This thesis has been approved by

The Honors Tutorial College and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology

______Dr. Haley Duschinski Professor, Anthropology Thesis Advisor

______Dr. Gene Ammarell DOS, Honors Tutorial College Anthropology

______Jeremy Webster Dean, Honors Tutorial College

“OUTSIDE PEOPLE”: TREATMENT, LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, IDENTITY, AND

THE FOREIGN STUDENT EXPERIENCE IN JAPAN

A Thesis

Presented to

The Honors Tutorial College

Ohio University

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for Graduation

from the Honors Tutorial College

with the degree of

Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology

by

Camille Scott

April 2014

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Honors Tutorial College Dean’s Research and Travel

Fund and the Provost Undergraduate Research Fund for providing me the opportunity to fulfill my life-long dream of studying in Japan. Many thanks to my thesis advisor Dr. Haley Duschinski for supporting me through all phases of this project, both rough and smooth, and for offering the best council and critiques when I needed them most. My sincerest gratitude to Dr. Gene Ammarell for advising and support, Dr. Chris Thompson for inspiration, Dr. Charlie Morgan for resources, and all of the wonderful people in the Honor Tutorial College Office for their unwavering support, wise council, and sympathetic ears. I also want to thank my boyfriend Archie Potter for providing the very best emotional support and motivation, even though he was working on his own thesis. Without all of these people, none of the following pages would have been possible.

Abstract

In recent years, an increasing number of foreign students have been engaging in language and cultural immersion programs in Japan, raising issues of cross- cultural contact and exchange. Japan's enduring cultural nationalism produces an ethnocentric valuation of homogeneity, thereby affecting the ways in which

Japanese natives engage with and respond to these students. This paper draws on two months of ethnographic research at two Japanese universities to examine how everyday, culturally embedded nationalism affects the experience, identity, and language instruction of western nonnative learners of Japanese with regards to the institution, the instructors, and the community around them. This discourse on issues surrounding the presence of foreign youth in a nationalistic society has application for discrimination reforms on the international level.

Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction: Welcome to the Outside Go, Gaijin, Go!...... 1 Welcome to the Outside ...... 3 Project Description and Aim ...... 4 Research Questions...... 6 Research Scope ...... 7 Literature Review: Japanese Nationalism...... 8 Literature Review: Theoretical Constructs...... 12 Literature Review: Second Language Acquisition and Education ...... 16 Methodology...... 18 Notes on Location...... 20 Personal Relationship to Project...... 22 Significance...... 23 Chapter Overview...... 24

Chapter 2: Background: The History of Japanese Relations with Foreigners Introduction...... 25 Early History...... 25 Contact with the West, Mistrust, and Withdrawal ...... 27 Opening to the West...... 28 The Meiji Era and National Insecurity ...... 30 Foreigners and Today’s Japan...... 32 Conclusion...... 33

Chapter 3: The Gaijin Special: Treatment of Foreign Students Soto Ni Youkoso! Welcome to the Outside!...... 35 The Japanese-ness of it all ...... 38

An Overview: What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting It...... 39 Special Treatment: The Foreigner Privilege and Help for the Hapless Gaijin ...... 41 Exploitation: “Token” Status ...... 43 Ignoring: See No Gaijin, Hear No Gaijin...... 45 Worship: Cool Foreigner Syndrome...... 45 Harassment, Segregation, and Awkwardness: The Funny, the Bad, and the Ugly...... 46 Getting a Second Opinion: One Informant Among Many ...... 49 Focus Group, Daigaku Study Abroad: Matt in Context...... 51 Conclusion...... 55

Chapter 4: Language: Usage and Acquisition Leggo My Keigo!...... 57 Introduction...... 60 Classroom Language Usage...... 61 Language Abilities ...... 63 Language Usage with Foreigners ...... 65 Language Usage with Native Speakers ...... 66 Language Usage with Natives: English...... 68 Language Usage with Natives: Japanese...... 69 Formality in Japanese...... 71 When Addressed/Approached by Native Speakers...... 73 Native Speakers’ Responses to Foreigners Using Japanese...... 75 Language Attitudes ...... 77 Daigaku Focus Group Discussion...... 77 Conclusion...... 79

Chapter 5: Identity: Sense of Self and Defining the Foreigner Experience “That” Foreigner: The Origin of Stereotypes ...... 82

Introduction: Attitudes Towards Foreigners ...... 84 Being Foreign in Japan ...... 84 Hokudai: Group Relations and Dynamics...... 86 Meeting Other Foreigners...... 88 Sense of Belonging/Othering...... 91 Reflections on Gender ...... 92 Reflections on Foreigner Appearance and Aesthetics...... 94 Reflections on Self ...... 95 Reflections on Country and Countrymen ...... 96 Conclusion...... 97

Chapter 6: Conclusion: Implications and Applications Review ...... 99 Theoretical Constructs ...... 100 Treatment of Foreign Students...... 101 Linguistic Factors ...... 102 Finale...... 103 Implications and Applications: Moving Forward ...... 104

Appendix A: Terms and Definitions...... 105

Appendix B: Bibliography...... 107

Chapter 1 Introduction: Welcome to the Outside!

Go, Gaijin, Go!

I have never been a person who gets nervous easily. However, participating in a reading contest in front of the upper- level administrators at a

Japanese university in which I will be judged on pronunciation, accent, speed, and general fluency was an exception to that rule, an exception I realized too late to turn back.

Three days prior, we had conducted a preliminary round in our small 15- person Japanese class in the summer language program, from which our sensei, our brave Japanese instructor Ms. Ozaki, selected three people to go on compete against all the other foreign students at Hokudai. I agreed to participate, largely because I felt the need to prove Americans are not totally useless, a feeling that had been haunting me in class for a few days, thanks to the much higher Japanese levels of the passel of Chinese girls surrounding me at most times. After we all read a passage in front of the class, the sensei called the first girl’s name. It was no surprise Shizui-san was going on to the next round, but mine was the next name to be called, and I marveled mildly at this. The class clapped politely, and my two

Korean friends exclaimed in Japanese, “Good job, Camille. Good luck!” I marveled less mildly a few days later when I found myself in a large, stadium-seating classroom mostly full of students and teachers for the competition.

As I stood up from my seat when my name was called, many heads turned towards me. A quiet murmur rippled through the crowd as the audience realized

1 the American girl was about to compete. A few days earlier, I had come to the realization that I was the only non-Asian female for miles; I was a rarity.

Suddenly, people began clapping and were still clapping when I reached the podium. The clapping was excessive and clearly louder and more enthusiastic than the polite, sporadic pattering of clapping hands before my perhaps 15

Chinese and two Korean competitors read.

I looked out at what I estimate to be more than 150 Japanese and Chinese faces in addition to those of my few Korean and Thai classmates and my two

American friends. It was a sea of clapping hands. I giggled nervously and looked down at my paper. The thunderous applause continued, and I became almost indignant. I had not even read anything. They had no idea how good I was, nor did I suspect it mattered, I thought bitterly. My only choice was to laugh awkwardly, covering my laughter with my hand as is culturally appropriate, and wait.

When the applause died down, I began to read the anecdote about men arguing over who heard the first birdsong of spring. My accent and pronunciation is good for an American, according to my Japanese friends, but I had a few incorrect intonations as I went along. I finished and bowed to the audience. As I stepped down off the platform to return to my seat, the sound of applause was obviously and embarrassingly louder than the applause for anyone else that went before or after me. For a fleeting moment, I feel deeply embarrassed solely because of my ethnicity.

2 There was a short break while the judges debated our performances.

When they returned, one of the judges gave a brief inspirational speech about how well we all did and how they could not tell whether we were Japanese or not.

I enjoyed the irony in this, considering the spectacle that I seemed to be. There were also words of encouragement, reminders that we could always be better, that we should always strive to be better. When they announced winners, they announced second place, then first and then third. When my name was called first, I had still not sorted out what happened. It then seemed to occur to the people around me that I had gotten second place. The applause erupted again, and I was made to return to the stage to bow, pose for photos, and receive my certificate and award money of 3000 yen, or 30 dollars. While I was pleased to have been awarded second, the way I had been treated so far at the university and the way everyone had clapped so much more for me before I had even opened my mouth made me question the award I held in my hands. Had I really been better than the others or had they been trying to appease me and make the

American feel good about herself? I remain unsure.

Welcome to the Outside

This wildly uncomfortable and somewhat unsettling experience was not uncommon for me when I spent six weeks traveling, researching, studying

Japanese, and conducting interviews in Japan this summer. Japan is a largely ethnically homogenous country, meaning that foreigners stand out, for better or for worse. The Japanese word for “foreigner” itself gives some insight into the

3 cultural idea of foreign people in Japan. When broken down, gaikokujin means

“outside country person,” or foreigner. However, this is very frequently shortened to gaijin, or “outside person.” An “outside person” in Japan tends to be exactly that.

This status as “outsider” or “other” has a distinct effect on the experiences of foreigners in Japan because almost every interaction with native Japanese people is colored by the cultural views of foreigners in this light. Awkward gaijin encounters are exchanged frequently between foreigners in Japan; they are a classic element of the Japan experience, as exhibited by their trope-like fame even to those that have not traveled there.

Project Description and Aim

The Japanese nation has always had a complicated relationship with foreigners. It closed its borders to foreign visitors and trade in the early 17th century and did not re-open its borders to foreign dignitaries and western trade until the 1850s. There is a strong history of cultural nationalism in Japan and a concurrent value placed on homogeneity. Consequently, foreign and minority populations have been historically marginalized. However, with ever-growing internationalization of trade and education, there are an increasing number of non-Japanese students traveling to Japan to study the Japanese language.

In the summer of 2013, I carried out ethnographic research in Japan focusing on the extent to which the cultural nationalism in Japan affects the experience, identity, and language instruction of western nonnative learners of

4 Japanese with regards to the institution, the instructors, and the community around them. My own personal experiences with Japanese instructors and native speakers and their varying degrees of support for foreigners learning their language inspired me to focus the scope of this project on cultural nationalism, foreigner and minority relations, educational practices, sociolinguistics of education, and cultural communication. The following chapters are an ethnographic account of members of the next generation of labor in Japan amid low birthrates and an aging population: western foreign university students. This project focuses on the experience of western foreign students studying Japanese at Daigaku and Hokudai Universities in Japan. All are nonnative learners of

Japanese who are in an immersion setting for the purpose of improving their

Japanese. Using theoretical frameworks central to linguistic and cultural anthropology, I address issues surrounding the presence of foreign youth in a society that values homogeneity.

In order to gain better insight into how nationalism is demonstrated to foreign students, I observed interactions both inside and outside of the classroom between foreign students and Japanese natives to listen for certain linguistic cues and actions that indicate passive or active discrimination regarding foreigners, directed at myself or others. I interviewed select foreign students, as well as the native Japanese with whom they interacted daily, to gain further insight into the students’ feelings regarding their experiences and the biases held by their

Japanese interlocutors.

5 In so doing, I observed how western foreign students were treated differently from native students, how the attitudes of the native Japanese influenced the experiences of these foreign students, and how these attitudes and students’ perceptions of these attitudes influenced their sense of self and group identity, their perspectives on the Japanese language and culture, and their language learning attitudes. Since the treatment of American, Australian, and

European students differs greatly from that of Chinese, Korean, and other Asian students, I use the phrase “western foreign students” to define the particular group I am studying. Because of the very different perspectives on Asian foreigners, Japan’s tumultuous past with neighboring Asian countries, and ongoing issues of immigration, Asian students in Japan have completely different experiences. In this paper, I focus on the othering of western students by native

Japanese people, the language usage and acquisition of these students, and resulting identity issues, with a focus on outside classroom experience at the university, international and language programs.

Research Questions

In order to address the aforementioned topics, I examine the following questions:

• How do cultural and linguistic manifestations of nationalism affect

interactions between Japanese natives and western foreign students?

6 • How does this affect western foreign students? How do they feel

othered, and how does their status as “other” affect their language

acquisition and usage?

• How do these manifestations of nationalism and resulting effects on

language influence their identity, behavior, and social activity?

By answering these questions, I hope to shed light on some larger issues, such as how cultural bias can affect the foreign student experience on an international level with regards to language immersion programs.

Research Scope

In this project, I begin to address the gap in the research regarding foreign student populations studying the Japanese language in Japan. While there are a handful of studies on immigrant children education in Japan, very little literature considers foreign university students and the issues surrounding the presence of study abroad students in the idealized homogeneity of Japan. This study addresses components of many other existing pieces of research regarding foreigners in Japan, including minority education in Japan, Japanese cultural nationalism, second language acquisition (SLA) immersion research and theory, and classroom studies of SLA Japanese learners. There is largely consensus regarding the nature and manifestation of cultural nationalism in Japan and how that affects the foreign population in Japan, which is demonstrated in the following sections. This project falls at an intersection of the following studies and theories and incorporates these cultural and theoretical elements into a

7 larger narrative about cultural nationalism in Japan and the foreign students there to study Japanese.

Literature Review: Japanese Nationalism

The relationship between the Japanese state and its nonnative residents is a complex one. The concept of nihonjinron is the assumption of Japan as a

“culturally and socially homogenous racial entity” that is unique and possibly hostile to all others from both native and foreign perspectives (Ishido and Myers

1995). Because of concepts like nihonjinron in the “dominant identity discourse” of Japan, counter to which the West is placed as the principal Other, the country has been accused of “racism, ethnocentrism, and parochialism” (Befu 2001). The basic operating principle of Japanese culture of uchi/soto, or “inside/outside” is an analogous, deeply rooted cultural idea (Thompson 2012). Japanese society is characterized by division of uchi and soto on many levels, such as national, prefectural, community, company, and social group (Thompson 2012). On the broadest level of division, Japanese natives are uchi, and gaijin are soto.

While vestiges of these attitudes still exist in Japanese culture, there has been an ongoing surge of immigration to Japan since the 1980s, as well as increased tourism and study abroad programs. A stagnant economy and the pressure to remain a world power have also motivated Japan to internationalize.

With the emphasis placed on the exotic nature of foreign countries and people in conjunction with the advent of international mass media in the past two decades, the Japanese attitude towards foreigners has undergone a generational shift

8 (Takahashi 2013). The push to internationalize has caused American media to be heavily consumed in Japan, making westerners often the subject of fascination and intense interest. In the past decade especially, western foreigners have become “cool” in the eyes of the Japanese youth, despite the enduring nationalistic biases and stereotypes (Takahashi 2013).

Currently, there is a sizeable foreign population in Japan, despite the culture’s value placed on an image of ethnic homogeneity. In 2012, Japan reported a population of 98.5% Japanese nationals, regardless of ethnicity, with the remaining 1.5% comprised of non-national minority populations, largely workers and permanent residents (World Factbook 2012). The population of non-nationals has increased steadily since the government began to keep track of the foreign population in the years following World War II, but fell for the first time in 2009 and again following the 2011 tsunami (Tabuchi 2011).

According to a study by the Institute of International Education, there were 4134 American university students studying in Japan in the 2010-2011 school year and 5283 in 2011-2012, a 27.8 percent increase in just one year, making Japan the 10th most popular country for study abroad for American students (“Top 25 Destinations”). However, this is likely due to the return of foreign students to Japan following the tsunami and resulting issues at the

Fukushima nuclear plant. Despite this return to Japan, universities all over Japan are reporting an overall drop in foreign student enrollment compared to pre- tsunami numbers, a pause in the steady increase before 2011 (McNeill 2012).

9 One of the most central components of the Japanese identity is cultural uniqueness (Howell 1996). Perhaps even more important than that is the idea that Japanese culture is not only unique, but also single-faceted or homogenous.

The Japanese belief of ethnic and cultural homogeneity functions as a way to maintain balance and harmony, or wa as the Japanese call it (Thompson 2012).

This image of an entirely unique and homogenous Japan presents a unified external picture to the world, and by doing so, it is socially incumbent upon the

Japanese and all others in Japan to maintain this image as well. By socializing the idea of homogeneity, there is little true ethnic conflict in Japan, but only because ethnic differences are disregarded (Howell 1996). Even if there is an outward shift in the interpretation of “Japanese-ness” or an intentional reconstruction of the Japanese identity to external eyes, this idea of homogeneity is maintained

(Howell 1996). For example, the Japanese state has expanded its definition of

“Japanese” to include groups “who have always been Japanese,” such as the indigenous Ainu population of the northern islands and the Korean population who immigrated to Japan in the early 1900s to escape harsh Japanese colonial rule (Howell 1996). Since Korea was at that time part of Japan, this specific group of Koreans and their descendents who remained in Japan are considered

“Japanese” (Howell 1996).

Equally informative regarding the cultural construct of nationalism is

Clifford Geertz’s critiques of primordial ethnicity and nationalism, as his work on emic views of primordial attachments to culture, nation, and ethnic group speaks

10 to many features of Japanese ethnic nationalism. He theorizes that these attachments are understood as “givens” of social existence due to immediate proximity and convenience, largely featuring assumed blood ties, race, language, religion, region, and customs in common (Geertz 1973). These attachments born of convenience become part of a “consciousness of kind” that creates a value on those of one’s “kind” and a general resistance to integration (Geertz 1973).

Because of the accentuated value placed on the uniqueness of Japanese culture and primordial ties, anyone of Japanese descent, even Japanese-

Americans or Japanese South Americans who grew up without the Japanese culture or language, are considered inherently more Japanese and more likely to be successful with Japanese language and culture simply because of their

Japanese blood (Castro-Vasquez 2011). One social effect of this is that non-

Japanese in Japan are either forced to assimilate or be discriminated against, and even total assimilation is rarely attainable for minorities (Howell 1996). In that same vein, nonviolent yet institutionalized ethnic discrimination is prevalent in

Japanese society (Howell 1996).

This distinctive view on ethnicity and culture has predictably shaped foreigner relations in Japan. Much of the discrimination and even simple common misconceptions about foreigners are perpetuated in the highly nationalized education system. Misconceptions include ideas like that all foreigners are criminals, that foreigners are generally incompetent at Japanese things, and that the Japanese language is too complex and too “Japanese” for foreigners to

11 understand are all common (Culture Shock 2004). Likewise, there is no true word for racism in the Japanese language, though a mild word for ethnic discrimination

(jinjyusabetsu) has recently become popular in academic works. Racial discrimination is most often overtly seen in hiring practices because of the belief that foreigners cannot ever become truly fluent in Japanese language and culture.

Less common forms of discrimination include a foreigner being refused services at businesses or restaurants, and landlords refusing to let to foreigners is still common and acceptable. A more detailed account of recent foreign relations issues in Japan is given in Chapter 2.

Literature Review: Theoretical Constructs

I use the following theories regarding language acquisition, language and power, ethnicities, and minorities as a theoretical framework to inform my work.

Linguistic anthropology is the main school of thought from which I draw my theoretical analyses. The central tenet of linguistic anthropology is that every social interaction is mediated by language, whether spoken or written, verbal or otherwise (Ahearn 2012). A prominent scholar in the field of linguistic anthropology, Laura Ahearn, defines a goal of linguistic anthropology to be making clear broad cultural concepts or issues, specifically power inequality and values, considering that language is inherently social according to her definition

(Ahearn 2012). Using these important concepts, I examine my data by categorizing types and features of the language in the interactions I have collected.

12 To introduce the many vocabulary associated with linguistic anthropology, Ahearn addresses the four which she feels provide the best tools to understand the relationship between social life and language: multifunctionality, language ideologies, practice theory, and indexicality (Ahearn 2012).

Multifunctionality is the concept that language serves many purposes, not just to describe events (Ahearn 2012). Practice theory is the “paradox,” as Ahearn calls it, of the relationship between language, culture and society. Linguistic and social structures both frame and restrain actions, and human actions continually redefine those social structures and systems. Practice theory focuses on the evolution of these structures through human agency (Ahearn 2012). Indexicality concerns itself with identifying the intersections between language and society.

An index can indicate physical relationship (“here”), a person’s region of origin by means of a dialect, or even social relationships based on type of language used

(Ahearn 2012). For my work, I concern myself most with the latter.

Perhaps the most important overarching theme of Ahearn’s discussion on speech communities is that groups of people who are separated socially are also separated linguistically and vice verse (Ahearn 2012). Her second most important point is that the application of the phrase “speech communities” to these groups is a complicated matter. Social boundaries are fluid and hard to define because of intricate social networks, so drawing concrete lines for speech communities is impossible. Moreover, Ahearn addresses three specific questions that are raised by definitively outlining a speech community: the size and location

13 of the group, what the group members have in common, and what type of interactions they have (Ahearn 2012). John Gumperz developed the basis for the definition of a speech community, one that has been modified by many, but is still generally accepted as a foundational concept; he posits that speech community members must have frequent interactions, a common verbal repertoire, and at least one language ideology (Gumperz 1996). This idea of a “community of speakers” is central to sociolinguistic theory and is thought by some researchers to be the basic unit of study within linguistic anthropology, as it is in this research.

In the case of my work, the speech communities are defined by self- division between multiple languages, with people using diaglossia to change languages based on the social hierarchical benefits, codeswitching for multilingual social situations, and code-mixing for specific social groups that have more than one language in common and could understand a blending of the common languages. In multilingual communities within a larger monolingual speech community, the minority language signifies familiarity and solidarity, whereas the more dominant surrounding language is used in an “us/them” context for formality and authority (Gumperz 1996). Because of the social nature of language, differences in languages that require codeswitching and mixing create boundaries to help define speech communities.

In my study, I examine the performance of language, or the acts, events, and activities that create and are created by a spoken phrase. The study of

14 performance is an essential component to linguistic anthropology because it allows researchers to see how language is used as a means to an end and how those participating in the exchange categorize the world around them (Duranti

1997). Casual conversation is one such performance act that is culturally significant because it “establishes identities, subjectivities, ideas, categories, attitudes, values, and more” (Keating & Egbert 2004). Formerly thought of as insignificant due to lack of depth of subject, casual conversation has recently been recognized as an important linguistic ritual that builds and establishes bonds. Moreover, codeswitching within a conversation is a specific performance act that has more personal identity building properties, which will be explored in later chapters.

Within interactions, the degree of formality plays an essential in evaluating the relationship of the participants in an encounter as well as the setting. Judith Irvine identifies four cross-cultural characteristics of formality: increased structuring and additions to the code of language and behavior, consistency in adherence to social conventions and devices such as pitch and loudness, consistency in persona even in storytelling to indicate seriousness, and the use of public identities that often focus on social rank (Irvine 2001).

Japanese has many levels of formality, with verb conjugations and noun and adjective forms that correspond to each level. Higher level formal language in

Japanese is extremely ritualized in conversation, greeting, and code, yet tends to be less explicit the more formal the language. The formulaic nature of formality is

15 especially relevant to the discussion of greetings. In greetings, there are only so many words to choose from to establish a connection, and even less so when formalized. In Japanese formal greetings, the participants have specific turn- taking rules to follow as greeter and greeted. There is minimal deviation and creativity, making it increasingly predictable, as posited by Duranti. As Duranti says, each of these elements of performance, and performance as a whole, are culturally significant and therefore must be ethnographically contextualized before undergoing analysis.

Literature Review: Second Language Acquisition and Education

When examining language learners in speech communities, the process of second language acquisition as it applies to the subjects must be examined. One of the principal foundations for language acquisition theory is that language is acquired through social interactions (Ohta 2001). Second language acquisition

(SLA) is an interactive process that is colored by the social environment in which it takes place (Ohta 2001). Equally as important in SLA theory is that engagement in learning activities is crucial (Ohta 2001). Therefore, external positive motivation from the society of speakers and from the native instructor is essential to the success of an SLA student’s education. Social interactions create cognitive internalization, which means that language and key linguistic routines are part of social life and emerge from relationships (Ohta 2001). In relation to my study, this theory suggests that any cultural nationalism that manifests itself

16 as even minimal discrimination will have a negative impact on the language acquisition of the student.

In his 1998 study of minority education and performance, John Ogbu found that the school performance of minorities was directly related to treatment of minority groups in the larger society and in school (Ogbu 1998). Ogbu uses the

“cultural ecological theory” to analyze the minority students and how they are affected by the education system and external community forces. When applied broadly to education or cultural systems in general, “cultural” refers to the broad socio-cultural trends, and “ecological” refers to the more specific settings (Ogbu

1998). In this context of foreigner education in Japan, this means taking into account minority environments, as well as the larger majority group (Ogbu

1998).

The cultural-ecological system in the case of education is comprised of societal/educational policies, rewards, and treatment of minorities, each of which directly affects the student. Community forces include beliefs and values regarding educational credentials. Since a minority student is unlikely to receive the same rewards and community benefits from a successful school performance, he or she might respond actively and adapt to barriers in opportunities with a lower academic performance due to lack of motivation and perceived reward

(Ogbu 1998). Especially when applied to language acquisition, this cultural ecological theory is especially informative.

17 Two other key theories, drawn from sociology and sociolinguistics, inform my areas of research on ethnicity and discriminatory language. The neo-

Weberian theory of ethnicity as a status marker discusses the hierarchy of ethnicity. This theory of group affiliation and advantages is a large part of contemporary ethnic discourse (Malešević 2004). The “language power paradigm” reveals the structure of seemingly inherent control and hierarchy; such language is used by the dominant group “to convey and attitude of contempt or ridicule” (Gottlieb 1998).

Using these frameworks and the information regarding the history and current state of foreigner relations in Japan to inform my research, I examine how these factors and theories play out in a foreign student’s Japanese education and experiences.

Methodology

During my six-week stay in Japan, I spent two weeks traveling between

Tokyo, Nagoya, and Daigaku University for observations and interviews and one month at Hokudai University for the foreign student language institute. I participated in the language program at Hokudai University and conducted observational research during my entire 6-week stay. My first week in Japan was primarily spent making connections and recording initial impressions and sensory descriptions of sounds, smells, colors, dress, language, etc., all key components of the cultural experience. In Tokyo, Nagoya, and Daigaku University,

18 I made use of linguistic transcription of interviews with foreign subjects and interactions between Japanese natives and foreigners that I both observed and participated in. For the sake of confidentiality, the names of the universities and all people have been changed.

In Hokudai, I made use of two main methodological strategies to collect my data. While participating in the program, I engaged in participant observation, observing the classroom instruction of nonnative speakers by native speakers and making notations regarding significant sociolinguistic features. Outside of the context of the program, I used participant observation in my daily life and travels around Japan, keeping an ethnographic log of relevant interactions, experiences and sociolinguistic findings. At both Daigaku and Hokudai, I conducted many informal interviews with foreign and Japanese people and nine formal interviews with foreign students to gauge their attitudes, beliefs, and personal experiences within their respective programs. I took a jotting notebook everywhere I went in order to make note of useful terminology, key phrases I heard, specific events, what languages were used, and all other relevant occurrences. I spent time everyday typing up daily notes and reflecting on their contents, and elaborating on these reflections further for an extra couple hours once a week. Since a portion of my data pertains to interactions with me or actions done to me, reflexivity is a crucial component of my analysis. Reflexivity as an ethnographic method takes into account my personal experience as a part of my data because

19 my own experiences as a western student are in direct relation to my subject area.

The history and demographics of the locations and universities were also taken into consideration, such as the presence of foreigners, both permanent residents and tourists, and the effect that has had in either increasing prejudice or desensitization towards foreigners. The backgrounds of the students and teachers with whom I interacted are of equal importance, especially their ages, education levels, prior contact with foreigners for the Japanese, and prior experience with Japanese for the foreign students. I recorded detailed descriptions of classroom set-up such as whether there is task or grammatical orientation. From all my fieldnotes, I constructed the following ethnographic narrative, telling a story of the culture and those that act in and around it.

Notes on Location

The differences between Daigaku and Hokudai are important to address in order to understand the differences and similarities in the way my subjects and I were treated at each respective location.

Daigaku University is a medium-sized university in Kasugai, 30 minutes from Nagoya, with a student population of over 10,000. When studying here, foreign students live in separate dorms and take classes on multiple components of the Japanese language, such as reading, writing, speaking, and fluency.

Opportunities are also available to study culture and travel to culturally significant places. Daigaku University is also Ohio University’s sister school with a

20 handful of foreign English instructors, a popular English language program, over

50 full-time foreign students, and a close proximity to Nagoya, the third largest

Japanese metropolitan area, meaning the students, instructors, and surrounding community are somewhat accustomed to seeing and interacting with foreigners on a regular basis.

Hokudai is a very different case. Situated about ten miles outside of the much smaller, much less populous city of Kanazawa, Hokudai is also much smaller in both physical size and student body numbers, a private university of about 2,200 students. Especially since it is farther out from the city and a very small school, foreigners are much less common, especially on campus, with the exception of the 500 Chinese students whose strange position on campus is one of simultaneous isolation and assimilation, thereby making their experiences as foreign students unique and an exception. During my time there, I was the only non-Asian female on campus, and the two male American graduate students with me were in the company of only a few American and Australian male English instructors. My time at Hokudai was spent in the Hokudai University Summer

Intensive Japanese Language Program, a one-month intensive language and culture program. Students of this program stay in the dormitories and have a variety of cultural excursions and field trips. Each morning, there are two hours of language instruction that focus on reading, writing, listening, speaking, and culture, and cultural outings and lessons take place in the afternoon.

21 Personal Relationship to Project

I have spent my life loving Japan and have read books on the subject since

I could read. As is typical of any fan of Japan, my exposure to Japanese culture included samurai movies, sensationalist novels about geisha, and the filmmaker

Hayao Miyazaki. Japan’s elaborate cultural history fascinated my inner anthropologist; its linguistic adaptations to rigorous honorific systems, levels of politeness, and influences from foreign countries, such as the various tenses for levels of formality and the use of four uniquely purposed writing systems, enthralled me. At the age of thirteen, I adopted the philosophies of Japanese Zen

Buddhism and made a paltry attempt through CDs and books at learning the language.

When I matriculated into Ohio University, I began studying the Japanese language and culture formally. In the past four years, I have studied modern and ancient Japanese culture from a variety of different perspectives. I formed a study group and joined Japanese Conversation Hour, a bilingual cultural club with the

Japanese exchange students. In my free time, I spend time with the Japanese students on- and off-campus in a much more informal exchange of language and culture.

As a result, I have always been interested in the ways that this love may or may not necessarily be returned by the culture. The ways in which the Japanese culture deals with foreigners is deeply complex and difficult to navigate, and the issues surrounding this are especially relevant to my own life. Because of my own

22 status as a foreigner studying Japanese, I had access to the specific speech communities that I wished to study and believe need to be studied more and a unique scholarly approach to unraveling the mystery of Japan’s relationship with foreigners.

Significance

I address several important questions with my research. I focus on how the overarching trends regarding foreigners and cultural nationalism influence the experiences of foreign or minority students who are in Japan learning

Japanese, the resulting treatment of foreigners, and the current state of cultural nationalism in Japan. This study addresses the gap in research regarding language education of foreigners in Japan, since it is at an intersection of the well- researched subjects of minority identity and minority education in Japan. As such, this research complements studies in areas such as cultural nationalism, foreigner and minority relations with the majority, educational anthropology, sociolinguistics of education, and cross-cultural communication.

Moreover, this study provides a unique, scholarly account of foreign students’ perspectives on life in Japan and university interactions within the context of cultural nationalism and foreigner relations. This study contributes to the conversation surrounding educational reform and the modernization of education programs for foreign and minority students. The results of this research may help raise awareness among language instructors regarding their own cultural biases and how those affect instruction with regards to students’

23 sensitivity to particular language cues. With Japan’s recent efforts to recruit foreign students and workers to return to Japan after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, this research may also inform the policies that invite foreigners back to

Japan to help benefit the recovery of the country and of the economy.

Chapter Overview

Over the five chapters, I give a detailed ethnographic account of western foreign students in Japan and their experiences as “outside people” while studying the Japanese language. In Chapter Two, I present a brief history of

Japan’s foreign relations and the development of cultural nationalism and unique perspectives on foreigners to give situational context to my data. Chapter Three discusses the different kinds of treatment western foreign students receive as a result of different attitudes towards foreigners from native students, instructors, and university communities. In Chapter Four, I detail the different linguistics interactions had by the foreign students, whether with natives or other foreigners, and the different kinds of language used in these interactions. Chapter

Five focuses on issues of personal and national identity that occur as a result of the differing treatment and language usages towards the foreign students. In

Chapter Six, I draw all these issues together with the theoretical constructs discussed above to create a cohesive narrative of the western foreign student experience in Japan.

24 Chapter 2 Background: The History of Japanese Relations with Foreigners

Introduction

Since the conflict with the Mongols and the kamikaze, or wind of the gods, that blew the outsiders’ ships away in the 13th century, the Japanese state has had a complicated relationship with foreigners. In the early 1600s, when Christian missionaries were perceived as a threat to Japan’s Emperor-worshipping and strictly vertical social structure, the government closed its borders to all foreign dignitaries and trade. When Japan entered the world stage once again in 1853, the country experienced an identity crisis, unsure of how to proceed in a modern and western-dominated world. Japan’s involvement in World War II and the quest for territory and respect strained relations on both sides. Today, there is a sizeable foreign population in Japan, despite projected images of ethnic homogeneity both internally and to the world. In this chapter, I explore the overarching history of Japan’s relationship with foreigners within its borders, and the economic, educational, social, and political influences and issues relating to a foreigner presence in Japan.

Early History

During the Han Dynasty from 202 BC to 220 AD, China ruled parts of

Korea, giving Japan more contact than ever previously experienced with the

Chinese Empire via the Korean peninsula. Through Korea in the 6th century,

Korean and Chinese people and knowledge, such as artisans, potters, weavers,

25 painters, farmers, literature, history, philosophy, and science, were all imported into Japan, giving rise to a new cultural era. Buddhism was another foreign import that was essential in the changing country; it was a means of further importing Chinese ideas. Buddhism was intended by the ruling class to weaken the divided clans by weakening their ties to the native Shinto religion. 646 AD saw the great reform, the centralization of the government, modeled after the

Tang Dynasty’s land holding and titles system. Hundreds of years later, in 799 AD, cottonseeds were brought in from India, and in 1191, a Buddhist monk brought a tea plant from China; tea is presently an integral part of Japanese culture

(Chaurasla 2003).

Excepting the brief occupation at the conclusion of the Second World War,

Japan’s first and only time to undergo a foreign invasion was in the 13th century at the hands of Kublai Khan and Mongol China (Chaurasla 2003). Kublai Khan had conquered most of China and Korea and, turning his sights upon Japan, sent two massive armadas in succession. Both waves of the invasion were destroyed by typhoons. The interference of nature was seen as divine intervention, since the gods sent the kamikaze, or divine wind, to drive away the outsiders and protect the “sacred and divine land” of Japan (Kshetry 2008). In the 11th to 15th centuries, trade with China ebbed and flowed based on political tensions. The Ryukyu

Islands of Japan were used as an intermediary between Japan and the rest of Asia.

When not trading with China, trade was indirectly conducted with Southeast

Asian coastal and island countries. In the 15th century, China had the largest fleet

26 in the world, traveling, conquering, and trading as far as Arabia and Africa, but did not dare challenge the isolated Japan (Kshetry 2008).

Contact with the West, Mistrust, and Withdrawal

The first contact Japan had with the Western world was in 1542, when three Portuguese ships attempting one the first Pacific voyages to the East were blown off-course and wrecked near the coast of Japan (“First contact”). In the next several decades, traders from Portugal, Netherlands, England, and Spain arrived to conduct business, along with Jesuit, Dominican, and Franciscan missionaries, the most famous among them being Francis Xavier (“First contact”).

However, the ruling class grew suspicious of the foreign traders’ and missionaries’ intentions, since they were aware that Christianity had often been used as a precursor to military conquest (“First contact”). Moreover, Shogunate

General Tokugawa Ieyasu feared the undermining ideology of Christianity because it could create less faith in Shogunate (Ishido and Myers 1995).

In the 1630s, the Shogunate government began a campaign of “crushing” and expelling Christianity from Japan (Chaurasla 2003). By 1640, all foreigners were made to leave, and the government barred trade, leaving only restricted contact with Dutch and Chinese merchants at the port Nagasaki (“First contact”).

Japanese citizens were also prohibited from going abroad or even building ships that could navigate anything beyond the coastal waters, and to break these laws was punishable by death or exile (Chaurasla 2003).

27 Opening to the West

The process of Japan opening to the West was a sudden one that generated much internal conflict and political upheaval in Japan in the years to follow. During his rule one hundred years later, Shogun Yoshimune made a controversial decision to allow the importation of scientific books from the west, and in 1741, he ordered two scholars to study Dutch. In 1803, the government created a bureau for the translation of Dutch scientific works into Japanese, prompting many samurai to learn the language as well. In 1815, attempts were made to open Japanese ports for foreign ships, and 1841 saw a few attempts by private companies to trade, but all failed (Chaurasla 2003).

On 20 July 1846, Commodore James Biddle, with orders to open trade routes to the East, arrived at Edo Bay. With the opening of Japan to American contact, the U.S. government hoped that trade to the East would become easier, faster, and therefore more lucrative. However, the Shogunate vehemently denied his request. In 1849, Commodore James Gillin made another attempt to open negotiations, but was imprisoned (Chaurasla 2003). The arrival of Commodore

Matthew C. Perry on 8 July 1853 was the first successful attempt to open Japan to the West. Perry ignored the warning of impending attack, anchored in Edo Bay, and sent a letter to the Shogun. In the letter, the President of the United States of

America demanded that wrecked ships, such as the common whaling wrecks, be given assistance in the form of food, water, and coal and that Japan open her

28 ports to the U.S. for trade. The letter promised that Perry would return in a year for an answer (Chaurasla 2003).

With the fear of war weighing heavily against the fear of exploitation and coming out of isolationism, the Shogun sent out letters to the daimyos, or feudal lords, asking their opinions. There was no consensus. Meanwhile, other European countries heard that America had made an attempt to conduct negotiations with the elusive Japan and wanted to piggyback in on their intrusion, so in an effort to get ahead of competitors, Commodore Perry returned to the island before the promised year was up. He returned to Edo Bay in February of 1854, a few months early, with a small fleet and the threat of force. Fearing war with unknown western powers, the Shogunate allowed Perry to dock and conduct negotiations

(Chaurasla 2003).

Perry’s arrival generated somewhat of a “domestic crisis” in Japan, forcing the government to weigh the prospects of war, isolationism, and trade all against one another and to decide quickly (Ishido and Myers 1995). Upon Perry’s return, the Convention of Kanagawa was held between himself on behalf of the U.S. and the Shogunate government (“First contact”). This led to the 1854 Treaty of

Kanagawa in which it was declared that American ships were to receive coal, food, water, and access to repairs at three ports, that one representative from the

United States was to live in Japan, and that foreign shipwrecks were to receive assistance (Chaurasla 2003). Japan feared conflict with other western powers over influence in and trade with China, so Harris suggested deepening Japan and

29 U.S. relations via another treaty (Chaurasla 2003). The Harris treaty stipulated that U.S. citizens could legally live in two Japanese cities, that American merchants had priority at the port at Nagasaki, and that the United States could keep a minister at Edo and a counsel at major ports (Chaurasla 2003). In return, the U.S. promised to assist Japan with any conflicts with other powers, should they arise (Chaurasla 2003). This series of treaties led the way for other western powers to seize the opportunity and force their way in with treaties that disadvantaged the Japanese economy in favor of foreign trade.

This rapid shift in foreign relations and the treaties that favored foreign merchants made the Shogunate government widely unpopular. The Shogunate had realized that Japan was drastically behind the West in many areas, and so began a rapid westernization program. After a decade of internal struggle and war, the opposing faction defeated the Shogunate and restored the Emperor as the head of state. By 1868, the Meiji Restoration was complete, and Japan entered a new era of modernity.

The Meiji Era and National Insecurity

The first decades of the Meiji Era were characterized by incredible expansion and westernization. Western learning, institutions, and ways of life were all imported with enthusiasm and the drive to catch up with advanced civilization (Ishido and Myers 1995). The westernization of culture, such as the learning of other languages and the shedding of the kimono in favor of the western suit, were seen as symbols of advancement (Chaurasla 2003). Japanese

30 scholars read the works of Enlightenment thinkers with the intention to “catch up with advanced western civilization” (Ishido and Myers 1995). Universities began teaching English, French, and German and brought in German philosophers, doctors, and political advisors (Chaurasla 2003).

These changes were made so quickly that by 1882, Japan’s military was entirely self-sufficient, and the western officers and advisors that had helped revolutionize the Japanese army were dismissed (Chaurasla 2003). In 1883, the fledgling government created a commission to study governments of the world in order to select the format for the new national government (Chaurasla 2003).

However, many scholars of the time did not favor the rampant westernization and sought to curb it and the national identity crisis Japan was experiencing; they sought to establish a new national Japanese identity. The Imperial Rescript on

Education was issued 30 October 1890 and stated that the traditional ideals like social harmony and loyalty to the Imperial House were countered by invading western moral values (Ishido and Myers 1995). These scholars encouraged caution with the importation of all things western and championed nihonjinron and nihonshugi or “Japanism,” which advocated strong nationalism and love of country as a means of defense against the pressing western powers (Ishido and

Myers 1995).

In 1894, Japan launched the Sino-Japanese War, a military campaign against China to test their might and to assert themselves on the global stage.

Much to the western powers’ surprise, Japan was quickly and entirely victorious

31 and had done so entirely self-sufficiently with their own forces. The western powers perceived this as Japan acting out of line and quickly remonstrated the country by insisting that Japan return the land to China and that she share her influence in China’s political and economic spheres with the major western powers. This rejection of their validity as a world power created resentment in the fledgling government, leading to the build-up of their involvement in the

Second World War and the resulting occupation post-war (Chaurasla 2003).

Foreigners and Today’s Japan

The cultural attitudes regarding foreigners that began with Japan’s first contact with other cultures long ago pervade today’s society, albeit in different ways. In the 1980s, there was an extreme labor shortage in Japanese industries, so Japan recruited “hearty foreigners” to do hard labor (Howell 1996). Many

South Americans of Japanese heritage returned to Japan, and continental Asian

“mail order” brides became popular to bolster the population; since Asian women were perceived as being accustomed to hard work, they were chosen as farmers’ and laborers’ wives (Howell 1996). In order to assimilate into society, the children of these marriages were given Japanese names, and even the wives were often renamed (Howell 1996). The same phenomena is occurring today, and even now, these minorities have difficulties legally coming into or staying in the country because foreigners must prove they are of Japanese descent or that they are married to Japanese national to gain permanent resident status (Castro-

Vasquez 2011).

32 Despite the aging population and resulting imminent labor shortage, the

Japanese government intentionally pressures foreign workers and students to return to their home countries (Tabuchi 2011). There are standardized occupation tests in Japanese that are designed with the intention of disadvantaging foreigners applying for jobs (Tabuchi 2011). Moreover, according to a 2008 study, out of 130,000 foreign students who studied at a Japanese university, only 11,000 were offered jobs by Japanese companies (Tabuchi 2011).

Japan’s demonstrated distrust of foreigners is even manifested in the government: the Japanese Ministry of Justice receives reports about people

“feeling anxious” about a foreigner through their foreigner reporting hotline that is both accessible by internet or by phone.

Conclusion

In the Japanese conflict with the Mongols in the 1200s, the role that the

“kamikaze” had in driving away foreigners was significant in establishing the divinity of staying isolated. Hundreds of years later, the Portuguese traders and missionaries established agreements with the Tokugawa Shogunate that affected the socio-economic structure and began a trend that frightened Japan’s leaders.

In response, the country was secluded from the rest of the world for 250 years, and upon reopening to foreign trade, Japan underwent dramatic social and political change. Foreign influence since then has been felt in many areas: society, culture, military, economy, education, literature, and so on all felt the effects of foreign influence during the Meiji Era. The presence of foreigners in Japan as

33 teachers and students in pre-war Japan, as well as foreign post-war control, all affected the Japanese mentality. The increasing number of foreigners in Japan for economic and social reasons has prompted Japan to reconstruct its identity to account for such an invasion. These historical aspects are key to understanding the relationship between Japan and foreigners, as they have shaped the Japanese attitudes towards foreigners and continue to affect relations today.

34 Chapter 3 The Gaijin Special: Treatment of Foreign Students

Soto ni Youkoso! Welcome to the Outside!

It was the second week of my time in the language program at Hokudai

University that I finally succeed in making friends with Japanese students at this university. I had been busy with classes in the morning and cultural excursions in the afternoon, but the evening was a lonely time. There was no internet anywhere except in the designated study room, the buses ran only just past dinner, and since my room was on the fourth floor while my classmates lived on the first and second floors, I was isolated and often unable to make dinner plans with the other foreigners. The only times I had interacted with the girls in my dorm were very brief in passing. They were shy with me, and I the same with them.

In an effort to try and make friends with my dorm mates, I had made four origami renditions of Totoro, a famous Japanese cartoon character, and written an introduction of myself on them along with my room number with the added request that I wished to practice my Japanese. I placed these little paper self- advertisements in central areas on each floor in the building in the hopes that someone would approach me. It had been a week, and I had not yet been approached. Smiles and brief greetings were exchanged, but I worried that the foreigner making the first move would be off-putting. So I waited.

After a week, I began to settle into a pattern of eating alone and watching the strange news stories or variety shows that were on the TVs in the dining area.

35 I was following the order of things and washing my hands when I noticed a few girls were looking at me with interest. At this point, I was deep in my shell of insecurity from the constant reminders of my outsider status, so I ducked my head and smiled. I took my meal token, my tray, and my chopsticks and moved to stand in line behind them. They were still staring and whispering to each other. I dismissed this as a normal case of “Ooh, look at the foreigner.” Blatant stares and whispers were not unfamiliar to me at this point, but they were still unwelcome, so I looked at the floor. I looked up and caught the eye of one girl, prompting her to ask me where I was from. When I responded “America,” the four girls smiled at each other and burst out with “Cool!” and “Awesome!” and “I want to go!” They invited me to eat with them, much to my surprise and delight.

As we ate, they quizzed me on who I am, what I do, where I am from, and all other manner of facts about myself. I could not seem to stem their flow of questions. I learned that Ayaka, Toshiko, Hana, and Kasumi were all first year students from Okinawa, who were studying a range of subjects. I learned later that despite all the Americans they have seen and even briefly spoken to, I was their first American friend. They told me gleefully that this is in part because I can speak their language! From their stories, I surmised that there is also a tension between Americans in Okinawa and the locals. They complimented my language abilities over and over again because I could somewhat keep up with their speed.

We laughed and joked and took silly pictures on their phones, and for the first time since coming to Hokudai, I did not feel like such an outsider.

36 I was sorry to say goodnight to my new friends, but we waved goodbye after dinner with promises of seeing each other soon. Almost afraid of being alone again, I went back up to my room to journal and watch a movie. After an hour, there was a knock on my door, the first knock since I had moved in. I opened the door to see Hana and Toshiko with arms full of ink, brushes, and paper and all types of packaged snacks, respectively, announcing that they had found my kanji name and that Hana was a calligraphy master so she was going to teach me to write the name they gave me. Because the Japanese use Chinese characters, or kanji, as content words such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives with their own phonetics system, the syllable “ka” can indicate many different kanji that are part of the words for fire, food, flower, under, etc. Foreigners studying the language or living in Japan will sometimes invent kanji names for themselves based on the Japanese phonetics of their own name, which for me is Kamiru. The name that Hana and Toshiko picked for me, 花美琉 (かみる in the Japanese syllabary, it is broken into “ka--mi--ru”) means beautiful tropical flower, as far as

I am able to tell, since the final character is in the name of the Ryukyuu islands in the south.

At meals, other girls living in the dorm responded with surprise when they saw me peeking out from behind Hana. For many of their dorm mates as well, I was the first American they had met. At breakfast one morning, one girl quite literally jumped when she turned around to say good morning to Ayaka and saw me. She immediately explained by saying, “Oh, I was surprised,” but I was a little

37 unnerved because I have never scared anyone like that simply by being. Other instances were more positive, and it seemed that having an American friend gave

Toshiko, Hana, Ayaka, and Kasumi a sort of “cool factor” or distinction among their friends. When the girl that jumped walked away, Toshiko reassured me,

“Everyone one wants to be friends with you!” because everyone thinks Americans are cool, she explained. Ayaka added, “But Japanese are very shy so they won’t approach you. They are embarrassed.” When I asked why “they are embarrassed,” I could not get a straight answer. After leaving the dining area one day, the dorm mother saw us together and approached, asking me if my Totoro origami worked and if I made friends. She then thanked the girls for befriending me, and I once again felt the weight of my position as a gaijin.

The Japanese-ness of It All

From the countless examples in my research, interviews, and participant observation, it is clear that the above example is a fair and normative representation of the experiences of foreign students in Japan. The awkwardness and the uncertainty in the beginning of my friendship with “the girls,” as I often call them, stems from cultural hesitations towards approaching strangers, their uncertainty of whether I even spoke their language, and my own insecure bias and conviction that they were uncomfortable with my presence.

In this chapter, I will discuss the many kinds of treatment that foreigners receive in Japan, as experienced by my interviewees and myself. Treatment of foreigners can be largely divided into two categories based on positive and

38 negative attitudes, which I will discuss as worship and harassment. However, many other types of treatment can occur, such as staring, special treatment, extra assistance, discrimination, exploitation, ignoring, and general awkwardness.

An Overview: What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting It

The most common theme among my own experiences and those of the students I spoke to, perhaps because it is such a passive act, is the staring. It is discussed on forums and in works by journalists and memoir authors like

Rebecca Otowa and Amy Chavez. In my own journal and notes from the trip, I mentioned being stared at or being given “funny looks” around twenty separate times. It is also directly mentioned in half of my interviews and indirectly so in others. My first day in Tokyo, even, I write that it is remarkable how much I stand out and get stared at. Even at Ohio University’s sister school, Daigaku

University, where my native informant Rina tells me has “a lot of foreigners for

Japan,” I am stared at quite a bit. I notice that the smaller the town I am in, the more I am stared at. My first time at a public bath house was especially eye- opening; I can only assume that seeing a naked foreigner was especially rare, so even the elderly women were very curiously peering at my naked body. Children are the most common culprits, because of their natural curiosity and the fact that they have yet been acculturated to the idea that blatant staring is impolite. The stares of the adults are much less conspicuous, but still conspicuous nonetheless.

Ashley, an interviewee who is half-Japanese, tells me that if you make a funny face, the staring children “get scared.” An English instructor at Daigaku

39 University, Jack Mason, warns me that “children will ask to touch” a foreigner’s hair. Though this specific example did not happen to me, I discuss hair and appearance issues in a later section.

There were other overarching themes of experiences in Japan when I spoke to other foreign students. The feeling of being painfully conspicuous is certainly a common experience, as it was especially the case during the reading contest in Chapter One. When I spent time with Japanese college students, they asked me more predictable questions, like what I thought of Japan. I was asked this question by most of the Japanese people I spoke to, as if they were curious to know how an outside sees their country rather than just out of politeness. I was also asked very specific questions, like “Do you have ______in America?” or “Have you ever eaten/done ______?” These questions often concerned things I thought to be very common, like using chopsticks or eating sushi, and those asking were usually surprised that I had been doing and eating these things for a long time before I came to Japan. Genuine surprise at skill in using chopsticks was noted by a few of my subjects as well. Ashley says with a laugh, “Of course we know how to use chopsticks! We'd probably starve otherwise!” She also discusses “being awkwardly ignorant” during her first experience in a bathhouse. Tyler says that he was stared at, but that it did not bother him because he expected it. He adds that he never noticed any rudeness and that “Japan is amazing. I can't say anything but how wonderful it is, and I greatly miss being there.” Ashley and

40 Harry also echo this sentiment, citing the politeness, kindness, and respect of the

Japanese people.

Ashley and Matt both discuss being in public alone, with other foreigners, and with Japanese. Ashley says that Japanese strangers “were more likely to try and strike up conversations with us if we didn't have Japanese friends with us.”

Matt noticed that when he was alone, the Japanese people he interacted with were more confident and interested in the conversation, whereas when he was with other foreigners, they seemed “most hesitant, but very curious. They will not say much though.” When he was with Japanese friends, Japanese strangers seemed “most comfortable,” and that “they try to even the amount of conversation with you and the Japanese you are with.” When I asked Matt if he had any enlightening anecdotes about being foreign in Japan, he responds with

“Ughhh. Hundreds.” This is a common theme as well, though I will return to this specific case later in the chapter.

Special Treatment: The Foreigner Privilege and Help for the Hapless Gaijin

One of the most distinct kinds of treatment, in my experience at the very least, was “special treatment” or excessive kindness born from my foreign status.

However, my status as an American and as a western woman makes my experiences of this kind not representative of the foreigner experience, according to the testimonies of my Japanese friends (i.e. “Everyone wants to be friends with you!”) and my American male and nonwestern female informants.

41 Minor instances of this phenomenon include my trip to the Nagoya mall pet shop: one of the workers saw me watching the kittens, came out, handed me one, and then walked away. I turned to the two Japanese boys with me, confused, and they just shrugged and laughed at the giddy American holding a kitten. When the entire Japanese language program at Hokudai University, which was a few hundred Chinese students and the handful of non-Chinese in the summer program, went to the beach for traditional net fishing, the net broke, and the grizzled and smiling older Japanese fisherman put the only fish the broken net had managed to catch into my hand, smiled, and said, “Lunch!” According to my subject Laura, an American female herself, there is a nightclub in Tokyo where

“white girls” do not have to pay for entry or even drinks.

At Hokudai during the summer program, an informal judo lesson was part of the cultural education. At that point, I had been doing judo for two years prior, so I talked with the judo instructor, and he invited me to practice with the judo club. While observing a part of their practice later that week, the judo program administrator stopped in and talked to me. The coach had told him I was coming, so he came and sat with me for two of the three hours I was there, telling me about women’s judo in Japan and comparing notes with my experiences.

When I was leaving to go to Nagoya from Yuki’s family home, her whole family saw me off very early in the morning and fretted and packed me snacks and gave me lots of presents, like fans and chopsticks to give to people when I returned to America. They made sure I knew where I was going and yelled for me

42 to get on the train when I got on the platform. In Kanazawa, Kazunari, one of the judo team members, offered to take me out on the town. He drove me all around town and bought me a fancy coffee, several snacks, dinner, and a gold-leafed necklace. At the beginning of our outing, I made it abundantly clear that I had a boyfriend, and he later explained that his mom was the vice president of some company in Tokyo, that he had had a lot of money, and that he just wanted to have a good time with an American. My foreignness was a privilege that allowed for me to be escorted around town and have all manner of things bought for me by the child of an affluent family from Tokyo. In addition, taking me around town seemed to, in his mind, benefit his social status in both my eyes and in the eyes of everyone else because he had an American girl hanging out with him. This was later confirmed to me during our interactions in the cafeteria at Hokudai, making this interaction also fall into the category addressed next.

Exploitation: “Token” Status

Despite all the special treatment and privileges foreign students may receive, there is also a degree of exploitation of foreigner status, on personal and university levels. In the Hokudai cafeteria, Kazunari called to me from across the room, eliciting stares from many and comments from his friends. To him, I was a status marker to show off to his friends. One of the most basic forms of this kind of treatment is photo-taking, or the “Hey, look at the foreigner!” photos. Right in the middle of an academic building in the middle of class changes, two Japanese girls approached me and asked if they could take their picture with me. They

43 were very shy and very polite, but they did not even ask my name. They simply took their picture and moved on, while what seemed like everyone in the hallway watched. Shin-san, an older and attention-loving Korean man in the language program, made the mournful comment that I was more popular than him, and I felt a little uncomfortable for the rest of the day. Even my Okinawan friends took a picture of me every time I saw them, whether on my way to class, drinking

Asahi beer in my room, or returning Kasumi’s scissors.

Other uncomfortable examples include the few instances in which our foreignness was used to the school’s advantage. A few days into the program at

Hokudai, Micah P., one of the two American males in the program, and I were asked to be in a commercial for Hokudai by the admissions department. We agreed, but it was only after agreeing that I began to feel uncomfortable. The university was using us as marketing props, token foreigners to show how international their school was. Micah and I were coached on how to dress and were positioned around a table outside with two very attractive Japanese students who each had their own makeup assistant. While we exchanged laughter and pleasantries, they filmed, and I left with a very strange feeling of fraud. We were not even real students at the university. Everything about the experience felt false.

The Americans were again singled out to have lunch with a group of high school students that were touring the school. We were once again token “look how international out school is” props to be used to the university’s advantage.

44 When I arrived in the cafeteria on that Saturday, we were arranged carefully and told to talk to the students until they leave. The students and parents shuffled in, timidly sitting around us and giving very terse and uncomfortable responses to our questions.

Ignoring: See No Gaijin, Hear No Gaijin

Being ignored was another cited common response to foreigners, which was common when I was out in public with Japanese friends. Service professionals and other such strangers sometimes ignored my presence and addressed only the natives with me. Matt explained, “If you mean treatment from unknown Japanese people, it is much closer to total negligence of existence.

Especially when you are with Japanese, because they will just assume you are dealt with by your Japanese host.” He adds that is just speculation, and then continues, “At first, and even after returning, the treatment seemed rude and I felt unwanted in those situations...You just have to ignore how much they seem to wish you would go away. It may just be an unintended reaction to your gaijinsa

[gaijin-ness].” When I asked Bruce about language usage, he replied, “When they actually talk to me?”

Worship: Cool Foreigner Syndrome

As is evidenced by my first interactions with “the girls,” my first friends at

Hokudai University, my status as a foreigner, especially an American, afforded me a certain degree of “cool-ness.” Every time a student asked me where I was from

45 and I answered “America,” there were choruses of “Whaaaaat?! Wow!” and “I want to go!” By the end of my time in Japan, I had had several Japanese friends explain the staring by saying it was because I was beautiful and cool. I found this amusing that they were trying to cover up my gaijin, but they seemed serious. A few girls throughout the dorm asked me if I wanted to hang out, and whenever I was at a bar and inhibitions were low, people approached me and talked to me, for example the guy that drunkenly gave me his Skype information or the few guys and girls at the hip-hop club that enthusiastically hugged me and declared their love for me though we had exchanged few words. In Nagoya at an English pub-style bar, both myself and my Japanese friends that were with me received the “foreigner discount,” which was published on their drink menu and advertised outside.

Harassment, Segregation, and Awkwardness: The Funny, the Bad, and the Ugly

I have discussed awkward exploitation situations, uncomfortable staring, foreigner invisibility, and the positives of being a foreign student in Japan.

However, as in any homogenous country, there are also the experiences that are a step beyond uncomfortable or awkward; for example, Bruce:

Well yesterday, I went grocery shopping alone and was walking home up the hill to Daigaku. I passed a group of three guys; they said a few things that reminded me I wasn't in "my country," and one was even just repeating the word "kill" a few times probably to see how I would react. The thing is, in this entire time I'm sure they didn't expect me to understand anything. However... I do.

46 When I'm with other foreigners, people just stare, maybe even curse in their heads, I don't know, but they seem to be afraid of us for some reason. I'm not usually doing my daily activities with any native Japanese. And only seem to meet friends at restaurants where there’s generally no problems [sic.]. However, when I had a [Japanese] girlfriend, when we were on the train, or when we were walking around in crowded places, I always noticed she would get depressed and tired. I always thought that, maybe that was just here and cities. However, now that I'm able to see and actually understand all this racism that's present maybe, and this is just speculation. It could have been because of that.

Bruce added that “the staring never ends.” The staring, whether from small children or adults in Tokyo, certainly was uncomfortable at first and remained so to the end, though somewhat less. Being called a gaijin by a mentally handicapped boy on a crowded train and being the only person a dog barked at were also instances of awkward gaijin moments. Unpleasant instances of othering include my adventure walking around Temple City, wherein I walked up to a temple, only to have monks stare harshly at me. There was nothing kind in their looks, nothing like the sweet, smiling old men I had expected. Their eyes were narrowed, and they just watched me without saying anything.

No foreigners with whom I spoke were denied entrance to a place because of foreignness. The more hostile anti-foreigner behaviors seem to have become much less common; I suspect this is largely due to international exposure in the media and on the Internet, as well as a greatly increased number of foreign tourists in the past decade. However, Harry added that he heard it happened at some clubs and that some places will not lease apartments to foreigners.

Institutional policies and practices, the ways in which the university handles the foreign students and the structure of the language programs, were

47 also important factors in the western foreign student experience. Both universities in my study pursue a practice of segregating foreign students rather than integrating them into the daily life of the campus community. Four of my

American subjects at Daigaku specifically cited their separation from the

Japanese students as a point of frustration. For example, Matt compared the study abroad program at Daigaku University to the program for Daigaku students at Ohio University. He said that Daigaku University students studying at Ohio are effectively integrated into the student population: each Japanese student receives an American roommate with only a few other Japanese students per dorm, an

American conversation partner, a recreational class with American students, classes all over campus so they can get the full experience, many cultural events, and even a communications class with American students. Matt contrasted that to the foreign students at Daigaku, highlighting the segregation of their from the general student population. Foreign students, he pointed out, were housed in an international student-only dorm, and every class was in same room on the 9th floor of a building not often traversed by Japanese students. The students were enrolled only in Japanese classes with other foreign students and were given no conversation partners, severely limiting possible interactions with Japanese students.

Similarly, the foreign students in the Hokudai summer language program were segregated from each other and the general student population through separate room assignments in the dormitory. Moreover, at Hokudai, there were

48 no clear attempts to integrate the foreign students into the university community: no welcome ceremony, language labs, or classes outside of the

Japanese language. The only university-mandated opportunities to interact with

Japanese students were occasional cultural lessons in tea ceremony or judo.

Outside of passing comments and smiles, self-initiated social contact between foreign and native students was not common.

Getting a Second Opinion: One Informant Among Many

Matt George was a junior studying engineering at Ohio University when I interviewed him, and his active involvement in the Japanese community and his participation in the Daigaku University study abroad program in the fall make him an ideal informant. He studied Japanese for two years at Ohio University; he is not currently enrolled in Japanese classes, though he tells me that he still studies the language daily. While in Daigaku, he obtained an N2 on the Japanese

Language Proficiency Test; the highest level is an N1, which is rumored to be hard even for a native speaker to get. A few weeks ago, he told me during our first interview that he had an interview with a Japanese company for an internship in

Florida. He is easygoing, quiet and insightful, a very fitting attitude for an engineer, I thought to myself. It is this insightfulness that I hoped to draw on for his impressions about his study abroad experience.

We agreed to meet for lunch at Ginger, the new and vaguely Asian restaurant in town. Matt sat down next to me on a stool, his hair neatly combed and his button-up shirt tucked in. I asked how his interview went, and he

49 shrugged, saying that he was caught off guard. He spent a lot of time preparing to use very proper Japanese, especially the ritual greetings, he told me, but they launched straight into questions, not giving him a chance to demonstrate his skill.

Matt sighed and added that it was probably because he is American, so I asked him to explain. He told me that Japanese business people tend to see Americans as no-nonsense and straight to the point, so it could have been that they did not want him to feel bored with the very Japanese formal greetings. Moreover, Matt thought that because he is American, his interviewers likely did not think he would know how to “be Japanese” with his Japanese language use.

Rather than asking specific questions at first, I decided to explain the scope of my project and what I intended to accomplish with my thesis. I explained that I was studying the experiences of foreign students in Japan with regards to cultural nationalism. I touched briefly on the theoretical constructs I use, hoping his analytical engineering brain would help him understand. He laughed and smiled as he leaned towards me, saying animatedly, “Oh, I’ve got a lot to say about that.”

Matt’s major complaint was with the set up of the Daigaku Japanese language program. “When the Daigakus (Daigaku University students studying at

OU) come here, they’re integrated pretty well.” He detailed the different ways in which he and the other foreign students in the language program were segregated, as discussed in the above section. Matt shook his head and said that with the foreign students at Daigaku, there was “obvious separation.” Matt was

50 contemplating taking these issues up with the professors here that coordinate the program. He did not like to admit it, but he felt a little “shortchanged.”

Focus Group, Daigaku Study Abroad: Matt in Context

The focus group I conducted was comprised of four students who attended Daigaku University as a part of the Ohio University exchange program.

Taylor, Tyler, Boris, and Matt have all studied Japanese at Ohio University for two years and attended Daigaku University in the fall semester of 2012. We met in the corner by the main Modern Languages office on the second floor of the language building. As we sat down, Boris in the corner, Taylor and Matt on a loveseat, and

Tyler next to them, their conversation was animated. They were tutors for the

Daigaku University students and were discussing their tutees while I set up my laptop. Taylor, the only female in the group, dominated the conversation while

Boris sat off in the corner of the seating area on his cell phone and Tyler began to unwrap a granola bar. Since the focus group had not yet begun, I focused on assembling the necessary materials to interview them all. I did not hear most of what was said, but then I heard the phrase “the guy that looks like a bird” and looked up, realizing that perhaps I should have been paying attention to what they say before they went on record.

I asked them how long they have been studying Japanese, and they each replied, “Two years.” I was genuinely surprised. Having spoken Japanese with each of them before, I knew their abilities to be on a very dramatic scale from near fluent to beginner, so their equality in time spent was surprising. I

51 wondered to myself if the discrepancies in their abilities were related to some of the theoretical frameworks I have been investigating. When I asked how long they were in Japan, Boris looked up from his phone, and said matter-of-factly,

“Three months. September 14th to December 23rd.” He then looked back at his phone.

I asked their initial impressions of Japan, and they discussed whether or not they had culture shock. Boris said the culture shock when returning to the

U.S. was greater than when he got to Japan and that he missed the convenience of everything and the friendliness of the people. Taylor nodded, saying she did not experience culture shock, but that it could have been that the area was friendly to

English speakers. Matt added, “I’m not sure what culture shock feels like, but I didn’t have it.” Tyler shook his head in disagreement. “Everything was really interesting. I was probably amazed the majority of the first few days, and it was worse when I was by myself.” Tyler then added that he went to look at architecture. Boris said he enjoyed game and music stores, as well as getting on the train and going to Nagoya, which is close to Daigaku, and then added that they went on school trips to Kyoto, Shirakaugo, and Takayama to look at “cultural things.” Matt talked about going to Tokyo, saying he mostly visited friends’ houses, whereas Taylor said she spent a lot of her time at shopping centers. While

I typed, Matt pulled out his phone and showed a photo to Vi. “Remember this?”

Taylor laughed and showed it to Tyler. “Did you see this?” Boris leaned over and laughed. They began to reminisce and pulled out photos in phones and wallets.

52 I turned the conversation back to their experiences as foreigners in Japan, and Matt mentioned our conversation at Ginger, summarizing what he told me for the group about the segregation in class and living situation. Boris agreed that it was frustrating, and Taylor said, “Yeah.” Tyler thought for a minute and then added hesitantly that it was pretty frustrating, admitting that he had not really thought about it before. Taylor countered that they did well enough to find other things to do with Japanese students even though they were separated, though she conceded that a large part of that was already having friends at Daigaku that had studied at Ohio University. They then began talking about their conversation partners while I finished taking notes.

When I asked how they were treated as foreigners, so much was said that I struggled to keep up with my notes. Boris mused that when he was walking around alone, more foreigners approached him, mentioning an event in which he was accosted by “Nigerian guys.” Matt said that the more Japanese people he was with, the more approachable he felt to other Japanese and the more comfortable

Japanese people seemed with him. I cracked a joke about “watering down” his foreignness to a palatable level, and they all laughed. Boris pointed out that he definitely felt like he was called out the most as a foreigner, but that it was more likely because of his resemblance to John Lennon. Boris is tall and thin, with bushy brown hair that goes inches past his shoulders. He wears thick-rimmed glasses, making his small, almond-shaped eyes and large nose look even more extreme. The resemblance to John Lennon is remarkable. He told stories of

53 walking around various Japanese cities and people calling out to him, yelling,

“Hey John Lennon!” He said he got plenty of “weird” stares when riding the trains, too, and Matt added that “drunk guys on the train” especially stared at them.

At one concert, however, Boris was right near the stage, so he went unnoticed, but the only other foreign person there was “a guy in there from New

Zealand.” When the lead singer saw the foreign person, Boris says she called out,

“Gaijin-san, kikeru?” (Mr. Foreigner, can you hear?) since he was near the back.

Taylor added that people remembered them since they were foreign and that shopkeepers paid special attention to them. Matt laughed and countered with the exception of the time he broke a glass at a restaurant. Typically in a situation like this, many apologies would be exchanged between customer and server while the server cleaned up the glass. This was not the case for Matt, who said the people at the restaurant just stared, not apologizing or saying anything, despite Matt apologizing over and over. He said it felt very uncomfortable and almost hostile.

Taylor cited an incident where she went into a store to ask for a map (chizu), but was directed towards cheese (chiizu). There was another time when a complete stranger walked them all over a small town to show them the best ramen shops.

From the discussion had in the focus group and my conversation with

Matt alone, it is clear that their status as gaijin affected their study abroad experience. The hospitality and friendliness of the Japanese with whom they interacted were often cited in the focus group, so their experiences were largely positive. It is also clear that their being foreigners was drawn attention to

54 frequently, some occasions more uncomfortable than others. As Americans, they were approached and talked to more than other foreigners, though this was often so that the Japanese person could practice their English with them. Though they all categorize their experience as “wonderful” and “fun,” the four students in the focus group felt as though their status as gaijin affected their experiences more than they expected.

Conclusion

The experiences of the foreign students that attend Japanese universities in order to study the Japanese language and their language acquisition are defined by the treatment that is unique to the “othered group.” Treatment of these “outside people” includes staring, special treatment, discrimination, exploitation, ignoring, and segregation. These are in turn influenced by the evolving and conflicting perspectives on foreigners. Staring and ignoring are common responses to foreign students by Japanese natives, whereas nationalism demonstrated through discrimination of any kind is much more rare. Segregation can be from natives or from other foreigners, the physical othering as evident manifestation of social outsider status.

Treatment predictably affects Western foreign students’ motivations towards acquisition and use of the language for emotional reasons. As Ohta’s work on social life and linguistic internalization suggests, external social motivation from native speakers can be largely positive in nature, but ignoring as a means of segregation also occurs, which leads to fewer cognitive connections

55 and resulting acquisition resulting from social interactions. Moreover, institutional policies and practices such as segregation of foreign students tends to produce “speech communities” of foreign students, often tightly-knit social groups that are defined by shared patterns of linguistic code switching and code- mixing. In this context, members of such speech communities do not acquire sufficient Japanese language skills to maintain relationships with individuals outside of the speech community itself – thereby reifying the social boundaries that constrain them.

56 Chapter 4 Language: Usage and Acquisition

Leggo My Keigo!

Three days before I returned to the United States, I decided to go on a solo journey to an area nearby called Yuwaku Onsen, or Yuwaku Hot Springs. The assistant coordinator of the Hokudai Program, Shingo Nakano, recommended it to me, though he only told me that it was very interesting and that the onsen were very relaxing. The latter half of my stay in Japan had been marked by a transition into the “rain season,” and as it had been recently, so too was today wet and gray.

After staring at the bus schedule and trying to decide what the bold print, asterisks, and red font all meant, I thought I had figured it out and boarded a bus some minutes later. I asked the bus driver about my destination, and he told me that he would let me know when to get off. The trip took me twenty minutes further into Japan’s beautiful countryside. We seemed to be traveling up a valley full of bright green rice fields surrounded on both sides by hills that turned more mountainous the farther we went.

We arrived in a small town that was mostly comprised of one main street and perched on a hill along a large stream. Everything was lush, and I was suddenly very thankful I decided to get out of Hokudai for a day. The bus driver climbed down out of the bus for a smoke and pointed to a notice board twenty feet away, telling me he will be back in a couple hours and that I should wait at the sign. I ventured off into the town, exploring the very ancient shrine that had a sign for the town’s 1200th anniversary, seeing all the different inns, and stopping

57 at a small restaurant for lunch. Inside, the only other customers were an elderly couple who were sitting on the traditional straw mat flooring tatami, drinking beer and fanning themselves. While eating, we chatted from across the room.

They expressed surprise that I could speak Japanese, and we talked about my studies at the university, their hometowns, and different Japanese dialects, a point of some confusion for me. I left with a phone number and an email address, accompanied by the insistence that I let them know if I ever come back to Japan.

As I left the restaurant, it began to rain, and I realized that I forgot all rain- related accessories in my dorm room. A proper Japanese girl would never have done such a thing. In fact, most Japanese women carry an umbrella and a small terrycloth towel they call a “handkerchief,” though it is very different from its western counterpart, at all times to protect from rain and sun. I had neither, not even a raincoat, but I like the rain, so contrary to the social norm, I continued to walk in the rain. Ducking into a small convenience store to buy an ice cream cone,

I looked at a map covered in kanji I do not know, and decided the Edo-era village

(those kanji I can read) was my next move. It was a quarter mile walk to the entrance to Edo Village, and of course, I was soaked by the time I arrived at the gate. As I entered, a family was hurriedly packing themselves into a small car.

They stared, as predicted, and the maternal-looking woman expressed concern about my very wet, umbrella-less state.

As I bought my ticket to enter the preserved historic building complex, the woman behind the counter stared at me, appalled, and asked if I was okay. I

58 smiled and assured her that I was quite all right. The other attendant came over and made a fuss as well. I was sopping, so I imagined I looked a little pathetic, but

I was surprised when one of the women handed me her handkerchief, instructing me to dry off. It was more of what I consider a small towel or washcloth, though in Japan, they are generally used for mopping sweat in summer months or drying one’s hands in public bathrooms. As it is a rather personal item, her gesture and instruction to keep it with me was moving. So far, my day had been filled with many kindnesses from Japanese people. Before I headed off to explore the old buildings, they also insisted on me taking one of their umbrellas. I thanked them over and over again and moved out into the rain. I explored the different buildings, homes of merchants, samurai, and poor farmers from half a millennia ago, and had an encounter with the famous crane that lives in the area. We stared at each other from across a path, and I told him that he should find shelter. The large bird ruffled his feathers at me and stalked away. I learned later that that kind of crane is said to have lived in the town since before people came to use the hot springs over 1300 years ago.

When I completed my tour, I went to return the handkerchief and the umbrella, but the woman shook her head and told me that the o-kyakusama or

“honored customer” could keep the handkerchief. I wondered briefly if it was kindness or fear of the cloth that touched my foreign skin. The attendant came out from her office to hand me a new umbrella. Instead of the one with the town’s name on it, this one was smaller and light blue with polka dots. It was clearly a

59 personal umbrella. I told her I did not want to take her umbrella, but she shook her head and said something I did not quite catch. She used keigo, a special honorific kind of grammar, in addition to some words I did not know. After a few minutes of her exasperatedly repeating herself several times and my asking different questions and trying to give it back because I did not understand, she eventually conveyed to me that the family that was leaving as I arrived left this umbrella for me to use. Finally, the eureka “Oh!” crossed my lips, and she smiled, bowed repeatedly, handed me my new umbrella, and called me O-kyakusama once more, using keigo all the while. I left, still a little perplexed by her language choice, and it was some time before I figure out what exactly she was trying to tell me.

Introduction

In this chapter, I discuss how western foreign students’ language usage, abilities, and perspectives interact with, influence, and are influenced by the different cultural attitudes as discussed in Chapter One. One important distinction lies in the language usage with both other foreigners and natives; I touch on examples with both my subjects and myself in these different scenarios.

I also discuss the different linguistic ways that Japanese natives respond to foreign students in specific cases with both English and Japanese. Language abilities and perceived language abilities, including change of both over time while in Japan, are two important aspects of language usage that affect how foreign students interact with both foreigners and natives. Overarching these

60 numerous intersections of uchi and soto are certain ideas, beliefs, and attitudes that are influenced by personal experience and cultural beliefs about different languages and language usage and acquisition. In the following cases, all of these factors come together to affect foreign students’ perceptions and usage of the

Japanese language.

Classroom Language Usage

While the majority of my work was on out-of-classroom interactions, the language used while in the classroom is equally important in indicating language preferences and attitudes, as well as student and teacher relations. While I was in

Japan, I spent a few days at Daigaku University, where I asked to sit in on an upper-intermediate English class for Japanese students. The class was conducted mostly in Japanese, to my surprise, and was focused on reading, listening and grammar. This is congruous with what I was told by friends at Hokudai, that

Japanese students of English were not taught active language skills, but passive ones. This contrasts with my experiences with Japanese language classes at Ohio

University, in which the instruction focuses on active language skills, like speaking and writing, and the instruction is mostly in Japanese. In the Ohio

University class, informal tenses are used even with the instructor, whereas in the English classroom at Daigaku University, the more formal standard and impersonal form was used. There will be more discussion on formality in a later section.

61 At Hokudai University, the Japanese class in which I was placed was the intermediate class than overlapped with the lower level class. Considering that there were only three Americans in a class comprised of around ten Chinese, five

Korean, one Thai, and one Taiwanese student and that our instructor was

Japanese, I found myself surprised how often English was used. Our instructor used English to explain vocabulary words and answer yes/no questions, so much so that it seemed expected that everyone understood basic English, even though a few Chinese and Koreans students did not. There was also never any expectation that the Americans know another language, and Thai, Korean, and Chinese were never used in class, aside from side comments between fellow speakers.

However, certain pages from the textbook provided translations in Chinese,

English, and Korean, revealing who the publisher thought the most likely to be studying Japanese; my own experiences agree with this supposition.

There was another trend that I noticed in my two fellow American classmates. Both had around a year of prior language instruction, so their

Japanese was very limited, so they often asked questions of the instructor in

English or would use an English word in a Japanese sentence with they expectation that someone would understand them. Even in their journals, they would write certain words in English rather than looking them up. This expectation of being understood in English even in Japan is an Anglo-centric tendency I have noted in many English speakers in many contexts.

62 Language Abilities

As indicated by the past decades of language acquisition research, skill in a language is best increased through immersion practices, immersing oneself and living in the language (Duff 2012). This has been reinforced by commonplace anecdotal evidence, i.e. “I studied abroad in Paris, and now my French is so much better!” University language classes are frequently home to these statements and the evidence to back them up. Immersion is universally agreed upon as being the best method of language acquisition, but for a foreign student in Japan, other factors, such as expressed nationalism in the form of disparagement or discrimination, can have the opposite effect. I will discuss native speakers’ responses to and specific comments on a foreign student’s abilities in a language in a later section, but I will touch on self-perception here.

Experiences with native and foreign speakers of Japanese affect they way that foreign students both enhance their language abilities and perceive them.

Indeed, the self-perception of skill in a language may lead to motivation to improve that skill or detrimental self-consciousness. For my own experiences, I gradually felt my own speaking and listening abilities increase, though I felt heavily reliant on my English-speaking friends for the first two weeks of my travels. Simply because I had native friends whom I could ask as many questions as I wanted, I learned a great deal my first two weeks in Japan.

I still felt very frustrated at times, when I could not understand a person’s slang or grammar or a kanji on the subway map. I recall the turning point for my

63 frustration being when I had a large family style dinner with my friend Yuuki and his family. We all gathered around a table full of different ingredients for sushi, talking, laughing, and drinking. Yuuki and his father got more red-faced and animated the more they drank, and his younger sister and I watched a movie on

TV. As I laughed along with this Nagoya family, I was surprised and pleased at how well I understood and could communicate with everyone around me. When I felt more comfortable with my language skill, I immediately improved and could communicate more effectively. The more insecure I was, the less effectively I communicated.

This same feeling seems to hold true for Bruce, who explained:

I've gotten it in my head that people don't expect me to know any Japanese, so when I speak to someone I don't know, I tend to make a lot of mistakes, and they try to use English anyways, but they are really bad at it so it's almost impossible to have a conversation with someone I don't know. With people I do know, it's fun, they want to talk to me, and I can speak semi-naturally.

Ashley cited the Japanese having to “put up with our broken Japanese,” and Tyler echoed the self-deprecating remarks. Harry said that he communicated successfully sometimes, “even though I know my Japanese was crap compared to my classmates.”

When I arrived at Hokudai, I once again found myself extremely discouraged; there were several Chinese students who were much better at

Japanese than I was. Moreover, the placement test for classes was a writing assignment, the only skill I felt I had not gotten to hone since coming to Japan and the skill I had deemed my weakest years prior. I did not do as well on the

64 placement test as I had hoped I would, putting me in a class that I perceived as being far below my skill level. Because the material was so simple and I felt so discouraged by being placed in the intermediate class, I did not apply myself in the classroom at Hokudai. The difference in language abilities between the near- fluent Chinese students and myself was also a source of angst and frustration during my time at Hokudai, one that affected my learning motivation and abilities.

Language Usage with Foreigners

While studying abroad in Japan, foreigners flocking and commiserating are common, as is exhibited by Ashley’s description of her group of foreign friends as a “bubble of English speakers.” In the next chapter, I discuss group dynamics and identity with groups of foreign students in Japan, but here, I touch on language usage among these student groups as well as with foreigners encountered while in Japan.

After encountering the many Chinese students at Hokudai and my frustration with how they spoke Chinese so often, I bitterly wrote in my journal that I should be learning Chinese instead of Japanese. Some of the Chinese students spoke English, but I did not wish to talk to them in English since we were there to learn Japanese, despite the frequent sounds of Chinese around me.

Those that did not speak English also did not tend to speak Japanese very well, so there were some classmates with whom I could not communicate. Japanese was largely, however, the language I had in common with the other foreign students.

65 The Korean students and the Thai student seemed to be equal in Japanese language abilities with my own, nor did they speak Chinese, and so we formed our own small friend group based on our mutual ignorance of the Chinese language. This is relevant to my discussion of the different groups among foreign students and speech communities formed based on common languages in the next chapter.

Language Usage with Native Speakers

While in Japan, a foreigner is quite obviously going to interact the most with the Japanese. These interactions, as exhibited in the numerous examples in the previous chapter, are diverse and very telling of different perspectives on the presence of foreigners in nationalistic Japan. With friends or strangers, in public or in private, marked by pleasantries or hostilities, not only is what is said and done important, like in the previous chapter, but also how and why it is said and how the hearer interprets the how and the why.

When asked what languages Japanese natives used with them the most, the answers between my subjects varied, though I suspect this is due to the subjectivity of the question. However, what is just as important as the accuracy of their answer is their subjective view. What languages they felt they used and felt that others used with them colors their perceptions even more. I had the following six distinct answers to this question, and based on their answers to prior questions, I was beginning to get a sense of how each subject felt and how

66 they answered accordingly. For example, Bruce’s downtrodden response: “When they actually talk to me? Unfortunately, English. But, with people I know, they use

Japanese.”

Ashley: “Japanese I suppose. Chances are if the person is of high school or college age, they will try and practice their English with you though. There were some older Japanese people who knew English and tried to practice with us, but more often it was younger people. But mostly they had to put up with our broken Japanese.”

Tyler: “Friends would use English. Sometimes when trying to speak in Japanese with them, if I asked them to repeat, they would switch to English, even though I didn't want them to.”

Laura: “Whatever language they want. If they know English, sometimes they practice that, but mostly Japanese, obviously.”

Matt: “Japanese. But, English if they are able. Regardless of your relation with them. They usually make some conscious decision to do conversation in all Japanese, and in my case, test their patience, or throw us a rope and use the English they’ve studied so much in school. Otherwise, they seem to try hard to understand my broken Japanese and help us when needed.

Harry: “English because it was much easier for me to talk casually in English than in Japanese. Also, I’m ashamed to say, but most of my friends there had good knowledge of English, and it was hard for me to become good friends with people who only spoke Japanese because my Japanese was mostly utilitarian.”

Each perspective displays a different attitude about how each subject was spoken to, whether frustration, humility, or numerous combinations of complex feelings.

Cues in each response allow us to see how which language was used with each subject altered their perception of themselves and of the Japanese natives with whom they interacted.

67 Language Usage with Natives: English

Much to my surprise, as well as both my secret relief and disappointment,

English was everywhere in Japan, at least visually, most especially in the large cities. In Tokyo, the train signs were also in English, making adjusting to Japanese transportation much easier. It was on clothing, store names, billboards, and in the most unexpected of places. Its presence was not even particularly utilitarian at times; most companies just used Latin letters for their names and even in slogans.

Though this variety of English often did not make sense, such the café/grocery called “Bigot,” I was surprised at how common Latin script was and how everyone could read it, at the very least. In Japanese schools, students begin learning reading and writing in English in middle school, so many people in Japan have a very basic knowledge of and exposure to English.

For some children, thanks to Japanese-American relations and the spread of English as the current lingua franca, their exposure to English happens much earlier. While studying at Hokudai, the two American male students and I were pulled aside by Justin, the program coordinator and asked if we would like to read English story books to children at the local library’s monthly English story day. We all agreed enthusiastically and practiced together. I read Eric Carle’s

“Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?” and had the children call back the names of animals and colors, and I was surprised at how many knew some of the words already. At the end, I found my self surrounded by many Japanese little girls all staring at my bright, curly hair.

68 While I am sure they meant to be accommodating, the expectation that western students would want to speak English and be able to speak only English was overwhelming at times. While at judo practice, the sensei pointed at a boy and said, “Go talk to Aki, he speaks English,” though I had been holding conversations in Japanese. Based on my own experiences and the experience of other foreigners in Japan, it is common practice for a Japanese person to insist on speaking English to accommodate the foreigner or directing the foreigner to an

English-speaker. This even happened on the university level, such as my application to the Hokudai Japanese Language Program, wherein I was instructed to write my statement of purpose in English, despite the form saying I had the option of either language. I was told that because I was American, I was expected to respond in English. For Bruce, this manifested itself in a more comical way; when he was on the train, he turned to ask a question of the man next to him.

Bruce says the man panicked and exclaimed, “I no English!” even though Bruce had asked the question in Japanese. With both myself and my subjects, some

Japanese speakers of English approach foreigners to practice the English they have been studying so long, since a chance to converse with a native speaker is rare. My Okinawan friends asked to practice English with me at one point, though they quickly gave up. Their comprehension was good, but they had never gotten to practice actually speaking the language in all their years of studying. With native friends that speak English, bilingual conversations are probably the most common form of communication, at least among university friends. When Eiki,

69 my friend and guide in Tokyo, and his mother invited me over for a traditional

Japanese dinner, I spent the night speaking equally in both English and Japanese with Mrs. Wakamatsu.

Language Usage with Natives: Japanese

Being in an immersive linguistic environment can be overwhelming, and the constant presence of a language to which you have not yet adjusted is intimidating. However, complete immersion situations also push students outside their comfort zones and obviously cause them to speak the language much more often with many more people. The different kinds of interactions carried out in Japanese with Japanese natives are predictably more common than those in English and vary greatly. These interactions are also more routine and ritualized, such as buying groceries or asking a bus driver a question. The question Yuuki’s family posed when they asked about my experiences in Japan so far featured an especially interesting word choice. His mother asked if there was

“anything scary” I had encountered, as though they expected their country would be too different for me.

During my exploration of Kanazawa, I stopped in a kimono shop on a whim and had a little trouble communicating what I was looking for because I did not know any clothes shopping words. The shop attendants were very helpful, but it was very clear that they were very uncomfortable because of the communication barrier. Kazunari, the rich judo player from Tokyo who showed me around Kanazawa, was not a student of English, forcing me to creatively talk

70 my way around words and grammar that I did not know. He was also eager to teach me lots of slang and different youth culture words, though we had to use the dictionary often because his way of speaking was so informal and masculine, and therefore unfamiliar to me. At the midsummer fireworks, I even experienced

Japanese metalanguage while Misa was talking about the different Japanese dialects and demonstrating them.

Formality in Japanese

Formality is an essential component of understanding relationships and settings in linguistic interactions. As discussed in the first chapter, Irvine qualifies formality as having increased structure, acknowledgement of rank, and consistency in behavior and language conventions (Irvine 2001). In Japanese, there are an incredible number of different levels of formality, all purposed with specific contexts. In the Japanese classroom, the two most common forms are taught: standard polite and standard informal. These two levels of formality are expressed by using neutral formality level nouns and verb conjugations. Keigo, or honorific language is also taught in upper level classes, but is much less common.

Just as in English, native speakers do not explicitly learn all the numerous degrees of formality and informality, but rather, they intuit them when speaking.

Because Japanese is so much more structured in this way, learning these components for a foreign student can be very difficult. Formality in Japanese can have many different meanings, but the two main conveyances of formality are respect, or honoring the person to whom you are speaking, and polite distancing

71 as a means to not get inappropriately personal. As such, a native’s use of formality towards a foreigner can be indicative of their feelings towards them.

Ashley and Tyler both noticed that their friends used informal forms, though most everyone else used standard formal. Laura also expressed that friends she made around her age would ask her not to use polite forms, even if they had just met. This shift from polite to informal is often a marker in Japanese relationships that signals the transition to friendship and intimacy. However, youth language in Japan is undergoing a great change, so this request is less intimate and more of a generational disregard for excessive formality. Bruce was the only one to experience keigo from a peer: “There was this guy at the party we were at, he was using keigo when speaking to me. My first impression was ‘Wow, thanks man,’ but I was also hoping he would relax and just enjoy the party at the same time.”

Matt says that a man four times his age spoke to him in keigo, and he was very embarrassed to have an elder of such venerated status in the Japanese culture speak to him so humbly. According to Japanese culture, the interaction should have been reversed. Matt also gives me an overview of the different kinds of formality that different people used with him during his stay there.

Peers will try –masu [standard polite] form and then judge your skills from there. Then they might start using kudaketago, or broken language, and tamego, same-age language, to show they are more comfortable. Adults are similar, though some, such as teachers, may continue to use masu form to keep distance. Ouch!

72 This usage of formality by the sensei falls under the second conveyance discussed above, and Matt’s perception of this could decrease motivation for language acquisition, following Ohta’s model.

When Addressed/Approached by Native Speakers

Apart from customer service roles, interactions with strangers are limited due to the previously expressed Japanese “shyness” with foreigners, though these interactions can be demonstrate how much Japanese nationalism has affected a person’s attitudes and interests with regards to foreigners. My own experiences are unique, in that being a young American woman traveling alone with some command of the language, I was addressed by strangers on a number of different occasions. While in Yuwaku, I was accosted separately by two elderly couples, and while at the mall, an older man who it would have been appropriate to call ojii-san, or grandpa, started keeping pace with me down the aisle. After several paces, I finally turned to look at him, and he smiled as though he had been waiting for me to look at him. He asked me if I went to Kanazawa University, and I told him no, that I was just here for a summer course at Hokudai. He asked me a few questions, and then left, saying “very charming,” in English.

The most memorable and uncomfortable incident of being addressed by a stranger in a public place was also the most interesting regarding Japanese insecurity and self-conscious politeness. This encounter revealed the culturally appropriate response to having the perhaps unflattering Japanese honne, or true feelings, of their culture exposed by a mentally handicapped person that did not

73 have the filter of tatemae, or public face, opinions, or ideas that are culturally appropriate and maintain wa in social interactions. While on the train in Nagoya, a mentally handicapped person, who I thought to be autistic, was trying to grab a young girl’s dolphin balloon. His caretaker repeatedly stopped and hushed him, but as the handicapped boy turned to protest, he saw me and immediately began shouting and waving his arms. “Gaijin,” he cried, “gaijin, look at the dolphin!” The second the words left his mouth, the atmosphere of the train suddenly changed.

Though everyone on the train appeared to ignore his outburst, the air was tense and uncomfortable; the train was more silent than before and people stared determinedly in any direction that was not ours. Gaijin is not a particularly polite word, nor is calling out to someone like that very polite. I was the only one on the train who did not seem fazed by this, though this is because I do not have

Japanese sensibilities regarding what is polite. In fact, I even turned to smile and wave at the boy, but Yuuki stopped me, shaking his head. As the boy continued with his outburst, I sat and stared at my hands in my lap, cowed by the sheer awkwardness of everyone else.

With customer service workers, such as store clerks, restaurant cashiers and servers, and those passing out pamphlets on sidewalks, the interactions are mandated and of an entirely different nature. In Tokyo, the “pamphlet people” largely ignored me; instead they spoke to Eiki, my native companion. While in restaurants and stores with native friends, even if I asked a question or responded to the service worker’s question in coherent Japanese, they would

74 often turn and address my native friend. Sometimes my native friends would automatically speak for me or order for me, like Yurika and the bus tickets, or

Eiki and my food. Ashley’s experiences contrast with my own: “I guess if we had

Japanese friends, waitresses and clerks would correctly assume it'd be easier to get the order from our Japanese friends than from us. Not that they would ignore us by any means. Often they like to try and talk to us, practice their English if they know any.”

Native Speakers’ Responses to Foreigners Using Japanese

With the variety of responses to foreigners as exhibited above, it should come as no surprise that there are also numerous responses to when a foreigner uses Japanese with any level of skill. As I discussed in my literature review, nationalism lends the Japanese people to think that Japanese is too difficult for foreigners to learn and that it is not a very common language to learn, so surprise is unsurprisingly the most common cited response. When native speakers would say something to me or about me to one of my companions, there was always surprise at my knowledge of the language. At Hokudai in the main academic building, a college-aged boy smiled at me and said, “Konnichiwa,” so I responded in kind. He started and stopped in his tracks, and said “Oh! Shaberu!” which is literally, “Oh! You can speak!”

During his speech at the aforementioned reading contest, a university administrator gave a speech about how all the judges and professors were so surprised and impressed at our skill and how they could not tell if we were

75 foreign or Japanese by our speaking. The praise continued and seemed excessive, but all three judges made the point that we can be better. “Please keep improving your level of Japanese,” and “Everyone do your best!” were common themes as well. When I sat in on the English class at Daigaku University, I said very little in

Japanese and even introduced myself in English to the class, and yet, at the end of the class, the professor thanked me and said, “Your Japanese is very natural.” In fact, the only real criticism of a foreigner’s Japanese (excepting our Japanese instructor, of course) was at the hands of an English professor at Hokudai and was directed at Josh and Dave, the two other American students. The only negative response to my own language skills that I experienced was when I asked a question of the attendant at the bus station. He spoke in very simple, annunciated words, making me feel very stupid.

Ashley says the most common reaction was “Sugoi!” (Wow!), noting that

“The first time you talk with a Japanese person in Japanese, they will probably compliment your Japanese speaking skill, no matter how horrid it is,” she adds with a laugh. Tyler’s sentiments are similar, citing that though his Japanese really is not very good, he was told how good it was. “People are usually surprised I know any Japanese,” says Laura. “When checking out at a store I've had people tell me how good my Japanese is after saying two words to them. A common compliment is also, ‘Your Japanese is good for a foreigner.’” Matt and Harry both cite surprise and acting “amazed,” as well as according compliments. Harry adds,

“You know, things to encourage you.”

76 Language Attitudes

Metalinguistic attitudes that are held by individuals due to culture and personal experience also play a key role in linguistic cues in interactions. Their own experiences as foreign language students in Japan have given my subjects perspective on foreign students in America and the comparative linguistic expectations. As I discussed above, with English being so common, English- speaking foreign students often used English with the expectation of being understood. Harry noticed the same expectation I did, as well as the contrast with

American culture: “Japanese don’t expect you to know perfect Japanese, whereas

Americans typically will expect foreigners to know English.” Matt’s above comment comparing using a little Japanese to writing a book in English is another effective demonstration of different cultural attitudes held about language learners.

Daigaku Focus Group Discussion

In the Daigaku Focus Group, comprised of Boris, Matt, Tyler, and Taylor, we discussed each of the above issues, and I received different answers from each individual, though Tyler and Matt’s statements did not vary much from their individual interviews.

Boris said he used mostly Japanese, especially with his Chinese friends because that was their common language, but that he was spoken to in English.

This happened more so in Tokyo than in Nagoya, since “pretty much every store in Tokyo had a worker with a badge that said ‘I speak English’.” Tyler used mostly

77 English. With her Japanese friends, most of whom were Daigaku students who came to America in years past, Taylor used English, but at parties, she had to use more Japanese. She told a story of getting on a bus where the bus driver was trying to tell them where to sit in English, but could not remember the word

“woman.” When Taylor asked if he meant onna (woman), she said he was very surprised and very complimentary. Matt used a combination, largely because the

Japanese people who could speak English automatically spoke to him in English.

He cited an anecdote of a shopkeeper not letting him speak in Japanese, insisting that he speak in English.

All four at different times talked about the surprise of Japanese people with whom they interacted. Tyler commented that no matter what he said or how little, people “say you’re really good.” With acting Japanese while using the language, Boris said he was told that he “acted very Japanese compared to other

Americans they’ve met” and that he had “good kenson,” which is a basic operating principle of Japanese culture and means being appropriately diminutive for one’s station. Tyler laughed and said that he paid attention not to mess up culturally, and Taylor added that the Japanese seemed happy when the Americans used

Japanese in a Japanese way. Matt told me that he copied those around him and that he would “switch on Japanese mode,” but he felt weird doing it around

Americans. He said that he had to introduce his culturally appropriate behavior at the right time and slowly, and that it startled the Japanese he interacted with if he used proper Japanese etiquette too immediately. He also added that it depended

78 on the person; for example with Japanese college students, it was “not an issue.”

Boris added that he was asked, “Why are you all using -masu form?” (-masu form is the polite grammar form, the form taught in lower-level Japanese classes). The

Japanese students thought they all were being too polite, and so the Americans tried to use the plain, casual form.

One overarching theme is that most of them feel as though they would have like to been pressured to use more Japanese. Tyler specifically stated his frustration at not getting to practice conversational Japanese enough. The foreign students were largely segregated from the Japanese student population, giving them fewer opportunities to practice their Japanese. Moreover, they were often spoken to in English rather than Japanese. Whenever they did speak “even the simplest Japanese phrases,” according to Taylor, they were met with surprise, as though people were surprised the foreigners could speak any Japanese. This was largely agreed upon as being disheartening.

Conclusion

Studying in Japan for my subjects affected how they felt about the language, learning the language, and their own language abilities. These attitudes in turn affect their motivations that then affect language acquisition. In Chapter

One, I discussed the cultural ecological education theory as conceived by John

Ogbu. Drawing on this model, these various factors – the frequency of usage of

Japanese and English in the classroom, language usage among foreign students, language usage with natives, perceptions of language abilities, use of formality,

79 and the national students’ responses to foreign students’ usage of Japanese language – may influence the linguistic performance of foreign students, especially through lack of motivation and absence of perceived reward. We can trace this through analysis of western students’ discussions of how their motivations and aspirations regarding the Japanese immersion language program in Japan were influenced by native speakers’ responses to their linguistic usage.

For example, the case above where I felt incompetent because of how the bus station attendant responded to my use of Japanese was a discouraging moment for my language studies. As mentioned above, Harry interpreted the surprise and seeming amazement of the Japanese people whenever he spoke as being encouraging. Whereas in the focus group discussion, there were those that agreed with my position that the Japanese response to foreigners using the language is almost constant pandering and maximum reward for minimum effort, which is more discouraging than anything.

Moreover, the issues of English in the classroom and general Japanese societal value placed on English, as is seen by the mandated study of English from young age and its presence in everyday life, lead to western foreign students often opting for more English than necessary. Matt sums up these issues aptly.

However, the overhanging presence of English at all times made it impossible to immerse myself without being constantly reminded that I need not try as hard to learn. Also, using a little Japanese seems to be as impressive as if a non-English speaker wrote a book all in English. So the reward is instant, but makes it hard to be motivated.

80 Matt perceived that he was receiving maximum reward for the minimum effort for his Japanese language use and was therefore discouraged from putting more effort into his language acquisition. Positive responses to English usage for native

English speakers also generate less motivation for using Japanese. These perceived social rewards for language usage are analogous with the cultural ecological theory as it occurs in the foreign student’s education. The pervasiveness of English in the classroom means higher perceived reward for

English rather than Japanese, as do lower standards for Japanese mean less effort to obtain reward and therefore, less motivation for language acquisition.

81 Chapter 5 Identity: Sense of Self and Defining the Foreigner Experience

“That” Foreigner: The Origin of Stereotypes

On my fifth day in Japan, I finally left Tokyo for Nagoya and my friends at

Daigaku University after a whirlwind beginning to my trip. I boarded the unreserved car of the bullet train, lugging my painfully large suitcase and looking for a place to put it. The only spot large enough to house my luggage was behind an older, gray-haired gentleman who was speaking loudly with an Australian accent. My gut reaction was reluctance to sit by “that” foreigner, the one that made all the stereotypes seem valid. I was also just adverse to the idea of having to sit next to another old white man, rather than a Japanese native. As I sat down,

I had an immediate realization of my own bias against being near foreigners after only five days in Japan. “Huh, that was fast,” I thought to myself.

He turned to me and introduced himself loudly, prompting stares from all around. The most important rule of public transportation in Japan is consideration, the most crucial of which is being quiet, and he was flouting this with style. I sank into my chair, embarrassed and wishing for this train ride to go as quickly as possible. His name was Ronnie, and he was a British Australian with a younger Southeast Asian wife and an outdated view of marriage and “the

Asians.” He asked me briefly about my travels, then invited me to drink the liquor he had in his bag. I declined, quietly, in the hopes that he would catch on, so he pulled out a deck of cards and started dealing. He taught me to play rummy, and we played cards for nearly the entire two hours of the trip from Tokyo to Nagoya.

82 In his youth, he told me, he was British soldier who worked in the Tower of London as a guard, but then quickly tired of it. In his early twenties, he defected to Australia and now travels all the way around the world every five years. He had short-term memory problems and was astoundingly bad at saying

“arigato,” which is “thank you” and the only phrase he knew in Japanese. When he said it, it sounded more Italian than anything, coming out like “a-ree-gat-ZEE,” which confused me because some of those letters are not even in the word.

When the trolley of food came around, I asked him what he would like for lunch. He said, “Sandwiches,” but only “the good kind, not any weird Asian kinds.”

I rolled my eyes at this comment and asked the trolley attendant what kind of sandwiches she had. She looked wide-eyed at Ronnie and his brash loudness, then responded, and I gave Ronnie his options. I counted out his money for him and paid, handing him his food. When the attendant left, I told him he needed to be quieter because it is very impolite to be otherwise. He complained loudly about Japanese food and manners and the smallness of Japanese things, though he told me he liked a few things about being here. I wondered to myself about his getting himself around the world with little cultural sensitivity and no language experience, while blushing and mouthing the words for “sorry” and “excuse us” to the Japanese passengers whose stares we had attracted. When we parted ways, I felt relief for no longer having to be associated with him, but also concern for his ability to get where he was trying to go. Most of all, I worried about the negative

83 impact he was going to have on the attitudes towards foreigners of everyone he encountered.

Introduction: Attitudes Towards Foreigners

As illustrated by the numerous examples given in the past two chapters, the Japanese attitudes about foreigners are very complex and vary by individual based on exposure and experiences. For example, though her son spent a year in

America and her English is as good as my Japanese, Eiki’s traditional and proper mother still had questions about kokujin, or “black people”; people of African descent are perhaps the least common type of foreigner seen in Japan, and thereby largely remain a mystery to the Japanese people, the biased way kokujin are portrayed in western media notwithstanding.

However, it is not only the ways in which these cultural and individual beliefs manifest themselves in the treatment of and language used with and about foreigners in Japan that is significant to the foreign student experience in Japan; it is the ways in which language usage and treatment of foreigners affect how students see themselves in relation to their surroundings, the people around them, and their country of origin that truly influences their experiences.

Being Foreign in Japan

Because of their differing experiences with regards to treatment and language usage, each of my subjects had a very different perspective on their position in Japan. This was most evident when Ryoya, my host at Daigaku threw a

84 party for me and invited all the foreign students. Comparing notes with other foreign students in such a relaxed setting was one of the most useful things I could have done. For my own part, the general Japanese response to me had started to go to my head. I became very self-conscious about being stared at and conspicuous and felt very hopeless about ever being able to assimilate even a little bit. Among my Japanese peers, I found myself being compared to famous blond people, most commonly Ashley Seyfried and Britney Spears, causing me to wonder if they had a hard time telling westerners apart just as westerners supposedly have a hard time distinguishing Asian faces. My female peers frequently told me I was kawaii, or cute, even if I did not know them and was just walking around the dorm. In class at Hokudai, we were shown a video of foreigners trying to figure out how to open an onigiri, a rice ball. The mocking video made foreigners looks ridiculous and incapable of simple tasks. I was having a great time in Japan, but the constant reminders of my foreignness and my outsider status seemed suffocating at times.

To these kinds of stimuli, everyone reacted differently and internalized certain elements more than others. As far as assimilation and standing out,

Bruce’s melancholy attitude seemed to agree with my own insecurities (“Act

Japanese, why would I want to put any effort into that? I've met foreigners who lived here for forty years people today still treat him the same way they treat me.

Even if I acted Japanese I'm still white, so I'm a gaijin.”), whereas Tyler expected the staring, and he says it never bothered him.

85 Laura’s perspective of foreigners in Japan is unique in that she has traveled to Japan twice, in 2009 and 2012:

If it's more of a touristy place, people are fine with me being with a bunch of Americans. If I'm just walking down the street, people are more hesitant to talk with me if I'm with a bunch of white people. If I'm with my friends that are other study abroad students from China, they are more willing to talk to me. It all depends on what city I am in, and so many more foreigners travel to Japan now, I can't decide if the stereotypes are getting better or worse. The first time I traveled to Japan in 2009, I only saw 10 other foreigners the whole time I was there, which was surprising considering I spend most of my time in Tokyo. I had people coming up to me really excited because [I was] the first American they ever met, but on the flip side, I got comments like, "Look at all the foreigners that are here lately..." The second time I went, there were foreigners everywhere and I was really surprised.

Laura’s perspective is congruous with the expansion of tourism and study abroad programs in Japan. Her statement also shows the conflicting responses to foreigners by native Japanese people, as discussed in Chapter 3.

Hokudai: Group Relations and Dynamics

At Hokudai University, it became apparent to me that relationships between the foreign students were just as important and dynamic as those between foreigners and natives. In the summer language program, there were 34 people: 24 Chinese, five Koreans, three Americans, one Thai, and one Taiwanese student. There were 28 women and six men, of whom three were Korean, two were American, and one was Chinese. When we first arrived at Hokudai, our natural division based on language was made even more exaggerated base don our room assignments in the dorm. There were only five men, so this was not an issue, but the women were divided by floor. The two girls from America (though

86 Yi was Chinese) were placed on the fourth floor, the Taiwanese girl was on the third floor, the Korean girls and the one Thai student were on the second floor, and all the Chinese girls were on the first floor. While we waited to get our keys, we all discussed this situation as being very obvious and very awkward.

Divisions among our group were along similar lines, though most of us spoke Japanese with proficiency. Most of the Chinese students were in the advanced level classes, whereas all the non-Chinese students were in the levels below. In my journal, I note that the only real communication barrier for me was with the Chinese students. Though we all spent lots of time together, hanging out and having fun, most of the Chinese students spoke Chinese to each other most of the time. They spent the most amount of time together, one example of internal bonding and exclusion within an othered group. Some of the Chinese students reached out to non-Chinese speakers regularly, but the Korean, Thai, and

American students bonded as well, forming a group based on Japanese and occasional English usage.

One common occurrence, however, was students from each country doting on me, doing my hair and nails, and giving me presents. In my journal, I credit this to my “token white girl” status, though more accurately, I attribute this to my situation as being even more foreign than the other students; I am not

Asian, making me even more exotic to both them and the Japanese students. One other common theme among foreigner dynamics at Hokudai was the lamenting of those in the summer program that there were so many Chinese students on the

87 Hokudai campus. Hokudai is small, though because of its renowned Japanese language program, there are a few hundred Chinese students on campus. Even the Chinese students in the summer program complained that there were too many Chinese people there. It seemed to affect the authenticity of the experience in their minds, as though the presence of other people from their country made them stand out less and made the whole experience less Japanese. This regular presence of Chinese students at Hokudai also affected the way that the Chinese students were treated as opposed to the rest of us. They were not stared or marveled or even treated very differently from Japanese students. With the similarity in youth cultures and their near fluency, a few of the Chinese girls were even mistaken for Japanese students, making their perspectives on being foreign in Japan vastly different from those of us who stood out.

Meeting Other Foreigners

Encountering other foreigners while in Japan was another type of interaction that was equally interesting. While at the Aeon Mall, I made what I started to call “awkward foreigner eye contact” with a college-aged western man from across the food court. I had found that foreigners would inevitably stare at each other as much as the Japanese would stare at foreigners, though the eye contact would be more prolonged, often with a smile attached. I wrote in my journal, “It’s as though we are constantly looking for other foreigners, desperate to lock eyes with another outsider and smile quietly as if we have been let in on some big secret.” Harry echoed the sentiment of the gaijin connection: “To see

88 another foreigner when I was out was always interesting, and there was always some sort of mutual acceptance amongst gaijin. I got to talk to random French people and some guy from Louisiana when I was out by myself in Nagoya.”

Sometimes, as is the case with my train ride with Ronnie or my placement next to an older American gentleman on the plane ride to Tokyo, I found myself disappointed by the presence of foreigners when I wanted to interact with natives. I discussed this with other foreign students, who agreed that having too many other foreigners around ruined the feeling of being in Japan. Nevertheless, foreigners generally seemed to bond in different ways, exhibiting feelings of commonality and solidarity as a result of othering. While staying with Ryoya, I became close friends with his Australian girlfriend, while we compared notes on being western women in Japan. While at the English-style pub where I received foreigner discounts, I invited an Australian man over to our table simply because he looked lonely and was the only other westerner in the bar. My first night in

Tokyo, I made friends with an Algerian couple because I could speak French to them and order their food in Japanese. In the gym at Hokudai, an older American man interrupted my kickboxing to say, “Hi”; I started, surprised because he was the first American I had seen aside from my two classmates since coming to

Kanazawa. He expressed tiredness and frustration and told me he was going to retire soon. He said he is “ready to get out,” though I am still not sure if he meant out of teaching or Japan. He then invited me to do yoga with him sometime, but I did not see him again.

89 Of course, despite the sense of solidarity, there were also instances of less positive foreigner-to-foreigner feelings, generally born of an unwillingness to be associated with the other party. While on the train from Kyoto, three teenaged

German boys were especially boisterous, making me feel embarrassed and sheepish even to share their hair color. I was perhaps the most bothered by their rudeness because, in their disregard for Japanese manners, they were reinforcing negative foreigner stereotypes based on our most basic association of skin color.

However, there was one case in which the interaction fell under both categories, one that seemed to illustrate perfectly the archetypal American tourist in Japan, at least according to both Japanese and my resulting self- conscious sensibilities. During my last weekend in Japan, the three Korean male students, Dave, and I decided to go out on the town. At our first stop, the St. Louis

Jigger Bar, a name that was written in English though it remained a mystery even to the English speakers, I was having a scotch and a cigarette when I noticed there were four American men at the table across from my companions and me. I knew immediately that they were American because I could hear them speaking above everyone else in the bar, much to my chagrin. They noticed me noticing them and called out to me, and our tables exchanged greetings. I went over to their table in the hopes that they would stop talking loudly across the bar and learned that they were Vinny, Joe, Dale, and Matt from Kentucky, Boston,

Michigan, and Arizona. They were on a business trip visiting their Japanese counterparts, and the Japanese man with them was Imoto, their host and guide. I

90 introduced myself in Japanese, and the whole table expressed surprise because the four Americans did not speak even a little. Imoto told me that he spoke the best English in the office so he was selected to entertain them. I apologized to him for their loudness and manners, but he said he was having fun, though it appeared that he was drunk.

With the revelation that I could speak Japanese, the four Americans asked me a number of questions about why I was there and what I was doing, so I explained my thesis research to them. They then asked me numerous questions about the Japanese culture, as well as my experience as a woman. They told me they think the Japanese do not respect women because the Japanese women seemed so subservient, citing men not holding doors for women. When I asked about their experiences, they said they got stared at often and that they got angry at how stifling the culture was sometimes. They also added that the subservience of people was surprising, but that it made for great customer service. When they left later on in the evening, they encountered another group of Americans they knew, which naturally incited drunkenly raucous greetings and the resulting stares from the whole bar. I sank down into my seat, and Dave laughed awkwardly, responding, “I’m so embarrassed right now.”

Sense of Belonging/Othering

An integral component of the foreign student experience in Japan is the way that the student internalizes their sense of belonging or degree othering. The moment when I felt least like an outsider was my aforementioned family dinner

91 with Yuuki’s family wherein I sensed a turning point in my confidence and my language acquisition. In contrast to the positive relationship between my language and identity is Matt’s description of being ignored in certain situations; he says, “the treatment seemed rude and I felt unwanted in those situations.”

Feeling unwanted by a group of people is certainly not a motivating factor to learn their language.

Of my interviewees and other foreign students I interacted with, Bruce was the most sensitive and the most affected by the way he was treated and his outsider status while studying in Japan. While we talked in our friend’s apartment at Daigaku University, he was quiet and seemed to be what I can only describe as depressed. He was thinner than when I talked to him before he left, and he was quite obviously stressed. He told me the two stories I discussed in

Chapter 3, which were the two most blatant examples of discrimination and negative foreigner experiences. In his interview, his commentary is self-conscious about his foreignness. When I ask if he was ever denied entrance to a place because he was foreign, instead of a simple “No” like the other subjects, he says,

“No, thankfully,” as though he was almost expecting it. His comments and responses to my questions all carried the same theme of self-consciousness and a

“why bother, it won’t matter” attitude.

Reflections on Gender

As it is an important factor of identity in normal circumstances, gender played an important role in both my self-perceived identity and my identity as

92 perceived by the Japanese, which affected how I was treated. Generally, my hair and clothes seemed to attract attention, especially considering the differences in acceptable clothing for women; cleavage was almost nonexistent, though shorts and skirts that were shorter than considered appropriate in America were common, and indeed, it was my cleavage that seemed to attract male attention, no matter how subtle. Among my peers groups, the comments and stares also seemed be largely gender-inspired. My male peers would stare, then nudge each other with comments like “waa” or “wo,” noises that indicate surprise and appreciation much like “whoa” or a wolf whistle in America. This sort of behavior is considered rude and would be much more unlikely to happen if I were

Japanese.

When I went to judo practice, the stares and comments were similar, and sensei added that they were all nervous and going to show off for me. After practice, the judoka Aki offered me a ride home, prompting lots of comments of a sexual nature referring to my breasts and hotel rooms. When I laughed to indicate I understood, a few of the guys looked shocked or mortified. While at the beach, the Japanese and other Asian students, including my friends, make a big fuss when it is revealed that I am wearing a bikini, and while wearing my yukata, or lightweight summer kimono, a taxi driver did a very obvious and very scary double take to look at me while driving around a corner. Jeff, one of my classmates, cited this as being one of the funniest things he has ever seen and laughed about it heartily. During my first few days, Eiki commented that Japanese

93 women want American boyfriends and that Japanese men think American women are sexy, which I hypothesize is related to the prevalence of American media in Japan and the exoticism of foreigners. His statement was reinforced by my numerous experiences like those above. Laura’s comment also supports the

Japanese preference for western women: “Some places I feel more welcome.

There's a club in Tokyo you get in for free and get free drinks if you're a white girl.”

Reflections on Foreigner Appearance and Aesthetics

The exoticism and expressed desirability of western appearances has also greatly affected Japanese aesthetics and the culture of appearance. It is clear that western style has mostly affected Japan’s youth culture via media consumption.

Yuki told me she wanted to dye her hair blond because she thought it was prettier than her black hair. Dyed blonde hair was not particularly common, but it is still a fashionable statement seen in larger cities. Hana lamented her black hair, taking a picture of a strand of both her hair and mine next to each other and posting it to Facebook with the caption describing my beautiful, “gold” hair.

When I told her I wanted black hair when I was little, she and the other girls were shocked.

It is my turned to be shocked when I discover whitening lotion in the bedroom of my host Mina. When I expressed my surprised to her and told her that Americans use tanning lotion, she was also surprised because pale, “white” skin is what is considered attractive in Japan. While I was sitting alone at dinner

94 at Hokudai a few weeks later, watching the news as I often did, I watched a news story about a certain brand of skin whitening lotion being recalled due to common side effects. The whitening agents bleached the skin, and with this particular product, splotching was becoming common. The newsreel showed women with disfigured skin in hospitals, a high price to pay to attain whiteness.

Reflections on Self

Each of their individual experiences with treatment by natives and language usage affect the way foreign students perceive their own identity.

Responses to their foreignness and a comparison of self to Japan’s standards also influence the foreign student’s sense of self and social position in Japan. My own complicated and dynamic sense of self has been discussed over the past three chapters, in examples like the bus attendant who makes me feel stupid, the disappointment I feel when other foreigners are around, the dorm mother who makes me feel like a novelty, the uncomfortable feelings of privilege despite being an obvious outsider, and so on. I write the phrase “pretty nonthreatening for a foreigner” in my journal after my adventure in Yuwaku. Helen, an Australian student at Daigaku University and Ryoya’s girlfriend, told me she sometimes

“feel[s] like a freak.” The previously discussed issues surrounding perception of language abilities also influence the foreign student’s identity and self-worth.

Bruce comments that he internalized the expectation that he did not speak

Japanese, which had an adverse effect on his Japanese abilities. Ashley’s prompted assessment of her ability to “act Japanese” also reveals an inherent

95 comparison of behavior to those around her: “Alright for a gaijin, I suppose. I say

‘sorry’ an awful, and I found myself constantly bowing a bit, and still occasionally catch myself doing it now. At the same time I'm extremely loud and unruly by

Japanese standards. Luckily we aren't held to the same standard Japanese people are!”

Reflections on Country and Countrymen

Despite the distinct othering, there were many instances in which I felt an uncomfortable sense of privilege in being American. There was a constant insistence by my Japanese peers that Americans are “cool” and that I was cool, sexy, and/or cute for being American. The preference for western appearances as exhibited by the bleaching of both hair and skin was overwhelming and even scary at times. Natives asked my opinions about Japan, as though my American perspective on their entire country was important, and my American-ness was exploited by people and a university for their own social and economic gain. My novelty and apparent elevated position above other foreigners simply because of my American origins was uncomfortable. The preference for English second only to Japanese, especially its usage in the classroom, made me feel a particular advantage born of America’s position in international politics, business, and media. As a result of these different expressed attitudes about America, I felt the weight of America’s position in the world.

Experiences in Japan led other students to reflect on America in a less flattering light. Laura comments, “I honestly don't think Japanese people are any

96 more unfriendly to Americans then Ohioans are to foreigners. If anything, I think

Japanese people hold a strong genuine curiosity in other cultures that Americans tend to lack. Watching late night television in Japan, I found this show that teaches you beginning Arabic. I could not imagine something like this being on public television in America.” Matt echoed this sentiment:

After being in the US for a while, I found striking similarities in the way Americans treat any foreigners. It was not obvious with my group of friends but for a typical xenophobic American, they may neglect foreigners to an even greater extent.

In addition, Harry said, “I felt respected and never looked down upon. Japanese people are typically more friendly towards foreigners than Americans are.” While agreeing that being foreign in Japan is challenging, these students highlighted that it is perhaps more so for foreign students in America. The experience of being othered in a homogenous society enabled these students to empathize with

“outsider” groups, giving them a new awareness of their own identity.

Conclusion

While the treatment and language issues surrounding the western foreign students are important, it is the reflections that these elements of the experience produce that truly define how the student feels about her study abroad experience. The different types of othering treatment or positive feedback to language use affect the way that the student sees himself and his place in the world. For example, the general expressed attitude that foreigners are incapable of learning Japanese coupled with a few interactions made me feel as though

97 foreigners were stupid in the eyes of the Japanese. Bruce’s experiences with harassment and othering quite clearly made him feel like an outsider, and Matt described himself as “feel[ing] unwanted.” The divisions into speech communities also generated a separate identity from individual and foreigner status, and the feeling of kinship with other foreigners is an important impression as well.

Together, these sensations, reflections, and sense of identity shape and define the experiences of the foreign students in Japan.

98 Chapter 6 Conclusion: Implications and Applications

Review

In recent years, an increasing number of foreign students have been engaging in language and cultural immersion programs in Japan, raising issues of cross-cultural contact and exchange. Japan's enduring cultural nationalism produces an ethnocentric valuation of homogeneity, thereby affecting the ways in which Japanese natives engage with and respond to these students. In my six week study, I interviewed, participated, and observed interactions between western foreign students and native Japanese people while answering the questions of how the cultural and linguistic manifestations of nationalism affect interactions between Japanese natives and foreign students and how the foreign students’ status as “other” affects their identity, behavior, social activity, and language usage.

The different types of treatment received by foreign students are indications of nationalistic values in the Japanese communities in which they study because these types of treatment are unique those of gaijin and other soto groups, as well as sub-categories such as western foreigner or female foreigner.

As a result, these passive expressions of nationalistic values affect the students’

Japanese language acquisition and usage, as well as their self-perceptions of social status and language abilities. The specific languages and types of languages used by the Japanese natives communicate these cultural values and attitudes,

99 and the students’ perceptions of these linguistic devices affect their acquisition of the Japanese language.

Theoretical Constructs

The following theoretical frameworks within linguistic and cultural anthropology are the most crucial to my analysis and argument. The concept of speech communities, or “communities of practice,” is central to the study of linguistic anthropology and indicates a group of individuals that interact within the social and linguistic boundaries that separate them as a unit. Speech communities are defined by languages and types of language used, as well as linguistic beliefs (Gumperz 1996). Irvine’s discussion on the characteristics and functions of formality are also useful, because in Japanese, formality serves the purpose of Ahearn’s indexicality of language in that the use of formal and honorific language is indexical of the social relationship of the interlocutors.

Ohta’s theory on second language acquisition and social interactions also informs my work. She posits that language acquisition happens via positive social motivation and regular practice with native speakers, thereby asserting that linguistic routines are internalized through social life (Ohta 2001). Ogbu’s cultural ecological education theory is the educational component of the same idea: that external forces affect a language learner’s motivation and that a lack of motivation leads to less effort towards language acquisition and usage. In education, these external forces include educational policies and practices, community values, and perceived rewards (Ogbu 1998). In Japan, these models

100 apply to the minority population of foreign students in an environment ruled by influences of the majority’s community beliefs and values. The perceived rewards by the foreign students as a result of the different treatments and language types affect their acquisition of Japanese and thereby, the effectiveness of the study abroad program.

Treatment of Foreign Students

The treatments received by my subjects and me were diverse in the intensity with which cultural attitudes were demonstrated. Staring, special treatment, exploitation, ignoring, harassment and segregation are examples of the types of treatment enacted upon foreign students that are indicative of nationalistic cultural values. Staring is the most common response to foreigners and passive expression of othering, and ignoring is another common means of passive discrimination. Extra assistance or special treatment can be preferential treatment of certain foreigners or indication of viewing foreigners as hapless.

Exploitation of a foreigner’s outsider status occurs when their “token” foreigner status is used to the advantage of individual or institution. Harassment is a direct assertion of outsider status, and segregation is the physical demonstration of social othering. Primordialism also affects preferential treatment of foreign students because western students are perceived as “more foreign” than their

Asian peers (Geertz 1973). As informed by the theories above, the treatments described and the cultural values they implicate have an impact of the students’ acquisition and usage of the Japanese language, as well as their identities.

101 Linguistic Factors

The languages and types of language used are indexical of relationships and express one’s social positioning. In the case of foreign students, use of formality, exclusive use of English, or shock towards a student’s use of Japanese can be indexical of outsider status or uchi/soto associations. These assertions of outsider status also reify the boundaries of the foreign students’ speech communities. Formality in the Japanese language is a tool of indexicality to mark social relationships and hierarchy. In the aforementioned cases, my subjects perceived the intentional use of formality or honorific language by peers and instructors as a means of social distancing, which can be perceived as negative social feedback that discourages language acquisition motivation according to

Ohta’s model. Japanese natives responding with surprise and amazement at simple Japanese usage by foreigner students is another such occasion. Moreover, students’ perceptions of their language abilities are affected by these kinds of responses, making the students self-conscious and less motivated.

In the classroom, Ogbu’s model is relevant to the use of English in the classroom and among foreign students as lingua franca. In conjunction with the surprised type of response to language usage, this cultural value and presence of

English causes the perceived reward for foreign students of Japanese for mastery of Japanese to decrease. The creation of speech communities of foreign students also presents a problem for the acquisition of Japanese. Codeswitching and mixing are identity-building devices, as well as community defining ones. Speech

102 communities of foreign students are further divided by code-mixing in groups that share at least two languages (English speakers or Chinese speakers), whereas codeswitching is used to bring the different linguistic groups together to form one Japanese-speaking speech community of foreign students. However, in these often tightly-knit social groups that are defined by shared patterns of linguistic codeswitching and code-mixing, members of such speech communities do not acquire sufficient Japanese language skills to maintain relationships with individuals outside of the speech community itself – thereby decreasing motivations for Japanese linguistic performance.

Finale

The experiences of the foreign students that attend Japanese universities in order to study the Japanese language and their language acquisition are defined by the treatment that is unique to the “othered” group. This treatment, as well as the different linguistic encounters, affects their language acquisition due to lack of motivation and perceived reward. Following Ohta’s model for social interaction and language learning, negative social feedback because of their

“outsider” status leads to less cognitive connections and internalization of linguistic routines. Using Ogbu’s model in the classroom, uses of English and students’ perceptions of natives’ feedback create lack of perceived reward and resulting lack of motivation for effort towards language learning in the classroom. Moreover, as a result of segregation and general othering, foreign students are often pressured to form speech communities as defined by their

103 foreign status and divided further by common languages, affecting the frequency of Japanese language usage and resulting acquisition.

Implications and Applications: Moving Forward

The different events and corresponding applicable theories are not unique to Japan. Indeed, they are a microcosm of overarching study abroad issues on an international level, and these findings in Japan have implications and applications for foreign student education. One key element of changing the international student experience is understanding these issues in the context of practice theory, which is the paradox of the relationship between language, culture, and society as discussed in Chapter One. Practice theory focuses on the evolution of socio-cultural ideas and systems based on human agency via language. This comes into play with study abroad reform largely with regards to awareness of the communities and universities hosting foreign students, as well as the intentionality of the instructors in the classroom with language usage and the actual structure of study abroad programs. By altering the policies and practices of these study abroad language programs and creating awareness and intentionality in the instructors and larger university community, both the foreign student experience and the effectiveness of the language program can be improved.

104 Appendix A Terms and Definitions

BOPJC: Basic Operating Principle of Japanese Culture

Dokaseisaku: assimilation policies

-dono: female honorific ending (e.g. Scott-dono)

Gaijin: shortened form of gaikokujin, literally “outside person”

Gaikokujin: foreigner, literally “outside country person”

Haragei: The process of expressing one’s honne through tatemae and other non-

verbal means

Honne: true feelings, independent of culturally appropriate opinions

Imin: immigrant, not very widely used

Iminzoku: different race; different ethnic group; different peoples

Jinjyuu: race

Jinjyuusabetsu: racial discrimination

Keigo: A general term for honorific language

Kenjyougo: “Modest/Humble Language,” when speaking about oneself

Kokkei: ethnicity, country of origin

Kokumin: national people

O-cha: Japanese green tea

O-kyaku-sama: honored customer

Onsen: hot springs

-sama: honorific ending

105 -san: standard Japanese honorific suffix, placed after the name when speaking to

or about a person; the equivalent of Mr., Mrs., or Miss but more commonly

used

Sonkeigo: “Reverent Language,” used when speaking about others

Tatami: traditional straw mats, flooring

Tatemae: public face, opinions or ideas that are culturally appropriate and

maintain wa in social interactions

Teijusha: newcomers, settlers

Tokubetsu eijusha: old comers, Korean/Chinese nationals, special permanent

residents

Uchi/Soto: inside/outside

Important BOPJC, according to Chris Thompson; Japanese society is

characterized by division of inside and outside on many levels, such as

national (foreigners are soto), prefectural, community, company, and

social group

Wa: harmony, balance

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