©2017 Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies
Vol.9, March 2017, pp. 205-222 (ONLINE)
Master’s and Doctoral Programs in International and Advanced
Japanese Studies
Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Tsukuba

Research Note

Bridging the Gap between Japanese and Foreign Communities
through Communication and Critical Reflection
Paul CAPOBIANCO
University of Iowa, Department of Anthropology, Ph.D. Candidate
This paper examines the changing nature of interpersonal relations between Japanese and foreign
residents of Japan. Due to various domestic and international mechanisms, Japan’s demographics havechanged substantially in recent decades and are expected to change even further in the immediate future. One
effect of these changes has been an increased presence of foreigners living and working in Japan, which isengendering newfound contexts through which Japanese society engages with diverse forms of cultural
Otherness. Previous scholarship has shown that Japan’s relationships with different foreign and minority
populations have been largely problematic in nature and that foreign populations have formerly been relegatedto the social peripheries. Majority-minority relationships have tended to be conceptualized in a predominantly
volatile fashion that reinforces a rigid dichotomy between Japanese and outsiders. However, given Japan’schanging demographics and the corresponding diversification of interactions presently taking place within
Japan, it is worthy to investigate more meticulously the conceptual and material products of these intercultural
encounters.
Utilizing qualitative ethnographic data, this paper suggests that the interpersonal dynamics between
foreigners and Japanese are changing in ways that lead some Japanese to adopt a more positive image of
foreigners. Drawing on theoretical insights from intercultural communication studies and applied linguistics,
this paper elucidates how Japan’s socio-demographic changes are creating new opportunities for Japaneseand foreigners to reconceptualize themselves with greater orientations towards the other party, which resultsin allowing more positive forms of interpersonal relationships to emerge. This paper shows how these novel
relationships develop and explains the important role that critical reflection plays in reconsidering thecategorical constructs of Japanese and Other. These encounters and critical reflections materially manifest in
emergent identities that allow Japanese and foreign residents of Japan to reorient themselves with greater
proximity to the other party. However, despite these reorientations, barriers continue to exist that prevent
more constructive relations from developing.
Keywords: Intercultural Communication, Identity, Foreigners, Interpersonal Relations

Introduction
Japan is presently positioned to experience a considerable demographic change as a result of a low birthrate,
an aging population, and large numbers of young Japanese eschewing particular sectors of the nation’s labor market.
One effect of these changes has been the emergence of nationwide labor shortages, which thus far have in part been
filled by foreign laborers. Despite the pragmatic difficulties foreigners may experience living in Japan, the nation
remains a destination country for foreign workers who continue to enter Japan from a myriad of countries. Presently,
foreign nationals comprise just over 2% of Japan’s population. However, this proportion is expected to increase
dramatically in future years; so much so that some experts estimate the composition of foreigners in Japan could

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Volume 9 ONLINE / March 2017rise to 8 to 27% by 2050.1 Such a diversification would have profound implications for the nature of Japanesesociety and the forms of intercultural relations that develop within Japan’s borders. This is particularly true for theway that foreign-Japanese relationships unfold. Because Japan’s diversification has been underway for some time,
we may look to the encounters already occurring for clues as to how this future demographic change might proceed.
Although scholars have tended to focus on the problematic relationships that Japan maintains with its various
foreign and minority populations,2 others have suggested that there also exist alternatives to minority-majority
relations whereby interpersonal encounters between these two parties lead to more positive and diversified
outcomes.3 These latter writers stress the fact that although foreigners continue to experience difficulties, barriers,and prejudices in Japan, economic mobility and social integration remain contingent upon numerous variables andare not limited to an all-or-nothing acceptance-exclusion dichotomy. Therefore, it is important to recognize andconsider the ways alternative forms of minority-majority relations develop, to understand how they affect the ways
Japanese and foreigners interact, and how the actors involved in these processes reconceptualize themselves inrelation to each other and to their host society.
This paper will address these questions by examining how critical reflection can induce changes to the ways
foreigners are conceptually positioned within Japanese society. Drawing upon ethnographic data collected from2013-2015, this paper will demonstrate how, through the vehicles of intercultural communication and criticalreflection, foreign and Japanese actors reposition themselves with greater orientations towards one another as theseintercultural encounters occur.4 In doing so, this paper draws from communications studies and applied linguistics
to elucidate how critical reflection, induced materially by intercultural encounters themselves, leads to a more
dynamic understanding of the experiences of foreigners in Japan. This paper suggests that as such increased
understandings continue to materialize in accord with Japan’s ongoing demographic changes, Japanese actors will
be further compelled to reconceptualize the positionality and role of foreigners within Japan to a much greater extent.
The following sections of this paper will provide a brief overview of the concept of reflexivity in relation tointercultural communication and then proceed to present ethnographic vignettes from foreign and Japanese actors
to explain how these changes materialize in practice. It will then analyze this data and explain the implications ofthese reflections and changing positionalities.
1. Reflexivity, Identity, and Intercultural Communication
There has been a great deal of interest from disparate academic disciplines in discussing individuals who
possess heightened levels of intercultural awareness and competence. These works have argued that individuals arecapable of acquiring capabilities that transcend their own cultural milieu and allow them to navigate fluidly acrossreal and imagined cultural barriers. One concept that aims to explicate the dynamics of such an individual is Peter
Adler’s idea of the “multicultural man.” Adler suggests that “a new type of person whose orientation and view ofthe world profoundly transcends his indigenous culture is developing from the complex of social, political,
economic, and educational interactions of our time” and that the parameters of this person’s sense of self are neither

David Blake Willis and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, “Transcultural Japan: Metamorphosis in the Cultural Borderlands andBeyond,” in David Blake Willis and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu eds., Transcultural Japan: At the Borderlands of Race, Gender,and Identity (London: Routledge, 2008), p.4
2 See John Lie, Multiethnic Japan, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).
3 Edmond Akwasi Agyeman, “African Migrants in Japan: Social and Economic Integration,” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal
24, no. 4(2015): 463-486; Leiba Faier, Intimate Encounters Filipina Women and the Remaking of Rural Japan (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 2009); Tsu Yun Hui, “From Ethnic Ghetto to ‘Gourmet Republic’: The Changing Image of Kobe’s Chinatown
and the Ambiguities of Being Chinese in Modern Japan,” in David Blake Willis and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu eds., Transcultural
Japan: At the Borderlands of Race, Gender, and Identity (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 135-158.
4 This paper uses the term “orientation” to describe a process through which disparate groups of social actors – in this case, Japaneseand foreign residents of Japan – understand their social and conceptual relationship towards one another.
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fixed nor predictable.5 Essentially, it is a multilingual and multiculturally-competent person who is not bound bycultural constraints. Other terms have similarly been utilized to describe individuals possessing higher degrees ofintercultural competences. Michael Byram has suggested that becoming “bicultural” involves a process of criticallyreflecting upon one’s own beliefs and convictions, which subsequently allows people to develop a greater sensitivity
towards members of other cultural groups. In doing so, Byram implies that there may in fact be two disparate formsof an individual existing in the same body that possess intimate knowledge of two distinct cultures: “a person canhold within themselves two cultural, ethnic identities and…it seems that being two people is not difficult.” 6
Relatedly, Christina Bratt Paulston utilizes the term “bicultural” to explain an individual that is somewhat “eclectic”
in their cultural identity and possesses an idiosyncratic comprehension and fluency of other cultural practices.7 Thissense of being “bicultural” is characterized by highly personalized attitudes towards the other cultures one engages
with, as well as a somewhat precarious sense of social belonging. Nonetheless, this “bicultural” person maintains aheightened awareness of other cultures and is capable of successfully navigating cultural boundaries. Althoughdifferent in their content, each of the above authors postulate that individuals are not confined to their native culturalmilieu and are instead able to develop skills to fluidly communicate across cultures without problems. Such
postulations suggest individuals are capable of acclimating themselves in dynamic ways to different types of crosscultural environments and that there is no cultural paradigm too difficult to transcend.
While it may be overly-optimistic to suggest that an individual such as Adler’s “multicultural man” hasalready emerged, there are undeniably individuals who possess superior intercultural competencies. It is therefore
worthy to consider what processes have led to such competences and what factors have fostered their development.
Most germane to this paper are three particular forces that can allow individuals to develop this augmentedcompetence: learning a new language, engaging in intercultural communication, and critical self-reflection.
Although these are not the only mechanisms through which increased competences can develop, these have beenshown to have important effects on the outcomes of individual learners and intercultural communication interactants.
Thus, it is worthy to succinctly explain how these processes function to influence an individual’s (inter)culturalexperiences.
However, before doing so, it is worthy to first embark on a slight detour to discuss the concept of “identity,”
which lies at the core of many of the processes mentioned below. In its most basic sense, identity reflects how
individuals perceive themselves, how they are perceived by others, and how individuals understand these twocompeting perceptions.8 Identity has long been conceived as related to language learning and it has been noted thatlearning a language also affects the ways one thinks of themselves in relation to others.9 Although scholars haverecognized the connection between language learning and identity, there have to date been a multitude of ways
scholars have operationalized the term “identity” and correspondingly structured their analyses of identity in relation
to language acquisition.10
This understanding of identity suggests that people may possess numerous identities at any given time andthat former notions of identity that see identity as fixed, stable, and essentialized – existing as a concrete given –are typically abandoned for understandings of identity that are more fluid and allow for a wider range of applications.

Peter Adler, “Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Cultural and Multicultural Man,” in Richard Brislin ed., Culture Learning(Honolulu: East-West Center Press), pp. 24-41.
6 Michael Byram, “On Being ‘Bicultural’ and ‘Intercultural,’” in Geof Alred, Michael Byram, and Mike Fleming eds., Language forIntercultural Communication and Education (Clevdon: Multilingual Matters, 2003), p. 54.
7 Christina Bratt Paulston, Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Bilingual Education (Clevdon: Multilingual Matters, 1992), Chapter 5.
8 Bethan Benwell and Elizabeth Stokoe, “Introduction,” in Bethan Benwell and Elizabeth Stokoe eds., Discourse and Identity(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), pp. 1-13.
9 H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning (White Plains: Pearson, 2000); Zhu Hua, “Intercultural Communication,” in
Li Wei ed., Introduction to Applied Linguistics (Somerset: Wiley & Sons, 2014), pp. 112-128.
10 Julia Menard-Warwick, “Both a Fiction and an Existential Fact: Theorizing Identity in Second Language Acquisition and Literacy
Studies,” Linguistics and Education 16 (2005): 253-274.
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Scholars have actively sought to adopt a more flexible usage of “identity” so as to obtain more nuanced
understandings of how it operates practically. A number of “post-structural” scholars have been especiallyenlightening for underscoring the function of identity in relation to language learning. These scholars have positedthat rather than seeing identity as fixed and static, it is instead viewed as inherently complex, malleable, overlapping,and dynamic. Individuals construct and assert identities based on highly contextual and subjective variables that
more often than not lead to comprehensions of identity that do not ascribe neatly onto extant identity categories.11
Such an understanding asserts that identity “is not a static, preexisting entity but rather evolves through a dialectical
relationship between different ways of interacting and speaking in the world.”12 Identity can therefore be viewed
as a multifaceted and discursive phenomenon, which is affected by a wide range of stimuli. It also asserts that
although individuals may consider themselves as part of various collective bodies, no two individuals will
understand their identities in precisely the same way. Recognizing these facts are important for fully understanding
the types of identity transformations that unfold as a result of contemporary interactions.
There are numerous ways that language learning and intercultural communication affect such idiosyncratic
constructions of identity in the contemporary world and in relation to diverse casts of multicultural actors. First,
scholars have explained that learning a new language and its corresponding cultural components can compel
perceptual changes within learners and in effect alter the ways they understand themselves in relation to others. H.
Douglas Brown states that “meaningful language acquisition involves some degree of identity conflict as language
learners take on a new identity with their newly acquired competence.”13 As individuals struggle to acquire novel
cultural and linguistic competencies, they also develop abilities that transcend the language acquisition process andenter into the realm of wider intercultural knowledge. Jean-Marc Dewaele notes that “multicompetent multilinguals
seem more aware and appreciative of the diversity in the world, [and are] able to consider it through the prism of
their different languages and cultures.14 Cem and Margaret Alptekin note that learners will develop an identity thatis “able to transcend the parochial confines of the native and target cultures by understanding and appreciating
cultural diversity and pluralism thanks to the new language, while not losing sight of native norms and values in theprocess.” 15 Thus, the language learning process impacts how we conceptualize ourselves and cultural Others.
Regardless of one’s intercultural understandings at the outset, because language involves a new way of interpreting
the world around us culturally, lexically, and abstractly, learners are likely to undergo some form of identity
reorientation as they persist in their endeavors.16
Second, the act of utilizing one’s learned skills and communicating with members of the target language
community (i.e. engaging in intercultural communication) has also been show to impact how individuals perceive
themselves in relation to cultural Others.17 Chang In Shin and Ronald Jackson note that self-identity “emerges and11

Bonny Norton, Identity and Langauge Learning: Gender, Ethnicity, and Educational Change (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000);
Aneta Pavlenko and Adrian Blackledge eds., Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts (Clevdon: Multilingual Matters,2003).
12 Andrea Simon-Maeda, Being and Becoming a Speaker of Japanese: An Auto-Ethnographic Account (Clevdon: Multilingual
Matters, 2011), p. 117.
13 Brown, Principles of Language Learning, p. 147.
14 Marc-Jean Dewaele, “Second and Additional Language Acquisition,” in Li Wei ed., Applied Linguistics (Somerset: John Wiley &Sons, 2014), p.51.
15 Cem Alptekin and Margaret Alptekin, “The Question of Culture: EFL Teaching in Non-English Speaking Countries,” ELT Journal
38, no.1 (1984): 19.
16 See also Jane Jackson, Language, Identity, and Study Abroad: Sociocultural Perspectives (London: Equinox, 2008).
17 Geoff Alred, Michael Byram, and Mike Fleming, “Introduction,” in Geof Alred, Michael Byram, and Mike Fleming eds.,
Language for Intercultural Communication and Edcaation (Clevdon: Multilingual Matters, 2003), pp. 1-13; Young Yun Kim,
Becoming Intercultural: An Integrative Theory of Communication and Cross-Cultural Adaptation (London: Sage, 2000); Young Yun
Kim, “Intercultural Personhood: Globalization and a Way of Being,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 32 (2008): 359368; R.S. Zaharna, “Self-Shock: The Double-Binding Challenge of Identity,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 13(1989): 501-525.

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is constructed from relationships which are negotiated through communication.” 18 Leiba Faier has stated that“encounters cannot but change the ways people see the world and how they move through it. They interrupt, if even
ever so slightly, the paths that brought us to them and set us in new directions.”19 Young Y. Kim further notes that“cross-cultural adaptation is viewed as occurring as long as the individual remains in interaction with the hostenvironment” and that “this interactive, communication-based conception...conceptualizes cross-cultural adaptation
not as an independent or dependent variable, but as the totality of an individual's personal and social experiencesvis-à-vis the host environment in and through a complex system of communicative interfaces."20 In this, Kim argues
that communicating across cultural boundaries, with cultural Others and in an environment that possesses various
stressors for the participants, can compel transformations within these participants in ways that allow them toemerge with a greater understanding of and orientation towards cultural Otherness. One need not be restricted todefining themselves solely in terms of their own personal cultural group and instead can reconstruct an identity andsense of being that maintains a greater orientation towards diverse actors from different cultural backgrounds.
Kim presents a dynamic model of how individual interactants in intercultural communication arrive at theiridentity revelations. She discusses this in detail21 and has outlined numerous variables that potentially influence
this process.22 In brief, she argues that individuals acquire intercultural skills through a “stress-adaptation-growth”
dynamic whereby they develop adaptive strategies that allow them to better function in their sociocultural context
as they grapple with the stressors presented by their particular environments. The end products of these stresses andadaptations can ultimately manifest as a “growth” in personal understandings of home and host culture in ways that
permit more dynamic and inclusive forms of sociality and sentiments of personal identity to emerge. This isimportant because it provides a comprehensive and fundamental way to understand the transformations that
individuals experience as they participate in intercultural encounters in different social contexts with diverse actors.
Third, critically reflecting upon one’s intercultural interactive experiences can also provide an impetus fortransformative changes to occur. This paper suggests that this reflection is an essential component of the identity
transformation process. While both language learning and intercultural communication can lead to transformations
in how one thinks of themselves and others, the process of critical reflection provides an intensified element throughwhich identities can be renegotiated and reasserted. This is because interactions with members from other culturalgroups can help individuals arrive at heightened understandings of who they are through comparisons.23 It has beensuggested that people experience more profound perceptual changes after they have undergone such reflections: “Itis when they have some kind of experience which leads them to question these given conventions and values...that
they become to become 'intercultural.'”24 Everett Kleinjans described several “affective” variables that can facilitate
greater intercultural understandings. These variables include “perception, appreciation, reevaluation, reorientation,
identification, and outward actions.” Speaking of “reevaluation” and “reorientation,” he notes that reevaluation may
comprise "a shift in priorities, the giving up of certain values for new ones, or an enlargement of one's own value
system" and he describes reorientation as a "means changing the direction of one's life as a result of embracing newvalues internalized in the revaluation process." For identification, it involves "becoming one with the people of the
Chang In Shin and Ronald L. Jackson, “A Review of Identity Research in Communication Theory: Reconceptualizing Cultural
Identity,” in William J. Starosta and Guo-Mind Chen eds., Ferment in the Intercultural Field: Axiology/Value/Praxis (London: Sage,2012), pp. 212-231.
19 Lieba Faier, Intimate Encounters, p. 25.
20 Young Yun Kim, Becoming Intercultural, p. 23.
21 See Young Yun Kim Becoming Intercultural; Young Yun Kim, “Intercultural Personhood,”; Young Yun Kim, “Finding a ‘Home’
Beyond Culture: The Emergence of Intercultural Personhood in the Globalizing World,” International Journal of Intercultural
Relations 46 (2015): 3-12.
22 Young Yun Kim, “Beyond Cultural Categories: Communication, Adaptation, and Transformation,” in Jane Jackson ed., Routledge
Handbook of Intercultural Communication (London: Routledge), pp. 229-243.
23 Michael Byram, Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence (Clevdon: Multilingual Matters, 1997);
Michael Byram, “On Being ‘Bicultural’ and ‘Intercultural.’”24 Geoff Alred, Michael Byram, and Mike Fleming, “Introduction,” p. 3.
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other culture," understood broadly. Here, Kleinjans is suggesting that through interacting with members of othercultures, and critically thinking about these interactions and their relationship to one’s own culture, individuals canarrive at heightened understandings of themselves, their native culture, and the culture with which they are
engaging.25 Thus, becoming an intercultural person may inherently involve some greater degree of reflection andcriticalness towards existing forms of identity that enhances and expands one’s extant worldview.26
The extent to which reflection is or is not necessary for transformations to occur is not the primary focus of
this paper; rather the purpose here is to underscore that reflection is an important mechanism through which
individuals can and do arrive at transformations regarding their relationship to other people and especially to cultural
Others. It is essential to recognize that, like language learning and intercultural communication, critical reflection
can also induce identity transformations. This is important for comprehending the wider sociocultural context inwhich the actors below experienced their respective personal changes.
Intercultural understanding is marked by a heightened sense of awareness and sensitivity towards othercultures. Language learning and intercultural communication provide platforms upon which perceptual changes thatinduce greater intercultural sensitivity can occur. 27 Reflection upon one’s intercultural encounters can further
compel individuals to reconstruct the meanings of their encounters in ways that engender new ideas about
interpersonal and intercultural relationships. The proceeding section will provide ethnographic vignettes into thelives of Japanese and foreigners in Japan that elucidate how exactly these theoretical points play out in everyday
practice.
2. Intercultural Encounters in Japan
An important overarching factor that influences the nature of intercultural encounters in Japan is the way
Japanese identity has formerly been constructed and asserted. During Japan’s postwar period, a particular identity
emerged that was founded upon notions of ethno-racial homogeneity and cultural uniqueness that perceptuallydifferentiated Japanese from other Asian and western populations.28 The proliferation and pervasiveness of thisidentity and its accompanying discourses have since led to the marginalization and exclusion of foreigners andsocial minorities within Japanese society.29 For example, prejudices that suggest it is impossible for foreigners tolearn Japanese and participate in Japanese culture (re)produce sentiments that rigidly divide foreigners and Japanese,and relegates Japan’s foreign residents, regardless of their actual capabilities, to spheres of alterity. Foreigners anddomestic minority populations have thus been precluded access to mainstream Japanese identity and have in many
ways been placed in Japan’s social peripheries.
One reason that such ideas have remained so widespread for so long is because Japan has, for the most part,
actually remained relatively homogenous. Although scholars have taken issue with the assertion that Japan is“homogenous,” and have made efforts to bring attention to Japan’s current and historic diversity,30 the fact remainsthat Japan is still a very homogenous nation, especially so in comparison with other industrialized societies.
Everett Kleinjans, “A Question of Ethnics,” International Educational and Cultural Exchange 10, no. 4 (1975): 23-24.
Marc-Jean Dewaele and Jan Pieter van Oudenhoven, “The Effect of Multilingualism/Multiculturalism on Personality: No Gain
Without Pain for Third Culture Kids?” International Journal of Multilingualism 6 (2009): 1-17.
27 David R. Byrd and Catherine A. Byrd, “The Role of Dissonance and Harmony in one L2 Learner’s Identity Development during aLanguage Camp Experience Abroad,” The Journal of Language Teaching and Learning 2 (2013): 40-57.
28 Harumi Befu, Hegemony of Homogeneity: An Anthropological Analysis of Nihonjinron (Melbourne: TransPacific Press, 2001);
Eiji Oguma, Tanitsu Minzoku Shinwa no Kigen [The Myth of Homogenous Japan] (Tokyo: Shinyosha Press, 1995); Kosaku Yoshino,
Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan (London: Routlege 1992).
29 Harumi Befu, Hegemony of Homogeneity; John Lie, Multiethnic Japan; Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, “Multiethnic Japan and the
Monoethnic Myth,” MELUS 18, no. 4 (1993): 63-80; David Blake Willis and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, “Transcultural Japan:
Metamorphosis in the Cultural Borderlands and Beyond.”
30 Mark Hudson, Ruins of Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999); MurphyShigematsu, “Multiethnic Japan and the Monoethnic Myth”; Eiji Oguma, Tanitsu Minzoku Shinwa no Kigen.
25
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Paul CAPOBIANCO, Bridging the Gap between Japanese and Foreign Communities“Minority” populations are believed to comprise around 5% of Japan’s population overall and when considering
the number of minorities and foreigners who are indistinguishable from the mainstream population, the societal
composition of conspicuously non-Japanese persons becomes even lower.31 This ultimately means that Japanese
encounters with cultural Otherness have heretofore been comparatively limited in scope. By and large, they havemostly been confined to particular sectors of Japan’s society and labor market, outside of which they have notoccurred to considerable extents. Thus, although Japan is undoubtedly more diverse than former constructions ofidentity and conventional discourses lead one to believe, the fact remains that up until very recently intercultural
relations were still very constrained.
However, considering the aforementioned demographic changes Japan is presently experiencing, the overall
nature of intercultural encounters within Japan can be expected to change accordingly. As greater numbers of
foreigners from increasingly diverse backgrounds enter Japan, the contexts of intercultural relations between
Japanese and foreigners can likewise be expected to become more diverse and dynamic. Although such profounddemographic changes have not yet materialized in full, the past several decades have nonetheless brought foreigners
and Japanese into contact with one another in ways never before experienced. Therefore, we can observe some of
the already established Japanese-foreign relationships to obtain insights into how the future trajectory of Japaneseforeign relations may proceed.
This section will present ethnographic data that demonstrates how, upon critical reflection after engaging in
regularized intercultural interactions with foreigners, Japanese actors reconstructed their understandings of Japan,
the role and positionality of foreigners within Japan, and their own senses of personal identity. The data presented
below marks a discernable shift in the ways Japanese-minority relations have heretofore been conceptualized. The
following ethnographic vignettes depict how this has occurred and what Japanese informants have said happened
to them as a result of their intercultural interactions. This section will demonstrate how different settings and typesof intercultural encounters compel Japanese actors to reconstruct their understandings of Self and Otherness inparticular ways but all of which generally lead to the same end result of a more intricate and dynamic understandingof Japan’s diversity.
Data for this manuscript was gathered between 2013-2015 through interviews and participant-observation.
Interviews were conducted formally and informally, were largely unstructured, and involved a variety of openended questions, which included: “What have your experiences interacting with Japanese/foreigners entailed?”“How do you feel that engaging in intercultural interaction has changed the way that you relate yourself toforeigners/Japanese?” “In what ways has living in Japan and experiencing Japan’s demographic changes altered theways you perceive yourself and wider Japanese society?” In total, over 100 interviews were conducted withJapanese and foreign informants. Interviewees were procured using snowball sampling and nonrandomized
convenience sampling, and were conducted in English and/or Japanese.
Interviews were supplemented by participant-observation that occurred at various locations throughout Japanin which Japanese and foreigners came into regular contact with one another. These included foreign-owned and operated establishments, religious institutions, and civic organizations, as well as various sorts of workplaces.
31

Scholars often make categorical distinctions between minority populations in Japan. These groups are often divided into threeoverarching categories: Japan’s “domestic” minorities, Japan’s long-term resident minorities, and “newcomer” minorities.
“Domestic” minorities include groups indigenous to Japan – such as Ainu, Burakumin, and Okinawans – who are today in many
ways indistinguishable from the mainstream population but retain a distinct identity based on cultural and historic conditions of
exclusion. Long-term resident minorities include former colonial subjects from other parts of Asia, mostly Korea and China, that
migrated or were forcibly brought to Japan during Japan’s colonial empire. The phrase “newcomer minorities” is typically used todescribe those who migrated to Japan during the 1980s or later. It is important to note that these categories maintain markedly
different experiences and attitudes towards Japanese society. For example, a Korean who arrived in Japan to study during the 2000s
and has since stayed will have a very different experience than an ethnic Korean who was born, raised, and educated in Japan andwhose family has resided in Japan since the early twentieth century. Japan’s “domestic” minorities and long-term resident minorities
have become in many ways indistinguishable from the mainstream population due to cultural assimilation.

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Interview and observation data were qualitatively coded to ascertain broader, more generalizable themes that could
speak to larger patterns within informants’ responses.
The vignettes below have been selected because they most lucidly depict the ways individuals experienced
changes as a result of their intercultural encounters. Much of the sentiment expressed here has been echoed by otherinformants as well. Thus, the data here is in many ways representative of wider societal attitudes that are developing
throughout Japan today. However, it is also important to acknowledge the highly subjective aspects of theseexperiences and note that the subsequent discussion is meant to provide details about broader developing patterns
that are emerging from intercultural encounters; they should not be seen as hard truths that one should expect all
participants engaging in intercultural communication to experience. There will be diverse ways that people
experience such encounters and thus there are some limitations on this paper’s generalizability. Nevertheless, thisdoes not detract from the fact that palpable patterns could be ascertained that bespeak the current situation that exists
on the ground in Japan today.
(1) Koji
Koji32 is a bar worker in his mid-thirties who works in a popular nightlife neighborhood in Tokyo. For the
past several years, he was employed by Nigerian bar owners in two separate establishments. While working thesejobs, Koji regularly interacted with Nigerian bosses, co-workers, and customers. He also engaged regularly withforeigners and businesses associates from other non-Japanese backgrounds. Through these encounters, Koji was
unexpectedly made aware of the diverse nature of Japan’s foreign community and emerged from his work
experience with a more refined comprehension of the true scope of Japan’s diversity, as well as a broader
conceptualization of foreigners and their experiences in Japan.
In his own words, Koji explained: “Never in my life did I imagine I would be working for a Nigerian boss!
Before I started working in Shinjuku, I was not aware there were so many foreigners in Japan, especially Africans.”33
He also noted that he has gradually become more aware of the differences between African nationalities and ethnic
groups. Before working in these bars, Koji professed that he didn’t know anything about Africa’s diversity, but his
work made him aware of it and he departed from his work experiences with a more intricate understanding of thescope of Africa’s diversity. He explained: “After working in bars owned by Africans for six years, I now appreciate
the difference between Nigerians and Ghanaians, between Igbo people and Yoruba people, and between African
Christians and Muslims.”34 Koji believed that this knowledge put him a unique position because he said that mostother Japanese would not likely be able to recognize these important ethno-national differences between Africans,either in Japan or abroad.
Koji explained that his direct encounters with Africans raised his awareness of the experiences of foreigners
in Japan in a number of ways. For one, he came to better understand the Africans that he regularly engaged withand began to more accurately comprehend their experiences living and working in Japan. Before these experiences,
Koji said that he was largely unaware that there were so many foreigners in Japan and was especially surprised tolearn of the existence of so many Africans in Japan. By establishing interpersonal relationships with his bosses, coworkers, and clients, Koji observed that many of them were honest people trying to make a living. This repudiatedsome of the negative things he had formerly heard about foreigners, especially with regards to Nigerians and other
Africans. He notes: “I had heard negative things about Nigerians. Some people said they were involved with crimeand scams. But, after I worked for them and served them in my bar for some time, I realize that many of them are
32

All names appearing in this paper are pseudonyms.
Paul Capobianco, “Confronting Diversity: Africans Challenging Japanese Societal Convictions,” Contemporary Japan 27, no. 2(2015): 195.
34 Paul Capobianco, “Confronting Diversity: Africans Challenging Japanese Societal Convictions,” Contemporary Japan 27, no. 2(2015): 195.
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honest people and are not criminals. There are some bad ones, but most are just looking to make a living like me.”Thus, by regularly engaging with Africans and other foreigners in this particular work environment, Koji expanded
how he understood the diversity that existed within Japan and conceptually repositioned foreigners with a greater
orientation towards ethnic Japanese.
Koji explains that this awareness subsequently led him to reflect on what this meant for Japan’s future: “I
didn’t realize this earlier but I now see that Japan is changing. It is changing in a complicated way. Many people
like to describe Japan in one way and don’t like to see it from different perspectives, but we have to do that. It is
not enough to just say that Japan is home to Japanese and that there are criminal foreigners in Japan. We need toreally think about Japan and who lives here. That is the only way that we can have a better future for everyone.”Through his encounters with foreigners via his workplace, Koji became more aware of the experiences ofAfricans and other foreign populations that reside and operate within Japan’s borders. Correspondingly, thisprovided a somewhat surprising depiction of the present nature of contemporary Japan itself. Koji’s reflection on
the broader implications of his intercultural work and communicative experiences permitted him to arrive at a moreconstructive comprehension of foreign Otherness and Japan’s newfound diversity. Although Koji states that he was
not particularly xenophobic before working in said bars, he also noted that he really did not have any feelings,
positive or negative, about the existence of foreigners in Japan. It was only after his actual encounters with foreigners
and his subsequent critical reflection did he ultimately come to better understand their experiences and impact on
Japanese society.
(2) The Nakamura Family
Another interesting channel through which foreigners and Japanese are establishing relationships is throughhomestay programs organized by universities, schools, and private companies. While there is nothing fundamentallynovel about this practice, what is noteworthy are the increasingly diverse backgrounds of students that study inJapan and who correspondingly participate in such homestays. Data I have obtained from Japanese host families
demonstrates how interacting with their host children have effectively transformed their sense of identity at thepersonal and collective levels, as well as the ways that they conceptualize the scope of diversity that exists within
Japanese society.
A vignette from the Nakamura family explains how these changes unfold in everyday practice. This family
consists of two Japanese host parents and their two host children from Nigeria. The local university that the two
Nigerian “children” attended was responsible for arranging the homestay. The Nakamura parents initially offered
to host one student but later, upon meeting and establishing a strong connection with one of their original children’s
friends, agreed to host a second. The parents developed a close relationship with their children; their own children
having grown and started their own families elsewhere, they enjoyed the company of their host children and enjoyedlearning about their home country and continent. Their children likewise enjoyed the relationship that developed
and were appreciative of the assistance their parents offered them and their families while in Japan.
As the relationship with their host children evolved, the Nakamura parents were made aware of the difficulties
their children faced living and studying in Japan. Since they believed that both of their children were sociable andlinguistically competent, they were surprised to learn of the difficulties they both experienced. The Nakamura hostfather stated: “It was troubling to hear of the problems [our children] faced. Our own children never had suchproblems and if they were not our [host] children, we would have never known about such issues.” The Nakamura
mother added: “It is very disheartening. Knowing that people you care for struggle because of your own culture’s
practices makes you feel sad and makes you want to help however you can.” The Nakamuras vowed to offer help
to their children, their families, and any friends that they might have and, according to their host children, havegenuinely done so whenever the chance presented itself.
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Such a change in attitudes occurred despite the fact that these parents were already somewhat oriented towards
and accepting of foreign cultures. If they had possessed xenophobic or prejudice attitudes, it is highly unlikely theywould have volunteered to act as host parents in the first place. However, having been made aware of the difficulties
faced by their children, who they came to sincerely care for, the Nakamura parents were compelled to reflect
critically on extant Japanese cultural practices and social norms that have not always been accommodating toforeigners. The Nakamura mother explained: “My [first son] complained that Japanese people were too insincere
to him and didn’t understand his perspective. At first I didn’t believe him but when [our second host son] said very
similar things, we began to take them more seriously. We talked with both of them about these issues and it was
shocking to hear that they were treated so badly.” The father also noted: “I don’t think we would have believed
them if we weren’t so close to them. But because we think of them our own children, we [had] to take them seriously.”
Being made aware of the difficulties their host children experienced compelled the Nakamuras to criticallyreflect upon who they are and what type of society they actually live in. They took their children’s claims with great
concern and reflected on the practices that brought their children such stress. This challenged their own perceptionsof Japan and led them to reconsider their own cultural identity. The mother stated: “Hearing [our son’s] struggles
living in Japan really opened my eyes and made me sympathize with his difficulties. We promised to always offer
him help when he needed it and he really became like a son to us.” The parents recognized that although Japan was
not a place particularly accommodating to outsiders, they nonetheless believed that their children would be able toabate any difficulties living in Japan because they were so linguistically functional and culturally accepting.
However, when this proved not to be the case, the Nakamuras reconsidered their understandings of Japanese society
and through critical reflection about the difficulties their children and other foreign residents encountered,
reconstructed how they envisaged Japanese society, as well as the foreigners who exist within it. The Nakamura
mother explained: “For us, it was difficult to learn that your society is causing so much pain for people that you
care about. We cannot change this, but we can change ourselves and offer our help to those who need it. Meeting
my [host] children was a very important experience that made me think more seriously about who I was as a person.”
Although it can be said that the Nakamuras possessed an orientation towards foreign Otherness at the outset,
they nevertheless arrived at revelations about themselves, Japan, and the experiences of foreigners through theirrelations with their host children. From their intercultural interactions, they were compelled to reflect upon theirown identities and the experiences of cultural Others living and operating in their native culture. These intercultural
encounters and the critical reflections that accompanied them thus induced further identity changes regarding theways that Japanese actors conceptualized themselves in relation to foreigners (i.e. changes to their orientation
towards cultural Otherness within Japan). The Nakamuras ultimately emerged from these encounters with a greater
sensitivity to and understanding of what the experiences of foreigners in Japan entailed. With regards to the
problems foreigners faced in Japan, the Nakamura parents realized that Japan was not how they had formerly
envisioned it, which led them to reconsider their former constructions of Japan, as well as what Japan is presently
comprised of.
(3) Suichiro
Intercultural encounters between Japanese and people of non-Japanese backgrounds are not only occurringin Japan but also abroad. As Japanese tourists, students, and professionals continue to move across national borders
for various reasons, the number of channels through which Japanese and foreigners come into contact with one
another further expand and diversify. One such example of how travel experiences and subsequent interculturalinteractions within Japan can lead to changes in the way people conceptualize themselves and their identities canbe seen in the case of Suichiro, a young Japanese man who spent time abroad. While he reported that his experienceabroad was transformative in itself, he also professed that he continued to experience self-identity changes after214

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returning to Japan. Upon closer analysis, these changes emerged due to a critical and comparative reflection of his
experiences abroad and his experiences engaging in intercultural encounters within Japan. Specifically, Suichirocame to realize that Japan is a more intercultural space than he had formerly acknowledged and that some of his
experiences abroad were shared by foreigners living in Japan. This subsequently compelled him to reconfigure his
own perceptions of himself and his home country with greater consideration for the experiences of foreigners.
Suichiro is a Japanese graduate student who recently completed a post-graduate study program in the UnitedStates. He spent about eighteen months abroad and I met him six months after he returned to Japan. Studying in the
United States was Suichiro's first experience living in a foreign country and he confessed that he didn’t know what
to expect before embarking on his trip. He was forced to put his English language and intercultural communication
skills to the test during his study program and at first he experienced many of difficulties. His lack of priorcommunication experience in English especially proved to be a burden that emotionally distressed him. He eventhought at one point to abandon his studies and return to Japan. However, despite such struggles, he persevered andmade efforts to work past the language, communication, and cultural barriers he faced.
As Suichiro’s study abroad continued, he began to see his growing possession of intercultural capital as
something positive and something that set him apart from other people. He started to understand himself as a more
multicultural individual and realized that this experience might prove especially vital for him when he returns toJapan. He elaborated: “In America, I gained some skills and confidence that I think can help me to grow as a person.
I realized that I can understand problems from both Japanese and American perspectives. By the time I left, I feltthat I had become much comfortable in America and felt like I was leaving a place that way my home. It was verysad.” At the conclusion of his study program, Suichiro had constructed an image of himself vis-à-vis Japanese wholacked such international and intercultural experience, which ultimately led him to think of himself as a moreinterculturally oriented person: “Going to study in the U.S. is something that not many other Japanese can do. I
think they really lack the ability to understand foreign culture, but I now I can. I think this is something that is
important that [distinguishes me] as a more unique Japanese [person].” Thus, his study abroad experience affected
how he thought of himself in relation to both Japanese and non-Japanese persons.
After he returned to Japan, Suichiro made efforts to preserve his language skills by befriending foreigners
living in Japan. After successfully doing so, he realized that much of what foreigners told him was similar to his
own experiences abroad. He explained: “Foreigners I meet in Japan have had a lot of similar experiences. They
struggle with language, culture, and communication problems and say that they have a hard time finding people tohelp them. One foreigner told me that he was sick but couldn’t visit the doctor because he wasn’t confident in his[Japanese] communication skills. This was the exact same experience that I had my first month in America! I
remember very clearly how I was sick and looking on the internet for [remedies] I could make at home to cure mysickness because I didn’t want to visit the doctor and have to communicate.” Suichiro also cited numerous othersimilarities between himself and foreigners he met in Japan and explained that he was surprised such problems
occurred in his home country: “It seems stupid but I really didn’t think foreigners experienced these things in Japan.
I know foreigners live and work here, but since I really only had limited experiences with them, I never knew what
they were experiencing. Only after I heard what difficulties they faced after experiencing such things myself was I
able to relate to their experiences.”
Through establishing relations with foreigners in Japan and critically comparing his own experiences abroadto theirs, Suichiro reformulated his sense of self-identity and his perceived role of foreigners in Japan. Specifically,
foreigners became more relatable to him and the parallels he drew between his experiences in America and theirs
in Japan allowed him to perceive them as conceptually closer via their shared experiences. He explained: “Theshared experiences that we had seems like more than just a coincidence. I think these are difficulties that all people
moving abroad have to face at some point and because of that I think we need to help each other and really think215

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Volume 9 ONLINE / March 2017about what we can do to improve the experiences of others in our home country. I was lucky that America had many
foreign people there. Many were willing to help me and most Americans were usually patient with me. According
to my foreign friends, that is not always true in Japan. Since Japan is mostly all Japanese, there must be someinstances where they have had very hard times just like me.” Here, Suichiro implies that efforts need to be made to
improve the quality of intercultural communicative experiences within Japan and that he now possesses better
capabilities that may allow him personally to do so. Such revelations were only possible after critical andcomparative reflection induced by both Suichiro’s experiences abroad, as well as his experiences interacting withforeigners from different countries within the context of Japanese society.
By shifting the locus of his intercultural encounters from abroad to home, Shuichiro reconceptualized his own
identity and his experiences as they related to those of foreigners residing in Japan. He also acknowledged that his
experiences abroad greatly shaped the way he thought of himself in relation to other Japanese, which substantiates
the literature above that discusses the transformative capacity of intercultural encounters and positive experiences
growing out of environmental stress. Once the location of intercultural encounters changed from outside Japan towithin Japan, Suichiro further experienced identity and perceptual changes due to the content of his intercultural
encounters. Upon discovering that he shared many of the same experiences abroad as foreigners had in Japan, he
was compelled to reconsider the ways foreigners were perceived and positioned within Japanese society and in
relation to himself.
(4) Foreigners
While Japanese informants have been crucial for underscoring the conceptual changes that can emerge fromintercultural encounters, foreigners are also acknowledging the multifaceted ways that their presence andparticipation in Japanese society work to reconfigure interpersonal relationships and intercultural understandings.
As Japan’s diversification continues, such channels of Japanese-foreigner interaction will only further diversify
accordingly. It therefore appears inevitable that the geographic distribution of foreigners, their professions andworkplaces, and the forms of sociality they engage in will likewise become further variegated. It is then noteworthy
to mention a few foreign voices who see themselves as participating in this changing of interpersonal relations
between foreigners and Japanese.
First, it is important to recall the work of Leiba Faier, who has identified the changing nature of interpersonal
relationships between rural Japanese residents and Filipina wives who move into rural localities. Due to an outward
migration of young women into urban areas, many Japanese rural localities are left with an inadequate number ofyounger females and, as a result, rural areas have experienced an influx of migration from foreign women.36 In her
detailed ethnography, Faier demonstrates how, through localized intercultural encounters between Japanese andFilipina wives, these actors “create new meanings of Japanese and Filipino culture and identity through their shared
daily lives.”37 She focuses explicitly on the forms of sociality that emerge from the intercultural encounters between
these parties and shows that they provide a fertile ground upon which new meanings are formulated. One outcomeof this process is that Filipinas negotiate their identities and social positionality as embedded in a larger web ofidentity politics but also in a position that is locally grounded to the particular geographical and cultural context.38
Although Faier argues that these identities remain shaped by unequal power dynamics, the ultimate product is amore culturally amalgamated sense of belonging exhibited by both Filipina and Japanese actors. Her ethnography
makes an important contribution to understanding the ways local intercultural interactions are leading to the36

Lieba Faier, Intimate Encounters, p. 15.
Lieba Faier, Intimate Encounters, p. 1.
38 Lieba Faier, Intimate Encounters, Chapter 1.
37

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emergence of novel forms of identity and interpersonal understanding within Japan, which also alter the conceptualand material positionality of foreigners within Japanese society.
Second, there is the voice of a foreign teacher in Japan, Kennedy, who is worthy of mention. Kennedy is fromeast Africa and has been teaching in Japan for several years while his wife, also east African, attends a local
university. Kennedy is not the only non-western teacher in Japan nor the only African teacher. However, Kennedy
is the one who I have become closest with and who has provided the most revealing data. His accounts provide awindow into understanding the ways that foreign teachers’ interactions with their students are changing
interpersonal dynamics in multifaceted ways.
Kennedy explains:“Coming into my classes, new students don’t know much about me. Sometimes they are
curious or maybe confused. I tell them ‘Don’t be shy! We will have fun in here!’ Then they
start to laugh and be happy or warm up to my teaching. It is in my classes that students canexperience and learn about Africa. But they are also teaching me things. I learn so muchabout Japan and Japanese culture from my students, especially the older ones. I don’t think
I can ever fully be a part of Japan because I am not Japanese, but teaching my students helps
me to understand Japan and myself a lot better. I like to see the commonalities I share withmy students and then compare how we are different. I think this is the best way for us togrow as people.”
In effect, Kennedy believes that his experiences teaching his students and learning the norms of Japanese culture
have affected him in many ways. Other foreign teachers of non-western backgrounds have noted similar things oftheir teaching experiences as well. The diversification of foreign teachers in Japan is a little known but importantcomponent of the mechanisms that lead to changes in the ways that interpersonal relations are conceptualized. By
exposing Japanese students to teachers from a wider range of backgrounds, there is a greater likelihood that students
will depart from their study experiences with a greater understanding of their teachers’ native culture. For example,
one Nigerian teacher explained that in his English classes, he would often incorporate pictures and information
about his home country that were unexamined in his students’ textbooks, which he believes modified and enhanced
his pupils’ understanding of Nigeria. Such occurrences are becoming increasingly common as more and more
foreign teachers from diverse backgrounds engage their Japanese students.
One final foreign voice worthy of mention is that of an east African student named Jonathan who iscompleting his doctorate in Japan. He has studied Japanese for many years and has passed the highest level of theJapanese Language Proficiency Test. When speaking with him about his experiences, he explained:“Living in Japan has made the country a part of me. I have language skills and I am able tocommunicate without problems unlike other people. One thing that I believe I do differently
from other foreigners is that I try to adapt to Japanese culture all the time, not just when it isconvenient for me. Many foreigners take this kind of chūto hanpa [half-measures] way ofadapting to Japan and they usually get frustrated with it. Well, it is because you are not fullycommitted and you don’t realize the ways that you have to adapt yourself! You have to beready for the adaptation and the following change.”
Jonathan additionally noted: “Of course I have changed. There is no way that I can look at my home country thesame way. I love [where I am from] but living in Japan I see the world differently. I sometimes feel out of place217

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Volume 9 ONLINE / March 2017back home even though it is where I am from.” Still further, he too mentioned indirectly the role that reflection
played in his development of an intercultural identity: “Dealing with people from other cultures is challenging. I
think most of us would avoid it if we can. But sometimes we can’t and we can’t expect the places we move to willchange for us. We need to make the effort too. We can’t sit back and let them do all the effort. It is when we reallythink about ourselves and our relationship to the place we live can we realize what we need to do to survive.” Thisis especially interesting in that it embodies many of the changes that Japanese experienced through their encounterswith foreigners except from the opposite perspective. Jonathan is not alone in his feelings; many other foreigners
have professed to me similar sentiments. The pervasiveness of such sentiments implies that there exists a dialectic
process by which intercultural encounters engender identity transformations and lead individual actors toreconstruct their relationship to others.
The disparate examples above demonstrate that as Japanese and foreigners engage with one another on aregularized basis, individuals may be compelled to reconstruct notions of themselves, cultural Others, and thesociety of which they are all apart. As more Japanese participate in interactions with foreigners from increasingly
diverse backgrounds, these situations can be expected to likewise further diversify and intensify in the near future.
These experiences and intercultural encounters have often developed in highly specified contexts that areidiosyncratic to the particular actors involved. Despite this high degree of particularity, however, the end results
have been similar in that many Japanese have developed from these encounters a more dynamic understanding ofJapan’s foreign populations and vice-versa.
(5) Communicative Failures
Before moving on to discuss the implications of these intercultural interactions and critical reflections, it isfirst useful to recognize that such encounters do not represent the entirety of relationships that have developed
between foreigners and Japanese. Throughout data collection there were also several examples in which interculturalinteractions did not lead to more positive perceptions of cultural Others and greater intercultural competence but
instead worked to establish and reinforce negative sentiments towards the other party. Although such individuals
comprised a minority of all the data collected, it would be negligent to entirely overlook such voices.
From the Japanese perspective, some complained that their engagements with foreigners have led to more
hostile sentiments towards diversity. For instance, one Japanese airport worker said that her experiences with
Chinese co-workers and travelers have led her to develop a discernably negative attitude towards Chinese andforeigners more broadly. She arrived at the conclusion that it was difficult for Chinese to integrate well because
they have such different attitudes and behaviors. In similar fashion, a number of scholarly works on Latin American
populations in Japan have shown that various levels of interactions with Latin Americans have led some Japanese
to develop more negative attitudes of them for reasons that they attribute to irreconcilable cultural differences.39
Although intercultural encounters carry transformative capacities, the fact that they are merely occurring is notenough for them to engender positive cross-cultural relations.
There have also been many foreigners who have likewise been disappointed by their experiences in Japanand have accordingly developed negative sentiments. One Ethiopian student who studied in Europe before coming
to Japan suggested that the pragmatic difficulties of living in Japan were just too much for an outsider handle. He
believed that Japanese are not willing to help foreigners to any considerable extent, which makes regular activities
such as visiting doctors or banks a major burden for those short on linguistic and cultural fluency. Another westernteacher explained that although she was fluent in Japanese, she never felt accepted and believed that she was treated39

See Joshua H. Roth, Brokered Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Migrants in Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002);
Takeyuki G. Tsuda, Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Return Migration in Transnational Perspective (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2003).

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differently from her colleagues in both positive and negative ways. Because she was an outsider and new to thework culture, she stated that she was not treated as a full member of her school but rather, as she describes it, a“disposable person” who lacked the collegial embracement her co-workers enjoyed amongst themselves. Thus,
foreigners too do not always develop positive attitudes from their intercultural encounters and it is important torecognize that intercultural interactions can, for many different reasons, unfortunately lead to more hostile attitudes
rather than more accepting ones.
Other examples abound with similar relational failures. With the exception of a few sources,40 most scholarly
analyses have highlighted the problematic nature of intercultural encounters and there is no dearth in literature onthese issues. Scholars have discussed in great detail the problematic relations that exist between Japanese andminorities in general,41 as well as between Japanese and specific groups of minorities, such as long-term resident
Koreans, 42 Latin Americans and Japanese-descent persons from Latin America, 43 African-Americans, 44 andothers.45 Such a wealth of literature establishes that sociocultural and communicative problems between foreigners
and Japanese do exist. However, rather than once again revisit these problematic encounters, or depict an idealistic
forecast for future relations, this paper describes how there are also emerging alternatives to Japanese-foreigner
encounters that are quite different from those which have been heretofore discussed. The aforementioned positive
intercultural and reflexive experiences are intended to provide an alternative to these negative interactions, whichhave taken up so much space in the existing literature. In short, one should not overlook or downplay thesecommunicative failures but they should also observe that there are feasible alternatives to them that are in manycases unfolding on the ground.
3. Discussion
Through examining the evolving nature of Japanese-foreign relations, we can ascertain several important
conclusions and implications moving forward. As Japan continues to diversify, the frequency of such encounters
can only be expected to intensify and compel further changes to the way these groups are positioned in relation toeach other and wider society. These findings also have pragmatic implications for understanding interpersonal
relations and the positionality of foreigners in Japan, as well as theoretical implications concerning thetransformative capacities of these particular transpirations.
First, and most relevant to this paper, is the important role that critical reflection plays in allowing theseintercultural communicative patterns and identity revelations to manifest. It is not merely the platform ofinterpersonal communication that engenders changes in the positive but rather these changes also seem to require
some degree of critical reflection or comparisons. In the above vignettes, critical thinking about one’s
dominant/native cultural tendencies compelled individual actors to reconstruct their understandings of Self andOther, as well as conceptually reconfigure how they are positioned in relation to the other group.

Lieba Faier, Intimate Encounters; Hui, “From Ethnic Ghetto to ‘Gourmet Republic.’”
David Blake Willis and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, “Transcultural Japan: Metamorphosis in the Cultural Borderlands andBeyond.”42
John Lie, Multiethnic Japan; Sonia Ryang, Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin (London: Routledge, 2000).
43 Roth, Brokered Homeland; Takeyuki G. Tsuda, Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland. Ayumi Takenaka, “Paradoxes of EthnicityBased Immigration: Peruvian and Japanese-Peruvian Migrants in Japan,” in Roger Gooman ed., Global Japan: The Experience ofJapan's New Immigrant and Overseas Communities (London: Routeldge, 2005), pp. 222-237.
44 John Russell, “Consuming Passions: Spectacle, Self-Transformation, and the Commodification of Blackness in Japan,” positions
6, no. 1 (1998): 113-177; John Russell, “Race as Ricorso: Blackface(s), Racial Representation, and the Transnational Apologetics ofHistorical Amnesia in the United States and Japan,” in Yasuki Takezawa ed., Racial Representations in Asia (Melbourne:
TransPacific Press, 2011), pp. 124-147.
45 See David Blake Willis and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu eds., Transcultural Japan: At the Borderlands of Race, Gender, andIdentity and Roger Goodman ed., Global Japan: The Experience of Japan's New Immigrant and Overseas Communities for morecomprehensive examples.
40
41

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In the above examples, critical reflection occurred in diverse ways but often produced similar results: abroader understanding of Self and Other that in subjective ways transcended the personal milieu of contemporary
Japan. These reflections were idiosyncratically and uniquely experienced by each of the informants respectively.
The material outcomes of these experiences proceeded similarly. Via their interactive experiences, Koji and the
Nakamuras were exposed to facts that compelled them to reconsider their preconceived views and in turnempathized with the feelings and difficulties foreigners were forced to confront in Japan. Suichiro also arrived at
his transformations via contrasting his personal experiences with those of foreigners in Japan. In each of these cases,
informants came to perceive foreigners differently – more positively – as a result of these events. In other words,
by establishing relations with foreigners and considering what their experiences in Japan entailed compelled theseinformants to make conceptual alterations that affected their views of the experiences of Japan’s foreigners.
It can also be suggested that this critical reflection occurred in the examples that engendered negative
outcomes as well. The failures at communicating interculturally and the lack of perceptual changes seem to havealso involved varying degrees of reflection, which ultimately resulted in the differing ways informants holding suchideas established and maintained them. For example, the Ethiopian student critically compared Japan to his
experiences in Europe and arrived at the conclusion that there must be greener pastures elsewhere. While he did not
mention specifically what this comparison entailed, it is obvious that comparing the difficulties experienced in both
locations led him to arrive at these conclusions. Therefore, one must realize that not all critical reflections will arrive
at more positive understandings of Self and Other, and on the contrary may in fact work to reinforce negative imagesof cultural Others
These outcomes beg the question of what exactly the process of this critical reflection entails. How did
informants critically reflect to arrive at their particular positions? When did these reflections occur? Because thesereflections were recognized post-hoc, the author was unable to inquire into the mechanisms of informants’reflections specifically. However, reflection can be defined as a highly personalized process that can occur
consciously or subconsciously at any stage during intercultural interaction. It was also uniquely experienced in eachof the cases above. For example, Koji’s reflection came through the realization that Nigerians and other Africans
were not in fact troublemakers or people dangerous to Japanese society. His everyday experiences challenged andultimately repudiated any negative stories he may have heard prior to actually engaging in intercultural interaction.
Although Koji did not specify that he consciously contemplated mentally the ramifications of his work experienceswith Africans, it is hard to deny that his firsthand interactions destabilized any ideas he may have had before hestarted working for Nigerian bosses.
For the Nakamuras, reflection came through the relationship they established with their host children. By
hearing the difficulties their children faced in Japan, the parents were compelled to reconsider their ideas andreformulate how they perceived foreign experiences in Japan with a greater sensitivity to what foreigners actuallyexperienced. The Nakamuras suggested they probably would not have believed what their children had told them if
the information had come from a different source. They thus felt genuinely compelled to reconsider theirpreconceptions because these issues were raised by people that they cared about. Suichiro, after realizing that heshared many experiences with those of foreigners in Japan, similarly reconstructed his notions of Self and Other ina way that likewise bridged the gap between himself and cultural Others. These examples exemplify how criticalreflections upon extant identity constructions and cultural practices can be understood as an important componentof intercultural processes and induced through direct relationships with cultural Others.
On the other hand, for the Ethiopian student, a comparison of life in Europe to life in Japan led him to reflect
critically upon his experiences. A similar process of engaging cultural Others had occurred but a critical comparison
led him to perceive these experiences negatively. While the data presented here is limited, it can nonetheless besuggested that intercultural encounters engendered critical reflective processes, which occurred in diverse fashions.
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Such evidence portrays the multifaceted ways that reflections may unfold in practice; they may be compelled byeveryday encounters; they may occur through establishing intimate relations with people from different cultural
backgrounds; they may occur through genuine comparisons between personal experiences; or they may in fact becompelled by some other, highly personalized, interactive processes. However they occur, the end results haveramifications for interpersonal relations that transcend the nature of the particular interactions themselves.
Such diversity in experiences suggest that no two reflective experiences may be alike and that there may be
a multitude of ways through which individuals arrive at and maintain their critically reflected standpoints. It also
demonstrates that these processes may occur consciously or subconsciously and engaging with cultural Others
serves as their impetus. While individuals may not realize that they have undergone this reflection, the material
outcomes are difficult to ignore. Recognizing the impact that critical reflection can have on interpersonal andintercultural relations is important for understanding how cross-cultural dynamics develop not only in contemporary
Japan but also in diverse environments across the world.
Secondly, these vignettes demonstrate the transformative capacity of intercultural communication andcorresponding reflection. As the context of interpersonal encounters takes on a discernably different dynamic when
it involves actors from different cultural backgrounds, it is important to see that the participants involved in the
aforementioned interactions epitomize the capacity for constructive changes to emerge out of them. As Kim has
noted, “the process of crossing cultures challenges the very basis of who we are as cultural beings. It offers
opportunities for new learning and growth. Being ‘uprooted’ from our home brings us understandings not only of
the people and their culture in our new environment, but of ourselves and our home culture.”46 The changes that
the Japanese and foreign participants indicated above show lucidly the ways that interpersonal interculturalinteractions are capable of transforming the parties involved. Recognizing this helps contextualize the macro-levelsocial processes that compel such changes to occur.
Relatedly, it is important to acknowledge the role that language learning and communicating in a second
language plays in this process. Although not the primary focal point of this paper, if the Japanese and foreign actors
mentioned above did not share some common capacity for communication, it is highly unlikely these perceptualchanges would have unfolded in the particular ways they did. This suggests that future studies investigating thetransformative capacity of intercultural communication should examine more meticulously the language acquisition
process, as well as how it shapes the ways that different actors utilize language to position themselves in relation to
one another.
Third, this data also underscores the materiality of intercultural interactions and critical reflections. Thesecritical and comparative perspectives allowed individuals to reconstruct images of themselves, cultural Others, andthe societies in which they live in more dynamic and comprehensive ways that are more capable of grasping therealities they contain. Emerging from these encounters were reformulated understandings of Self and Other, whichplay out in different ways among the disparate actors involved. Although qualitative data is naturally anecdotal innature, the professed attitudinal changes expressed by the informants above emphasize how greater interculturalcompetence and bicultural characteristics can emerge through cross-cultural communicative encounters. Both
Byram and Paulston have suggested that “bicultural” individuals are capable of critically reflecting on theircommunicative experiences in ways that lead to more dynamic and accepting cultural understandings. While itwould perhaps be a stretch to identify the Japanese informants above as truly bicultural persons, their reflexivity
and growth in personal and cultural dimensions demonstrate that the roots of bicultural personalities are to someextent coming into being.
Through establishing intercultural relationships, the informants above acquired at the least a heightened
sensitivity towards cultural Others and at most a closer orientation and acceptance of them. For the Japanese actors,
46

Kim, Becoming Intercultural, pp. 9.

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interacting and establishing relationships with foreigners changed the way they perceived foreigners within Japan,
as well as the nature of foreign Otherness more broadly. Koji, for instance, recognized that African Otherness was
not one homogenous entity but instead was comprised of diverse ethnic, national, linguistic, and religious groups,
who often did not fit into stereotypical images and media portrayals. The Nakamuras and Suichiro realized that
foreigners in Japan experienced considerable difficulties, which they heretofore had not acknowledged despite theirprevious experiences with and orientations towards foreign Otherness. Similar sentiments can also be seen byforeigners. As Jonathan explained, he believes he has become more oriented towards Japan – if not, more culturally
Japanese – from his experiences and has come to appreciate the positive aspects of life in Japan to a much greater
extent. His reference to reverse culture shock when returning home resonates profoundly through many foreign
voices in Japan and is thus not an anomaly. This suggests that through their experiences, Japanese and foreign actors
deconstruct their former self-perceptions and can potentially recast themselves a new with more consideration of
their intercultural experiences in Japan.
4. Conclusion
This paper highlights patterns and anomalies of intercultural communication between Japanese and foreigners
in Japan. The informants discussed in this paper experienced growth and/or perceptual changes as a result of theirintercultural experiences. They did so in ways that allowed for more dynamic and versatile understandings ofpersonhood and interpersonal relations to emerge. However, these individuals arrived at their intercultural growththrough their varied and unique experiences. Although discernable patterns were ascertained, the discussion showsthat to truly grasp how identities and perceptions develop through intercultural communication and critical reflection
require careful attention to the particularities of the actors involved. Nonetheless, particular exceptions
notwithstanding, more positive intercultural encounters, such as the ones described in the previous section, can playa crucial role in reshaping Japanese-foreign relations.
Engaging in direct and “prolonged” contact with people from different cultural backgrounds compelled
Japanese and foreign residents to effectively reformulate how they conceptualized themselves and the other party,
as well as towards the society in which they live. For many, both parties emerged from their experiences with amore positive understanding of cultural Otherness and recast their own senses of Self in more inclusive ways witha greater openness towards the other. This was achieved through the use of a common medium (language) ofcommunication and critical reflection that was induced by intercultural encounters. Without having partaken in suchencounters, these actors would likely not have been capable of reforming their understandings of the other party inthe particular ways that they did. As Japan continues to change demographically, and the paths through which
Japanese and foreigners cross become more diverse and pervasive, it will serve well to examine how intercultural
encounters, critical reflections, and reconstructed identities factor into the ongoing sociocultural realities of twentyfirst century Japan.

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