When the first group of potential nurses and caregivers arrived from Indonesia on Aug. 7 as part of a new economic partnership agreement (EPA) with Japan, the numbers were confusing. According to the agreement, Japan would accept 500 workers in the first year and facilities throughout Japan said they wanted to hire a total of 400. But Indonesia managed to solicit about 300, and only 200 arrived at Narita Airport.

A Yomiuri Shimbun article stated that one of the reasons for the lower head count was that more than half the applicants who passed the tests required for selection were men, and at least 66 of them were unable to secure employment with hospitals or nursing care facilities in Japan before the departure date. In Japan, male nurses are not much in demand.

Apparently, they aren't considered as photogenic as female nurses, either. Forty percent of the arriving Indonesians were men, but TV reporters who met the group at the airport talked to the women. Print media published comments from both genders, but the photographs only showed females. Maybe it's reading too much into the coverage, but the visual emphasis on the feminine, not to mention the repeated use of adjectives like "kind," "cheerful," and the ubiquitous "smiling" to describe these women, conveyed the impression that they were Florence Nightingales coming to Japan with the purest charitable intentions to comfort its aging population.