Home, sweet home

家乡,甜蜜的家乡

Few young Japanese want to study or work abroad

很少有日本年轻人愿意出国学习或工作

With unemployment low, there is little professional advantage in doing so

在失业率很低的情况下，这样做在职业上几乎没有优势

Feb 6th 2021 | TOKYO

 

SAITO CHIHIRO and Saito Seika have a lot in common: they are twins. Now 26, they grew up together in northern Tokyo. They share many interests, including a passion for Hollywood films. But their paths diverged when Chihiro moved to Hungary to study medicine, and Seika enrolled in a Japanese university to pursue art. “I was always interested in the outside world,” Chihiro says. Her sister, too, considered studying overseas, but ultimately abandoned the idea. “I could learn a lot of things in Japan,” says Seika. “And I wasn’t sure if I could actually live abroad.”

SAITO CHIHIRO和SAITO Seika有很多共同点:她们是双胞胎。今年26岁的她们一起在东京北部长大。她们有许多共同的兴趣，包括对好莱坞电影的热爱。但当Chihiro去匈牙利学医，Seika 进入日本一所大学学习艺术时，她们的道路出现了分歧。Chihiro 说:“我一直对外面的世界很感兴趣。”她的姐姐也曾考虑过出国留学，但最终放弃了这个想法。“我可以在日本学到很多东西，”Seika说。“我不确定我是否真的能在国外生活。”

 

The rise of “inward-looking youth”, with little interest in venturing outside Japan, has caused consternation among Japanese journalists, policymakers and business leaders in recent years. Only 4% of all university students study overseas, says the education ministry. Another government survey from 2019 found that just a third of young Japanese want to study abroad, compared with 66% of South Koreans and 51% of Germans. The Japanese are equally lukewarm about working overseas. A survey by Sanno University in 2017 found that 60% of young employees did not want to work in other countries, up from 36% a decade beforehand.

近年来，“内向型青年”(不愿在日本以外地区冒险)的崛起，在日本记者、政策制定者和商业领袖中引起了恐慌。教育部表示，只有4%的大学生出国留学。2019年的另一项政府调查发现，只有三分之一的日本年轻人希望出国留学，而韩国和德国的这一比例分别为66%和51%。日本人对在海外工作同样漠不关心。Sanno University 2017年的一项调查发现，60%的年轻员工不想在其她国家工作，10年前这一比例为36%。

词汇

 education ministry/教育部

Lukewarm/冷淡的；微温的；不够热心的

  

This inward shift marks a departure. From the late 1980s to early 2000s, the number of Japanese seeking degrees overseas soared. A strong yen allowed many to study abroad without scholarships or loans. Japan’s biggest banks shipped out hundreds of their employees each year to business schools in America. “There were dozens of us Japanese in the same classroom at Harvard,” reminisces Hiraga Tomikazu of Osaka Seikei University, who attended Harvard Business School. “We would study together and share our notes, so we could all pass the course.”

这种向内的转变标志着一种背离。从上世纪80年代末到本世纪初，日本赴海外攻读学位的人数飙升。日元走强使得许多人可以在没有奖学金或贷款的情况下出国留学。日本最大的几家银行每年都将数百名员工送往美国的商学院。“在哈佛，我们几十个日本人在同一个教室里，”曾就读于哈佛商学院的大阪精池大学(Osaka Seikei University)的Hiraga Tomikazu回忆道。“我们会一起学习，分享笔记，这样我们就都能通过这门课程。”

词汇

Departure/背离；违反；逾越

 

Today Chinese and Indian students abroad far outnumber Japanese. That is partly because of Japan’s strong labour market. The unemployment rate hovered below 3% for the three years until the covid-19 pandemic began, when working or studying overseas became impractical anyway. With new graduates easily finding jobs in Japan, there is “little merit” in studying or working abroad, says Yonezawa Akiyoshi of Tohoku University: “In a way, the Japanese labour structure does not discriminate based on academic background.” At any rate remuneration for those with degrees from foreign institutions is little different from that of colleagues who studied at home.

今天，中国和印度留学生的数量远远超过日本留学生。部分原因是日本强劲的劳动力市场。在新冠病毒大流行爆发前的三年里，失业率一直徘徊在3%以下，当时在海外工作或留学变得不切实际。日本东北大学(Tohoku University)的Yonezawa Akiyoshi表示，由于应届毕业生在日本很容易找到工作，出国留学或工作“没什么好处”:“在某种程度上，日本的劳动结构并不因学术背景而歧视。“无论如何，拥有外国学位的人的薪酬与在国内学习的同事几乎没有什么不同。

词汇

 Hover/盘旋，翱翔；徘徊

remuneration /报酬；酬劳

 

 

By the same token, experience of working abroad is seldom rewarded. Many firms instead prize “Japaneseness” among their employees, laments Kato Etsuko of the International Christian University in Tokyo. Experience abroad no longer seems to increase the chances of promotion. Employees who rotate around offices in Japan, as opposed to foreign branches, may even get promoted faster.

同样，在国外工作的经验也很少得到回报。东京国际基督教大学(International Christian University in Tokyo)的Kato Etsuko哀叹道，许多公司反而看重员工的“日本性”。国外经历似乎不再增加晋升的机会。与海外分支机构不同，在日本办公室轮换的员工甚至可能升职更快。

 

A crippling fear of the outside world deters some young people from going abroad. Many cite their “English allergy”—a shyness about speaking English or other languages—as a reason for their insularity. Their anxiety is not entirely baseless: the Japanese rank low in the index of proficiency in English compiled by EF, a firm that specialises in language instruction and educational exchanges, behind their neighbours from South Korea. Seika, the artist, was apprehensive about studying in a different language. “I wasn’t as confident with my English skills as Chihiro was,” she says. It does not help that Japan is one of the most convenient and safest countries in the world.

对外面世界的极度恐惧使一些年轻人不敢出国。许多人将她们的“英语过敏”——羞于说英语或其她语言——作为她们偏狭的原因。她们的焦虑并非毫无根据:在英孚教育(一家专门从事语言教学和教育交流的公司)编制的英语熟练度指数中，日本人的排名很低，排在她们的邻国韩国之后。艺术家Seika(开篇提及的姐妹之一）对用另一种语言学习感到忧虑。她说:“我对自己的英语水平不像Chihiro 那样有信心。”日本是世界上最方便、最安全的国家之一，这也于事无补。

词汇

 Insularity/（思想、观点等）偏狭;岛国状态

 

The growing insularity is awkward for the government, which is eager to play a more active role on the international stage. “Japan is falling behind and hasn’t even noticed its decline,” says Mr Hiraga, who believes that the country’s influence is waning in Asia and beyond. For firms, too, the scarcity of cosmopolitan young hires impedes their aspirations to do more business abroad. “There is so much growth and push to go overseas in other parts of the world,” says Mr Yonezawa. “That’s a wave Japan also needs to ride.” 

对于渴望在国际舞台上扮演更积极角色的政府来说，这种日益增长的孤立性是尴尬的。Hiraga表示:“日本正在落后，甚至没有注意到自己的衰落。”他认为，日本在亚洲及其她地区的影响力正在减弱。对于公司来说，缺乏国际化的年轻员工阻碍了他们在海外开展更多业务的愿望。Yonezawa表示:“世界其它地区增长迅猛，向海外进军的力度很大。”“这是一个日本也需要驾驭的浪潮。”

词汇

Awkward/尴尬的；笨拙的

Wane/衰落；变小

Scarcity/不足；缺乏

 cosmopolitan /世界性的；见多识广的