The number of foreign residents in Japan recently surpassed the 3 million-mark. What does that mean for the Japanese corporations hiring them? Might they get an influx of new ideas and skilled employees? Consultant Rochelle Kopp joins us to discuss the sought-after “agent of change” and Anika Osaki Exum updates us on government plans to boost the number of foreign exchange students.

Hosted by Shaun McKenna and produced by Dave Cortez.

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Shaun McKenna: Articles | Twitter | Instagram

Anika Osaki Exum: Articles | Twitter

Rochelle Kopp: Articles | Twitter

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Transcript note: Deep Dive is made to be listened to, and we recommend this transcript be used as an accompaniment to the episode. This transcript has been generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcription, and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the episode.

Shaun McKenna  00:08  

Hello and welcome to Deep Dive from The Japan Times, I'm Shaun McKenna. 

Well, another hanami season has come to a close in Japan. And if you were in Tokyo for it, you'll likely have noticed a considerable increase in the amount of international tourists taking part. And tourism levels aren't the only thing that's up. Two weeks ago, it was announced that the number of foreign residents in the country rose 11.4% From a year earlier, hitting a record high of 3,075,213 people. According to the Immigration Services Agency, that total included around 760,000 people from China, the largest group by nationality, 490,000 individuals from Vietnam, and 411,000 from South Korea. While Japan has a reputation for being reluctant on immigration, these numbers show that people are still keen on coming here. And in doing so they're going to have to find jobs and they'll experience Japanese work culture firsthand. That's where Rochelle Kopp comes in. She works with Japanese businesses here to advise them on Western work culture and vice versa. And she writes a column for The Japan Times on issues non-Japanese employees face in Japanese workplaces. Before speaking with her though, I'll talk to community reporter Annika Osaki Exum. About a new push the Japanese government is proposing to boost the number of inbound and outbound foreign exchange students.

Anika Welcome to Deep Dive.

Anika Osaki Exum  01:39  

Hey Shaun, thank you for having me.

Shaun McKenna  01:41  Last week you wrote an article titled “Japan makes a renewed push to internationalize higher education.” What is this push that the government is proposing?

Anika Osaki Exum  01:49  

So the bottom line is that the government wants to increase international educational exchange. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that the goal is to ultimately attract 400,000 students from overseas and then send 500,000 Japanese students abroad for study annually.

Shaun McKenna 02:07  

Yeah, this is part of Kishida’s “new capitalism” campaign, which hasn't been a huge success, at least in the sense that he first wanted to focus on wealth redistribution but shifted to concentrating on growth after some negative reaction. However, the growth strategy includes things like promoting decarbonization, supporting startups and investing in human resources. So where does this push for more student exchange fit in?

Anika Osaki Exum  02:31  

So I think all of this falls into that last point, right, of investing in human resources.

Shaun McKenna  02:36  

OK, so the goals that the government has set out, how do the numbers compared to previous years?

Anika Osaki Exum  02:41  

Yeah, so the number of inbound students was increasing steadily, pretty much until 2019, when it hit around 319,000 students, which was one of the outcomes of a 300,000-student goal the government set in 2003. But in terms of outbound students — that's Japanese students going overseas — the total number was a bit over 115,000 in 2018, down to roughly 107,000 in 2019, and then, of course, it shot way down in 2020 with the pandemic, hitting around 1,400 students. Now, the government wants to prioritize drawing and dispatching students who want to study for a longer term and in regard to foreign students maybe even stay in Japan for a while after graduating. But when it comes to Japanese students or outbound students, the reality is the numbers are pretty low. When it comes to those studying abroad for longer periods of time. The number of long-term outbound students had been on the decline going from 80,000 in the early 2000s, to around 60,000. In 2012, that number had plateaued, pretty much leading up to 2019. And even like right before the pandemic, it said that around 70% of outbound students studied abroad for less than a month. And then of course, again, the pandemic saw travel halted both ways. And for both outbound and inbound students, the numbers were super low as the pandemic hit.

Shaun McKenna  04:05  

Right, so travel was halted and Japan's border restrictions held out longer than most countries, which upset inbound foreign students and the community of educators more generally, is that correct?

Anika Osaki Exum  04:19 

Yeah, correct. I spoke to Hillary Holbrow, an assistant professor of Japanese politics and society at Indiana University, and she emphasized the fact that there was pretty heavy criticism of Japan during the pandemic. A lot of inbound students even started giving up on plans to study here and chose other countries as alternatives. So this new proposal is the government's push to get them back.

Shaun McKenna  04:41  

You also spoke to Hiroshi Ota, a professor of international education at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, and he worked on previous government pushes to increase the number of foreign students here. What did he have to say about this announcement?

Anika Osaki Exum  04:55  

Yeah, so professor Ota was pretty skeptical as to why the government chose these no numbers and how they would accomplish these goals. His main criticism was that he didn't see any of the groundwork done in order to come up with those numbers, at least not publicly. He was part of the process for the previous 300,000-student goal for which he said rationale and planning was crucial. I won't get into all that he said was part of the planning there back then, because we're on a schedule today. But from his experience back then he said he would like to see a similar macro approach to these goals. So that means not just focusing on the education front but also on other systems that will be at play like business and employment as well as social and cultural systems that students will inevitably have to deal with outside of school both in Japan and abroad. 

He also said that getting to 500,000 Japanese students is a tough task, especially while a recent government figure said over 60% of Japanese high school students don't want to study abroad. Something he brought to me as a point of consideration, just as a way of looking at things, was that just under 800,000 babies were born in Japan in 2022. So in order to hit 500,000 Japanese students going abroad, this would mean that over half of the kids born last year would be studying abroad in some way. And the government's preference would be that the students studied abroad for longer periods of time, which again seems like a tall ask to the professor.

Shaun McKenna  06:20  

What's the reason for this aversion to going overseas to study?

Anika Osaki Exum  06:23  

So according to that initial proposal by the government, the reasons include financial concerns, which is understandable considering how lofty tuition can be in places like where I went to school in the States, and then also concerns about language barriers and missing out on shūkatsu, or the employment process, which is pretty strict and scheduled in Japan.

Shaun McKenna  06:45  

Yeah, shūkatsu is kind of a year-long process that includes multiple job fairs, interviews with companies, and defined dates as to when you need to have these accomplished.

Anika Osaki Exum  06:55  

Yeah, exactly. In my chat with Professor Tetsuo Morishita at Sophia University in Tokyo, he said he's heard these concerns directly from students. But he also added that Japanese students nowadays are pretty comfortable in Japan and for a lot of them, they feel like they don't need to go as far as going abroad in order to be successful here.

Shaun McKenna  07:16  

OK, so they’re more inward looking.

Anika Osaki Exum  07:17  

Yeah, and Professor Ota pretty much on the same page as him adding that unlike his generation, who saw immense growth and abundance, due to the postwar economic boom, this generation of young people have seen years of stagnation, as well as a pandemic, making their hopes pretty practical and small, and he said they're more self-contained. And a lot of them are really just looking for the small happy moments in life.

Shaun McKenna  07:43  

Getting back to inbound students. One long standing issue with that group is that many have said in the past that it was difficult to be able to find jobs here after graduation.

Anika Osaki Exum  07:53  

Yeah, so it looks and sounds like that's been the case, but what these professors told me is that things are getting better not because of any government policy, but just from pure economic need. Professor Holbrook mentioned that 10 years ago, in her field research, it was hard to find anybody willing to hire non-Japanese employees, but increasingly Japanese businesses want to be competitive in a global market. And so they're increasing their hiring of foreigners with varied backgrounds and language abilities.

Shaun McKenna  08:21  

Well, if you want to read more about this topic from Anika, then I'll put a link to her story in the show notes. Anika, thanks very much for coming on Deep Dive.

Anika Osaki Exum  08:28  

Thank you so much for having me.

Shaun McKenna  08:38  

Rochelle Kopp is the Managing Principal at Japan Intercultural Consulting and works with Japanese companies that start operations overseas, and overseas firms that expand into Japan. At the start of 2019, however, she began writing regularly for The Japan Times with advice and explanations on how to deal with Japanese corporate culture as a non-Japanese employee. Rochelle, thank you for joining us today.

Rochelle Kopp  09:01  

Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

Shaun McKenna  09:03  

Rochelle, I've learned a lot from your contributions to the Japan Times about navigating this country's work culture, the pandemic saw you switch your focus to other subjects, as many workers were prevented from coming into Japan. But you're back in the pages this week with an article titled, “Help wanted: The (sleeper) agent of change,” which talks about the recent Big Tech layoffs overseas and how Japan may try to benefit from them. What made you want to write about this?

Rochelle Kopp  09:30  

Well, speaking to the Financial Times, Hitachi chief executive Keith Kojima said that this could be a quote unquote “big opportunity” for Japan to snatch up laid off workers who may want to try living and working in Japan or working for a Japanese company. And you know, Japan is a country that obviously lots of people want to visit here but also a lot of people are interested in living here. My base in the U.S. in Silicon Valley, and a lot of people there are very enamored with Japan. And see it as a place, oh it would be fun to try and live there.

Shaun McKenna  10:02  

OK, so in your piece, actually, you refer to them as “agents of change.” So what do you mean by that?

Rochelle Kopp  10:07  

Well, a lot of Japanese companies now want to be getting into the digital era, and be updating what they're doing, doing more innovation, and they see hiring people from outside Japan as a way to accomplish that goal.

Shaun McKenna  10:24  

OK, you also say that while this idea sounds great coming from a top executive like Kojima, anyone who comes over may find resistance in other areas of the company. Can you explain that a little bit for us?

Rochelle Kopp  10:35  

Oh, certainly. So while the people at the top of the company or in HR might have this great kind of idea in concept of we're going to bring people in, and they're going to spark innovation, well the sparking of innovation often comes from different cultures colliding and that's not always a lot of fun for everybody. And also, the middle management are the people who are gonna be working directly with these new hires. They didn't necessarily ask for anyone to come in and shake up their world, and they might be resistant to that.

Shaun McKenna  11:08  

OK, why wouldn't they want to change in line with the ideas that are coming from above?

Rochelle Kopp  11:13  

Because they're not necessarily getting a clear goal from above of, here's what you need to change. And there's a lot of nervousness, if we do things differently than we've done it before, things might not go well, I might get blamed, I might get in trouble, there might be a problem, there's a lot of nervousness about that.

Shaun McKenna  11:34  

So it can't just be a kind of like, you know, blanket kind of goal that's or a vague goal that someone wants to kind of push on the rest of the company, they kind of, it's up to the top execs to kind of explain this a little bit more to the other people in the company.

Rochelle Kopp  11:48  

Yes, that's true. Unfortunately, I don't see them doing that very often, it often remains at that more vague kind of level.

Shaun McKenna  11:55  

OK, so knowing this in advance, is there anything a prospective agent of change can hammer out in the interview process to try to ensure that they'll be able to do their job when they get here without interference?

Rochelle Kopp  12:08  

Ummm, to be really honest, not really. First of all, are you even interviewing with the actual people that you're going to be working with? A lot of times in Japanese companies, you're not. You're only talking with someone in HR. Also in the interview process, and this is true anywhere, people want to make it sound good. And it's hard to get into the details of how exactly am I going to do my work?

Shaun McKenna  12:30  

OK, so what should those people do then?

Rochelle Kopp  12:33 

Well, just like if you were working for a Western company, you have to understand your corporate culture. And you have to understand the way things are done in that firm. And in Japanese companies that can be a little bit more complicated, because their corporate cultures are going to probably be more different than what you're used to. But you want to understand, how does the company get things done? How do you make a proposal? How do you get buy-in for that proposal? How do you get that proposal adopted? What is it that the company is trying to do? And how can you connect what you're doing to that overall initiative? And how do you sort of create relationships with the right people in order to push things forward?

Shaun McKenna  13:20  

OK, so you kind of explained in the article. OK, so that's the process for making a proposal, learning what themes the company is pursuing, and then kind of knowing who to speak to, and I think you use the term “nemawashi” in your piece. Can you explain what that means? 

Rochelle Kopp  13:35  

Certainly. So nemawashi, is a really interesting term in Japanese business. It's originally from the world of gardening and “ne” is “root” and “mawashi” means “go around.” And it's a technique that's used when transplanting trees. If you just take a tree, and just dig it up all at once, and then dump it in another place in the garden, it's often going to go into shock and die.

Shaun McKenna 14:00

Right.

Rochelle Kopp  14:01  

So Japanese gardeners came up with a technique for working around the roots and sort of clipping them carefully and binding them and getting the tree ready to be moved and doing it over a period of time so it's not so much of a shock. And so in Japanese business, they started to use the term for people who would go and talk to each key decision maker, one on one, and get them on board. So it's like you're going around to the roots of the tree getting the tree ready. You're getting the organization ready.

Shaun McKenna  14:31  

Alright, so nemawashi is a key skill for any agents of change to have if they want to make an impact.

Rochelle Kopp  14:38  

Yes, exactly. And again, it's going to take a little while to do that, but it's absolutely not impossible. And once you figure out the way to get things done in your organization, you can be very effective and you can make things happen. You'll need to also be building up some goodwill and a track record, that people aren't gonna automatically trust you or take your word for things they need to get to know you and you have to build up your credibility. And that's by doing good work, and also building relationships with people.

Shaun McKenna  15:19  

Rochelle, as I mentioned before, you've written a lot of other pieces for the Japan Times on corporate culture in Japan. Some of the ones I can remember off the top of my head were: how to deal with superiors as a non-Japanese woman in a Japanese company, there is one on how to get a raise, and another one on how to deal with a micromanaging boss. And then during the pandemic, you wrote a few pieces on how corporate culture thinking was being applied to how the Japanese government was dealing with the pandemic. It was a lot of good stuff, and people should check them out. But I have a basic question for you. If you're starting a new job in Japan, what's the best thing you can do on your first day?

Rochelle Kopp  15:57  

Well, the usual ritual when you're joining a Japanese company, if you're not part of that fresh college graduate group that starts on April 1, is, you'll be introduced to everyone in your department and sometimes neighboring departments. And I remember when I did this, you know, we were meeting 30-plus people at once, it's kind of overwhelming. But that's your chance to like, get everyone's name down, figure out what they do. If you can, have just exchange a few words with them to kind of find out something about them that will help you remember them. But I remember when it happened to me, and I'm like, “Oh, well, this is just a blur.” And then I was really sorry later that I hadn't paid a little bit more attention. So I would really try and focus on trying to understand who all the players are.

Shaun McKenna  16:43  

OK, so take names. 

Rochelle Kopp  16:46

Or business cards. 

Shaun McKenna  16:47

Or business cards, yeah. What is the most common challenge that non-Japanese employees ask for your help on?

Rochelle Kopp  16:53  

I think probably the biggest issue is communication. And I would say the second issue is decision-making and getting things done. You know and, again, often those are very closely connected to each other as well. 

Shaun McKenna  17:06  

OK, with communication? Can you just expand on that a little bit? 

Rochelle Kopp  17:11  

Well, certainly, well, Japanese communication style tends to be rather indirect. And it also tends to be rather vague. So this means that for people from a lot of other cultures, it's often very difficult to tell, “Was that answer I just got a yes. Or was it a No? Or is it a maybe? Or what should I do?” Deciphering the messages that you're getting can be often challenging.

Shaun McKenna  17:34  

  1. You also work with a lot of Japanese companies who are going overseas. So I'm going to ask that question again. But let's switch the roles around. What is the most common challenge that Japanese businesses have in dealing with a majority non-Japanese workforce?

Rochelle Kopp  17:49  

Well, it's really the mirror image on the communication side. Because for Japanese companies, when they're dealing with non-Japanese employees, they have to be a lot more clear and a lot more explicit about things than they would need to be in Japan. In Japan, there's this idea of, “ichi ieba ju o shiru,” which is if someone tells you 10%, you're going to be able to figure out the other 90%. And Japanese are really good at this, it's, you know, reading between the lines or kūki o yomu (read the air), there's lots of different words for this in Japanese, and it's part of Japanese culture. But for people from a lot of other cultures, if you want us to know all 10, you have to say all 10. And so for Japanese, so many times when they go outside Japan, they tell me, “Oh, well, they didn't get what I was trying to say.” And then often they realize, well, maybe I wasn't clear enough. And sometimes I help them to realize that that's what the issue was. But learning to put more things into words, rather than having it be an implicit assumption, that's often a big challenge for Japanese because it's not something that they need to do in Japan. So it's not a skill that they build in Japan. Also, they're usually doing it in English, so they're doing it in their second language where you're going to be more limited in your communication ability. So it's kind of a double whammy there. 

Shaun McKenna  19:08  

Oh, interesting. Finally, if you're living and working in Japan, then before long you're going to get involved in the community. And you've picked up a side issue that you're working on regarding trees being cut down in Tokyo. Do you want to tell us a bit more about that?

Rochelle Kopp  19:22  

So I've become a tree hugger in my spare time. And I've been working to call for revision of the redevelopment plan of Jingu Gaien. So Jingu Gaien is the large park area that's next to the new National Stadium and it has the Jingu Stadium, baseball stadium, it has the Chichibu Nomiya Rugby Stadium. It has a second baseball stadium/golf practice center, batting domes, indoor ball courts, some cafes… It has a famous four rows of gingko trees and also lots of other trees all over the grounds, and also softball fields. So it's a kind of a big sports/nature complex. And there is a development plan to tear down the both stadiums, switch their locations, the only reason for switching the locations is to make room for high-rise buildings, which are going to be hotels and office buildings, sort of very much a profit-oriented development and thousands of trees are going to be chopped down. And this is just such a terrible plan that was developed in dark, smoky rooms without any public participation. And the more you learn about it, the more just, just awful it is basically.

Shaun McKenna  20:40 

Right, you managed to get the support of a very famous ally on the topic last week, that was musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, who also, we just found out, passed away in late March. That news broke earlier this week. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe his involvement in this or other people's support that you're getting?

Rochelle Kopp  21:01  

Oh, certainly. So let me talk a little bit about Sakamoto-san, so he, obviously he's a famous composer and musician, and much beloved in Japan. And he has for years been involved in social issues, and environmental issues. And in fact, he's the daihyō, which would be sort of the nominal head of a NPO that's devoted to increasing the number of trees. So trees have been an interest of his for a long time. So in March, he wrote a letter to Yuriko Koike, to the head of the Education Ministry…

Shaun McKenna  21:35 

So Yuriko Koike is Tokyo's governor. 

Rochelle Kopp  21:38 

Yes, Tokyo's governor, the head of the Education Ministry, the head of the national Transportation Ministry, and to the heads of Shinjuku and Minato wards. And so these are all different government entities that have some role in the approval process, or some say over the development. And so he wrote a letter to all of them with a very similar sentiment to the petition that I started saying that this is a development project that has not had sufficient public input, that is destroying historical structures, destroying too much nature, there ought to be a different way to update this area that's not so destructive to history. And calling on Gov. Koike to show her leadership in this area. And so that gained a lot of attention in the Japanese press, because he has such a beloved figure. And he kind of even when he made the statement, he said, “You know, I'm too weak to even make music anymore. I'm not in good shape. But I felt like I had to say this, or I would regret not having tried to do something.” So, he passed away and a lot of people said, “Wow, well, this was basically his dying wish.” And people are, again, paying a lot of attention to this. And you know, I have to think he did that on purpose. I think he was very ill and I think he knew he didn't have much time left. And, again, he had throughout his life tried to make his impact on various issues. And there's a quote that I saw of him that he had said, at one point, “If I don't speak out, I feel stressed. I feel like I need to raise my voice on things.” So that was a big kind of part of his personality. And he did that on this as well.

Shaun McKenna  23:33  

Yeah, he'll definitely be missed. If people want to find out more about this project, where's the best place for them to go?

Rochelle Kopp  23:40  

Let's see. So you can always catch me on social media. I'm on Twitter at @JapanIntercult, which is an abbreviation for Japan Intercultural, my company. You can get me on FaceBook or LinkedIn. Also, I have a petition on change.org for opposing the Jingu Gaien redevelopment plan.

Shaun McKenna  23:59  

OK, we'll put those links into the show notes. Rochelle Kopp thanks very much for coming back to Deep Dive.

Rochelle Kopp  24:05  

OK, thank you.

Shaun McKenna  24:07  

Thanks again to Rochelle and Anika for joining me on Deep Dive. I'll put links to their articles and socials in the show notes. Elsewhere in The Japan Times this week, we mentioned in the chat with Rochelle, but this week we learned that the passing of Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra fame, he was also the first Japanese musician to win an Oscar for his work on the 1989 film “The Last Emperor.” Culture writer James Hadfield has written a fantastic tribute titled “The unyielding spirit of Ryuichi Sakamoto.” I definitely recommend checking it out. And Sakamoto’s passing comes only a few months after the death of his YMO bandmate, Yukihiro Takahashi. Their collective work inspired everything from Japanese pop and indie to New York hip-hop and Detroit techno. They'll truly be missed. 

And Kazuaki Nagata has written a piece on how Japanese companies are grappling with ChatGPT, the AI chatbot that some are praising as a revolution in the way we do business and others fear could bring about the end of humanity. It's definitely worth reading up on these AI services, you can find tons of pieces on japantimes.co.jp. 

If you've enjoyed this week's episode, please be sure to tell a friend and leave us a rating or review on whatever podcasting platform you use. Both those things will help others find the show. Production for Deep Dive is by Dave Cortez, our intern is Natalia Makohon, the outgoing song was written and produced by Oscar Boyd, and our theme song is by the Japanese musician LLLL. Until next time, I'm Shaun McKenna, podtsukaresama.