educators are consistently made aware of learning styles and how they translate into theclassroom. The idea is that each person has a certain way of processing and retaining information
through the senses, so by incorporating more senses into their teaching methods, teachers will beable to appeal to multiple styles at once. Many schools push for their teachers to appeal to themany styles in order to improve their students results. However, learning style research suggeststhat a person’s learning style comes from how they make sense of the world and is intrinsicallyconnected to a person’s culture. Their understanding of everything around them will influence
how they process and take in information. Thus, learning style “is where culture and education
overlap” (Hyland, 56). This idea has great implications in the classroom as it suggests that certain
methods will work differently for different groups of people. Perhaps a method that works
wonders in the US will prove useless in a separate culture such as Bangladesh or Myanmar.
Therefore, teachers and schools will need to take their own cultural background into consideration
before taking on foreign teaching models. There is not yet enough research to understand theextent of educational methods on different cultures, so trial and error may be necessary in the push
to understand how deeply one’s culture is connected to their learning.
There are those concerned that the transfer of western teaching models to easterncultures such as Japan is inappropriate and could even be damaging to the students’ ability to learn
the content. Many have become concerned specifically with the English education of Japan and a
growing focus on autonomous language learning, the ability to learn without dependence onothers. To see why this would become a concern, one must only look at the collective culturalvalues within the country. From as far back as elementary school, Japanese students are building
a group mindset. From the layout of a typical classroom to even the process of coloring, one cansee the emphasis on the group above the individual (Condon, Masumoto). On the other hand,autonomous language learning is completely focused on the individual learner. Often the end goalof autonomous learning is exactly what Japanese students and teachers want: to have language
building and competence independent of the teacher and other students. However, the methods
that western classes invoke to practice autonomous learning, such as individual student-centeredteaching, can often clash with the traditional mindset of many Eastern cultures. If previous
research proves true, and a student’s learning style is inseparable from their culture, then Westernmethods of teaching will need great adjustment if they are to be effective in countries like Japan.
Collaborative learning often goes hand-in-hand with autonomous learning models. This approach
is more student-centered and is often used as a way for students to build competency independentof the teacher, but with the help of other students. Collaborative teaching methods help to bridge
the gaps between student knowledge and language competency. Methods that allow students towork together through pair work, discussion, games, or creative projects as they build language
together. In this atmosphere, the teacher will work less as a traditional lecturer and more as a
facilitator of learning, only correcting when none of the students are able. While this model isaimed towards a more communal atmosphere of learning than the goal of autonomous learning,
it still raises concerns due to the lack of a model for students to follow. This model then will appeal
to more egalitarian cultures than to those based upon hierarchies such as India or Japan.
Some researchers raising concerns have gone as far as arguing that due to the social andcultural variance that affects teaching and learning styles, educational models must be adjusted toindividual regions (Rose, McKinley, 2018). They believe that ideal teaching methods andclassrooms would be adapted to smaller areas based on their own cultural understanding. However,this vision is highly unrealistic since skilled educators with equal amounts of cultural theory andcompetency are not widespread. Furthermore, this view brings multicultural education into
question. If there are doubts in bringing in foreign models of teaching into the classroom, what
does this say about international programs within universities? Such programs can have students
from dozens of countries that certainly do not share cultural views and understanding. The realityof globalization thus hinders those with such concerns from implementing a solution. Instead,researchers must focus on the implications of a multicultural classroom and how this affects
teaching models and student learning. There remains a need for the development of intercultural
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EPOK 2019educational methods that can adapt to the cultural needs of each classroom.
EPOK Case Study
This research will now turn to Okayama University’s EPOK Program. EPOK is alanguage and cultural exchange program located in Okayama, Japan. Through this case study, onewill be able to see what kind of teaching methods a program in Japan uses to teach Japanese
language to students from all around the world. It would be difficult for teachers in this program
to base their methods on the culture of their students since there is so much variance within theirclasses. So instead, because it is a Japanese language and culture exchange program located inJapan with mostly Japanese teachers, one would assume that the education methodology would
be Japanese. However, through participation in the program, one will find that they are using
many styles and methods that are traditionally from western educational models. Such models areoften based on student collaborative learning through pair work, skits, or free-talk with teachers
acting as language facilitators. Through further research, one will also see that this has becomecommon with the push for improved higher education in Japan (Japan Times, 2013). Models
developed in western countries such as collaborative or autonomous learning methods are beingtransferred to Japanese universities as well as other Eastern countries. So, despite culture, location,and even the language being taught, many language and cultural programs are adopting models
from the West (Hyland, 1994). As more research is being done, educators have come to theconclusion that culture affects learning. In addition, many are theorizing the specific effects andpossible solutions for individual areas and programs where Western models are being adapted.
However, much research is needed for multicultural educational theory to be developed to thepoint that teachers can develop practical solutions to the cultural barriers on learning within theclassroom.
Conclusion
As educators look towards the overlapping of culture and education, they must consider
how their own teaching models will affect their classes. Rather than transplanting western models
into other cultural settings, scholars of education should focus on research that will allow a methodof adapting educational models to the culture of the school and the students. There is still muchquestion as to whether or not it is possible to find a solution that allows all students to learn to thebest of their ability in a multicultural setting. However, further research may allow teachers tounderstand steps they can take to make classrooms and teaching more transcultural. As seen in
the case study for EPOK, Western models of education are being transplanted into non-westerncultures. However, with the little research that has been done, educators do not know if this isactually having bad effects or not. It is already evident that multicultural education is growing inimportance and necessity throughout the world. The disadvantages of this should not be seen as
unavoidable circumstances, but as areas in need of study and improvement. Because so little isstill known in this field, it is necessary for educators and scholars to deepen their efforts inresearching possibilities for improvement. As people begin to understand the connection between
culture and learning style, they can make further steps to understanding and improving
multicultural education.

54
EPOK 2019Reference
On-field Research
Jalt Journal (The Learning Styles of Japanese Students, Ken Hyland) [Internet].
At: http://jalt-publications.org/files/pdf/jalt_journal/jj-16.1.pdf#page=57
accessed: July 11 , 2019][Last

The Japan Times (Improving Teaching at Universities) [Internet]
at: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/04/16/editorials/improving-teachng-atuniversities/#.XSyrF7wvPnF [Last accessed: July 11 , 2019]
Higher Education (Japan's English-medium instruction initiatives and the globalization of higher
education, Rose & McKinley)[Internet]
at:http://web.b.ebscohost.com.library.dbu.edu:2048/ehost/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=6ba67f
da-4576-4a9d-921f-113f317ba
08%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=12683069
5&db=a9h[Last accessed: July 11 , 2019]
Condon, John & Masumoto, Tomoko. (2011) With Respect to the Japanese, Intercultural Press

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Japan is my oyster: Japanese students’ concerns behind studying abroad
Case study Okayama University students
日 本 は私 のオイスター：日 本 人 学 生 の留 学 に関 する不 安 感
Ioana Bodean イ ワ ナ ・ ボ デ ア ン
University of Sheffield (UK)

要旨： 「The world is your oyster.」この慣用句はシェイクスピアの作品に出てきており、これは少しの勇気を出せばどこでも何でもできるが、その努力をしない限り、自分の世界が限られてしまい、いわば心の殻に閉じこもっているようなものだという意味である。では、「Japan is my oyster」とはいったいどういう意
味なんでしょうか。この論考のトピックは日本人の留学に関する不安であるので、これは主流メディアに非難されている「日本にいるままで十分だ」という内向的な考え方を指している。私はそのニュースに困惑した。なぜかというと、私は買い物するときにも、電車をまっているときにも、いつも声をかけて英会話をやっている日本人を見かけるからだ。だからこそ私は、留学数が減少する原因が日本の若者たちの内向的な性格ではなくシステムの問題にあると考える。それにも関わらず、日本の世論はなぜかこの議論を避けている。私はこの論考が若者たちの思考プロセスの詳細を明らかにすると考えている。

“Study abroad! Volunteer abroad! Do an internship abroad!” such catchphrases have well
become the trend in higher education environments all around the globe. However, according to
the studies conducted by UNESCO and MEXT, Japanese students seem to be turning a deaf ear,many study-abroad programmes suffering from a decreasing popularity over the years. Thesefigures have prompted the Japanese government to declare that its youth is lethargic, unwilling toventure far from the comforts of their home country and thus inward oriented.
The aim of this study will be to provide insight into the mindset of Japanese students andtheir interest in studying abroad. By focusing on Okayama University’s students, I hope I will beable to better gasp their understanding of study abroad, the struggles and wariness and whether
such concerns fit into the already established frameworks. In other words, is inward orientedness
something intrinsic, part of the Japanese youth’s nature, or an umbrella term which swipes under
the rug the changes needed to be done in the Japanese system, or even the Japanese society.
Previous studies
In recent years, a significant decrease can be seen in the number of Japanese students
studying abroad, from 83,000 in 2004 to 57,501 in 2011 and 45,082 in 2014 and continuing to
decline, urging the Japanese government to take measures such as the Tobitate Study abroad
Programme.
Fast-forward to 2016, a survey done by JASSO is here to prove the effectiveness ofgovernment policies, the number of students studying abroad having increased to 96,641.
However, a closer look shows that the total number includes incomplete exchange programmes
as well as both high school and university students. Moreover, what has increased is the numberof students going in short-stay programmes, rather than long stay ones which raises the questionof efficiency of short versus long stay and how more globally aware and independent students canbecome in a short period of time.
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Moreover, a study conducted in 2014 by the Japanese Management Associated on new
employees who have just finished university raises the question of values being absorbed
superficially by the society. 57.7% of the participants had answered that they wouldn’t like towork overseas. Paradoxically, 75,3% believed that globalisation is a major opportunity ofJapanese enterprises and 78.2% recognised the importance and benefits of internationalisation.
Methodology
While many quantitative researches have been done on this topic, very few qualitative
studies have been done in order further understanding the reasoning and processes happening
inside a student’s head. Because of this, I have chosen to contribute to this field of study.
The interviews followed a semi-structured style where the students would be asked
questions and then the discussion would derive based on their answers. All of them were asked
their age, department, what foreign languages they speak, about their experience abroad and about
their opinion on the youth’s inward orientedness and changes which should be made. Overall, theinterviews took about 10 to 15 minutes in both Japanese and English and the conversation had
been recorded with the interviewee’s permission.
In selecting the interviewees, I tried to pick people from various department and withvarious relations to English learning and going abroad. Two of them are doing more science
related subjects while the other two have an Arts and Humanities related degree. Most of themwere people who I’ve met at L cafe. There are undeniable limitations to this approach, such as thelack of non-L-cafe students’ opinion, however my research might serve as the basis of more
extended studies.
The interviewees, from now on referred to as N (male, 21, studying engineering, 3rd year
student, has been abroad twice, in Hawaii and United Kingdom for approx. one week each), T(female, 23, studying American literature, PhD student, has been in an EPOK exchange
programme for 9 months in USA ), F (male, 20, studying Earth science, 1st year, no experienceabroad), Y (female, 21, studying Liberal arts,3rd year, has been in America for homestay 1 monthand Australia for 3 weeks) . Each one of the students brought a unique take on the problem ofgoing abroad and English learning. The topics they have touched upon range from safety offoreign countries to merits of going abroad, the inherent nature of Japanese people and a teacher’s
duty.
Safety and Security
Given Japan’s international and local media portrayal as one of the safest countries in theworld, it does not come to much surprise that the theme of safety has been brought up during 3 ofthe 4 interviews. According to the Global Peace Index 2018, Japan ranked 9th out of 163 as one of
the safest countries in the world. By contrast, on the other side of the spectrum countries such as
the USA ranked 121st. While it still remains a popular destination for students, the current climate
creates visible concern for Japanese students interested in studying abroad.
Mr. N is determined to go abroad and work in an international company. He spoke of theconcern he has for America’s security and immigration policies, especially under Mr Trump’s
presidency. (‘アメリカは政治の情勢とか気になります. トランプさんとか移民の問題。’)’Mr. F raised the same concerns for terrorism and tumultuous American politics which
seem to claim the spotlight in Japanese foreign news. (‘テロとか起きたときとかずっとやってます。 あとはトランプさんとか海外の政治はよくやっている。日本と比べたりして。
トランプさんはほぼ毎日.日本より政治は活発かな。’)This particular trend seems to havebeen noticed by all 4 interviewees who addressed the issue of Japanese news focusing on thenegative aspect of foreign countries such as terrorist attacks, North Korea’s instability, increased
racism and imbalance in power.
Mrs. T argued that ‘bad news about foreign countries will affect students’. As consumersof social media, this has a great impact on personal decision making. According to media richness
theory, richer media facilitates has a significant impact on decision making. This can also create

57
EPOK 2019a form of pressure, forcing the individual to change their opinions and perceptions. Constantwaves of distressing news can alter vulnerable groups’ opinions: the teenagers and young adults
about to begin or currently doing their undergraduate studies– the main target of study abroad
programmes.
The merits of going abroad
Mr F, as an Earth science student, spoke of his personal lack of necessity to go abroad asJapan is abundant in natural phenomenon to explore. (私: ‘働くとか留学は？’ F さん：‘興味ない。地球科学は日本でできるから一番。地震が多いし、季節の分かれもあるし、台風も来るし、大きな災害は日本は一番’) He said that discovering other cultures can beachieved through vacation travels. （私:‘外国人と話すチャンスとかほかの文化を味わう…？’ F さん：‘それは旅行とかで’）This discussion was important because it separated
the topic of “foreign language” from “year abroad”. While Mr. F said he enjoys learning English
and German and making international friends at university, his views on going abroad arenarrowed down to academic necessity. Such a perspective further enforces the idea that the way
studying abroad is presented to students needs to be redefined. It is true that the academic side isimportant but, the study abroad does not limit itself to that: it also offers the chance to become
more independent, increase problem solving abilities, communication skills. The educational
system should encourage study abroad outside of academic sphere as a way to gain more social
skills and widen your horizon. After all, so many international students come to Okayama
university without any prior Japanese knowledge.
Teacher’s duty
One of the main causes for the students’ lack of interest is the teacher’s way of managing
the class. Ms T spoke of the Japanese teacher’s focus on motivated students which allows good
students to peak yet discourages medium or low-level students from pursuing English. (‘二極化...すごい勉強したい人もいるし興味ない人もいる。こっち側の人だけ頑張って頑張って。’). Despite the struggles, Ms T, an aspiring teacher, looks at the Japanese teaching systemwith optimism, saying that changes are already happening. (‘Maybe the system is getting better.
when I was a student I just focused on grammar, reading, but now teachers carry more activities
into classrooms, and this is how students get to experience actually talking English.’)The teacher’s hierarchical and elitist views, however, do not limit only to English learning
but to the perceptions on studying abroad. According to Japanese media, studying abroad isregarded by many as a thing reserved only for the elites. If changes were to be expected, theyshould begin from the education system and the way educators perceive the outside world andtheir duty.
Japanese deep-seated beliefs
Ms Y spoke of an “English complex” which Japanese students are confronted with and thelack of confidence they have. The problem is that Japanese students’ confidence is built on exam
and classroom hierarchy which becomes meaningless when confronted with real-life encounters.
Also, Ms Y. spoke of the insular nature of Japan. She brought up the idea of wariness that people
have for the outside world. (‘警戒心がすごい強い。それは民族性。島国人間かからわずに生きてきた歴史的背景。それはいあっぱ内向きなんじゃ’). This inherited characteristic
makes it very difficult for Japanese people to make friends with foreigners who have a different
pace. (‘日本人同士じゃなかったら作れない。日本人はやっぱ恥ずかしがり。主張はしないと思うよ。外国人はフットワークが軽い早いなとおもうめっちゃ。仲良くなったりとか飲みに行こうとかそれすごいなと思う。日本人と外国人は一番ムズイ’)

Most likely, if confidence were to be nurtured, Japan could also experience more study abroad
programmes in non-English speaking countries. Moreover, Japanese is contextual and often
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misunderstandings can occur between Japanese and foreign people. In order to familiarise bothsides, Japanese students should be exposed more to foreign perspectives for example ALT
teachers in school in order to tighten the cultural gap and ease contact.
Conclusions
All interviewees brought new perspectives on the problem of global mobility. While someof the problems can be changed, some of the students had a fatalist approach, saying that Japanesepeople are shy and reserved by nature and it is not something which can be changed.
Overall, it can be said the inward-orientedness might be a problem, not of the Japaneseyouth, but of the Japanese system. Japanese students tend to be open about international
communication and business, but their lack of confidence, the comfort of the familiar environment
and inexperience turn them wary to study abroad programmes.
To conclude this paper, based on the Japanese students’ answers, I wish to offer somesuggestions. Local authorities should revise the way foreign countries are portrayed in mass media,
have a greater focus on speaking classes and nurture independent thinking, as well as facilitate
more international engagement through language facilitators, exchange programmes, pen pals etc.
On top of that, educators should rebrand the study abroad programmes as something less elitist
and as an experience which goes beyond what is being taught in the classroom. By doing so, I
believe Japan would experience an increase in interest for studying abroad.
The world is your oyster.

References
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JASSO 平 成 26 年 度 協 定 等 に 基 づ く 日 本 人 学 生 留 学 状 況 調 査 結 果
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March 2019 ]UNESCO
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http://data.uis.unesco.org/Index.aspx?queryid=172# [last accessed 28th March 2019 ]regionBaseel,Casey,
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to
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overseas?
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Chris,Ambivalent
Japan
turns
on
its
'insular'youth
athttps://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2013/05/21/issues/ambivalent-japan-turns-on-itsinsular-youth/ [ last accessed 10 April 2019 ]Kobayashi, Akira, 当 世 留 学 生 事 情 ： な ぜ 日 本 の 若 者 は 海 外 を 目 指 さ な い の か
https://www.nippon.com/ja/currents/d00390/ [ last accessed 25.03.2019]
Okawa, Shoichi 内向き志向の日本人｣はすでに古い考え方だ at/204917 [ last accessed 10 April 2019 ]athttps://toyokeizai.net/articles/-Power, Daniel J., Phillips-Wren, Gloria, Impact of Social Media and Web 2.0 on Decision-Making,
Journal of Decision System (2011)59
EPOK 2019

EPOK Research Project
Summer 2019岡山大学グローバル人材育成院〒700-8530 岡山市北区津島中 2-1-1
Institute of Global Human Resource Development

Okayama University

epok-inbound1@adm.okayama-u.ac.jp
http://www.okayama-u.ac.jp