Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program

by David L. McConnell

  Still, a rudimentary system of crisis management was not implemented until nearly three years after the program had begun, and only after a number of unfortunate incidents. Such slowness to perceive a need for this service and then to provide it may seem surprising, but the ministry officials tended to believe that JET participants' need for serious counseling lay in personal dysfunction or family problems. One Ministry of Education official put it this way: "We can't mix up personality and culture. Traffic accidents and suicide are personal acts and shouldn't be confused with culture. If it was because of the system (ukeire seido), that would be a serious matter."

  This response is rooted in cultural definitions of morality-more specifically, in the ways in which Japanese are socialized to see subjugating individual desires in the service of one's social relationships as virtuous behavior. Indeed, the Japanese tend to view the very nature of the self as bound up in relations with others.42 The implications of this view of personhood for counseling are profound. Rather than helping people change their circumstances, counseling in Japan more often involves helping them improve their capacity for gaman, for putting up with the situation and making the best of it. Takie Sugiyama Lebra calls one form of therapy in Japan, naikan (literally, "inner observation"), "conformance through reformation." Through a process of intense, guided self-reflection, "resentment and self-pity are expected to be replaced by the realization of one's egocentric social insensitivity, an insurmountable sense of debt and gratitude to others, and a deep empathetic guilt toward those who have suffered because of one's heartless, ungrateful conduct."43 Instead of discovering one's burning desires and passions, and formulating a plan to achieve them, its goal is to better appreciate one's interconnectedness with and dependency on others.

  Given this cultural logic, it is easy to see why Japanese officials would be skeptical of Western-style counseling that might only fuel JET participants' demands for change. Privately, CLAIR and Ministry of Education officials were quite unsympathetic to those participants who exhibited an irresistible urge to reconcile the ideal and the real and a tendency to view Japanese culture as in need of "development." Japanese bureaucracies generally define virtuous behavior as conformity to the demands of social roles. In addition, a premium is placed on knowing one's "proper station," to use Ruth Benedict's term-and according to the rules of hierarchy in Japanese organizations, the JET participants ought to take their places as willing learners at the bottom of the totem pole. Wada Minoru was characteristically blunt on this point: "When Japanese go to another country," he asserted, "we try to adjust to the expectations there, but ALTs don't do that. They're always criticizing Japan and acting according to their own commonsense rules." He continued:

  ALTs are much too sensitive (binkan sugiru) and they interpret things we do innocently or out of kindness in a negative light. Their responses are countereducational (hikyoikuteki). Many ALTs complain that Japan is a closed society but I don't think ALTs are very open-minded either. I think they are too demanding. I can understand that to a point, because they don't understand Japanese culture, but if they react too strongly, then Japanese react negatively. One local administrator told me her prefecture is thinking of stopping the yearly increase in ALTs because if the numbers get too high, the demands are too great.

  Wada's use of the term hikyoikuteki (countereducational) is especially revealing, as it points to competing visions of the educational enterprise. By exercising their critical judgment and attempting to stamp out inequities, JET participants were enacting in various ways an individualism that demands action. But the forcefulness with which some JET participants asserted "unfairness" during the early years of the program, together with their tendency to leapfrog the normal chain of command (atamagoshi) by taking their complaints directly to the top, was viewed with suspicion in a culture that values avoiding conflict in interpersonal relations and refraining from action that might embarrass one's immediate superior. One CLAIR official, the section chief of counseling, surprised me with his answer to a question about what he had learned about foreigners in his two years with the JET Program. After discoursing at length about the self-expression of JET participants as opposed to the modesty of Japanese, he suddenly added, "And one other thing is that ALTs tell lies without having a second thought (uso wa heiki de iu). Japanese don't tell lies like that. Whenever a call comes into the counseling section of CLAIR from an ALT, the first thing you should know is that we never believe his story outright. We always contact his superior to find out the real circumstances." In light of Lebra's claim that one of the highest moral values in Japan is "trustworthiness" (shiny(5), this is a very serious charge indeed, though it must be qualified. First, his view was undoubtedly skewed by his position: he dealt primarily with the problems of a minority of ALTs. Second, program coordinators were also unlikely to accept at face value the facts as presented by a JET participant seeking counseling. Such cases inevitably took CLAIR staff into that nebulous arena between fact and fiction, and the most effective counselors were those who adopted a Rashomon-like technique of employing multiple perspectives to approach the "truth." Finally, the section chief's comparison may strike Westerners as particularly odd because in Japanese society it is common to perpetuate half-truths both to maintain the tatemae, or official, version of events and to preserve harmony and save face. But perhaps he was referring not to lying per se but to a deeper virtue-reliability or dependability; his criticism seems to have been directed at ALTs who would distort reality to enhance their own position rather than that of their superior.

  Complicating the privately held view that JET participants were overly judgmental, however, was what Japanese officials referred to quite selfcritically and self-consciously as their "gaijin complex"-the strong cultural tendency to view Westerners with a mixture of awe and fear, and to give in to foreign pressure. Added to this was the tremendous constraint felt by national-level officials to make internationalization work, which to some extent meant ensuring that JET participants were happy and gained a favorable impression of Japan. The result was a constant mental struggle over where to draw the line on counseling cases and how to say "no" as delicately as possible. Consider, for instance, the predicament of one Ministry of Education official: "One time a British woman of German descent called me directly from her educational office and demanded to know why the women had to serve tea to men. I listened politely, but then she asked me to tell them to stop. So I told her I would call her superiors, and I called them all right, but rather than asking them to stop, I simply told them that she had called me. I don't think ALTs have the right to make such barbaric demands (yaban no koi wo iu kenri wa nai to omoimasu)."

  By contrast, the program coordinators tended to see the Japanese attempt to construe the suicides as entirely personal acts as representing an enormous "empathy gulf." Meredith was outspoken in this assessment: "They [CLAIR officials] put almost everything into to the category of 'personal issues.' They'll do anything to avoid responsibility." Other concerned outsiders tended to agree. William Horsley, a BBC correspondent and the token foreign member of the Advisory Council for the JET Program, criticized the impersonal approach to program implementation: "As a member of the advisory panel to CLAIR I have been rather taken aback at the coldness and solemnity of the deliberations. The JET scheme should be a voyage of discovery, not some kind of laboratory experiment. Reading through the official papers about the scheme, including detailed figures on the academic backgrounds of the participants, and their various problems in settling down to Japan, I look in vain for the 'human touch,' or the sense of adventure."' Even Caroline Yang, executive director of the Fulbright Commission during the early years of the program, expressed her puzzlement over the lack of a viable support network and crisis management system, speculating that "the suicides might not have occurred if they hadn't been in Japan."45 Philip recalled his own frustration in negotiating the issue:

  I had a very heated discussion at one point with one of the upper admini
strators in CLAIR about their concern for the participants' health, particularly mental health. It came, I think, after the third suicide, because it so happened that that person had been in touch with CLAIR for some type of counseling some months prior to the suicide. Of course, when I say "counseling" it's not the type of psychological counseling that's expected in the U.S., but that person had contacted the program coordinators with some problems. But they were not the kind of problems that had any real relevance to what finally happened. In fact, it had nothing to do with the program.

  But the first and second suicides, they were people who had never been in touch with CLAIR whatsoever. So my impression is that it was much easier for CLAIR to sort of say that we were absolutely not involved with it. But it was after the third person died that CLAIR actually arranged some sort of professional counselor and provided some counseling training to the program coordinators. So my thought was that the motivation to finally do something was that CLAIR couldn't say their hands were absolutely clean.... That was an incident I felt sort of exemplified that CLAIR was a bureaucracy that was very adept in planning things and preparing papers but not at all experienced in taking care of peoples' lives.

  And that became a recurring topic, you know. They're taking a risk coming here and joining this program, and I think you have to consider more seriously that what you're inviting them to do is affecting their lives; it's not only providing a service for Japan. And that's a very difficult, probably impossible, thing for most bureaucrats to understand.

  One final point of contention between the program coordinators and the Japanese staff at CLAIR pertained to privacy. Typically, a call would be received from a JET participant involving a private matter: sexual harassment, emotional instability, a threatened suicide, or a medical problem of a personal nature. After hearing the report from the program coordinator, the Japanese staff member would instinctively reach for the phone to call the host institution. Since such problems usually meant missed work, the Japanese staff felt that local officials ought to be fully appraised of the situation. Yet if the JET participant had wanted officials at the host institution to know about the problem, he or she would have told them first. As a result, before the call would go out, a debate would ensue about whom to call, what details could and could not be told, and what solution to insist on. The program coordinators were usually uncomfortable with the amount of private information that was leaked to local officials, and feelings of mistrust on both sides increased.

  QUALITY CONTROL: ELIMINATING THE BAD APPLES

  While CLAIR officials were moving cautiously toward providing in-house professional counseling, they were moving aggressively to address what they felt to be a more fundamental problem: poor screening at the selection stage. CLAIR officials perceived a conflict between quality and quantity: how could they achieve a high-profile program, which depended on raising the numbers quickly, and yet still get quality people? One CLAIR official reflected, "When we started the JET Program we hoped only good ALTs and CIRs would come. Now we realize there are good and bad foreigners." Much of the energy of Japanese officials during the first few years of the program was invested in various approaches to screen out the bad apples. For instance, applicants were required to provide graduation certificates as well as transcripts of all college courses. They were asked if they had ever been convicted of any crime other than a minor traffic offense; if so, they were asked to sign a form authorizing the release to the embassy of Japan of any documents or records pertaining to the offense. Finally, applicants were required to fill out a self-assessment medical form that asked about personal history of hospitalization, psychological or psychiatric treatment, prescription medication, and dietary restrictions.

  In the wake of the first suicide and increased pressure from local governments to send "healthy" JET participants, another idea discussed was the psychological testing of all JET participants. Philip recalled:

  After there had been a suicide, they were trying to think of a way to incorporate some sort of psychological testing into the interviews. At which point the program coordinators said, "Who's going to administer these test questions?" I mean, right now you have the consulate people doing the selection, and most of them don't know anything about teaching English in Japan. Now you're going to have them pretend to be physicians? Besides, there's the practical problem of asking people who have no psychological background or training to evaluate people's psychological stability. We said, "That's not fair." Because you have people who may have all kinds of problems in their home country, but once they get away from the society that made them uncomfortable, they'll have no problem whatsoever. And the exact opposite is also very possible. It's ridiculous. But there was this feeling that because of this incident, something had to be done to reassure prefectures.

  Though the idea of psychological testing was rejected, CLAIR officials decided to increase their efforts to get the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to improve the selection process and lower the percentage of those selected. They began by inviting representatives of selection committees from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia on a two-week study tour of Japanese schools to familiarize them with the actual working conditions of ALTs and CIRs. They also asked the ministry to circulate among selection committee members a list of problem cases that had developed. In addition, directly as a result of the serious incidents that occurred in 1989 and 199o, a cautionary statement appeared in 1991 at the top of the rating sheet given to members of the screening committees at Japanese consulates abroad: "If the applicant appears to be overly sensitive/emotionally fragile, not sociable, cheerful or polite, or does not appear to like children, DO NOT RECOMMEND their acceptance to the program." CLAIR officials traveled overseas in pairs (one yakuin and one program coordinator) to talk with consulate officials and to give presentations on the JET Program at colleges and universities abroad.

  These actions were taken because CLAIR officials felt strongly that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (i.e., the Japanese consulates abroad) needed to portray JET participants' jobs more realistically. Indeed, the ministry was in a difficult position: it had to promote a positive image of the program abroad in the face of criticism from the foreign media. Realizing that most potential applicants were not primarily interested in English instruction, ministry officials tended to downplay the teaching component of JET, instead presenting the program as a chance for foreigners to experience Japanese language and culture. Predictably, the result was confusion; during the first few years of the program a handful of ALTs reported that they didn't realize they would be involved in team teaching until they arrived in Tokyo for their orientation.

  Tightening Visa Regulations

  At the same time that CLAIR officials were discussing with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs how to improve selection procedures, they were also talking with Justice Ministry officials about how to tighten the visa regulations. Japanese officials saw two problems in this area. First, a small minority of JET participants whose hearts were not in public school teaching were resigning from the JET Program in favor of other employment in Japan. Private English conversation schools, for instance, offer roughly the same salaries for only four hours of work per night; though some of these are fly-by-night operations, in some cases JET participants were willing to take their chances. A few even won jobs in Japanese corporations or at English-language newspapers and left the JET Program early in order to take up their new posts in April, according to Japanese custom. While CLAIR had little standing to protest if the JET participant had a Japanese sponsor, officials did ask the Justice Ministry to intervene in such cases. In addition, CLAIR added a stipulation that return airfare would be withheld if it was discovered that a JET participant signed another contract for employment in Japan while in the program.

  Second, an increasing number of JET participants were staying on to work in Japan after their term of service was up. This problem was of growing concern to the Justice Ministry, the agency concerned wit
h regulating the flow of personnel across Japan's borders. One secretary-general of CLAIR explained:

  The Justice Ministry doesn't welcome the idea of ALTs changing jobs and staying on in Japan, and makes it difficult for them to do so. It's all right if they stay on to study, but JET is a simplified screening process, so if they use this as a route to get working visas, that's not good. I agree with this, and have personally instructed the Justice Ministry to make it difficult for ALTs to secure working visas. It's true, there's a sense in which this constitutes poor treatment of ALTs (ijiwaru to iu men mo arimasu), but as a principle I think it's preferable if ALTs return home when they finish here.

  In addition, to discourage JET participants from using the program as a stepping-stone to get working visas the grace period for leaving Japan on completion of the program was changed from ninety days to thirty days.

  This determination that JET participants should quickly return home is curious, particularly in light of the demands to open up Japanese society that gave rise to the program. One could argue that the desire of a high percentage of JET participants to stay on and work in Japan is a striking indicator of the success of the program, and should be encouraged. Yet the Japanese caution is fully consistent with studies that have shown a preoccupation with protecting a pure and homogenous society from foreign pollution. Jackson Bailey's characterization of the underlying mind-set seems apt here:

  The thrust and structure of Japanese rules and regulations regarding the entry into Japan of people or things whether they are part of commercial or of cultural exchange demand that proof be offered that the person or item should be allowed to enter. The implicit assumption is that persons or things should not be allowed in until there is clear and explicit evidence that they should be. This assumption underlies all transactions whether they involve a small matter such as a video cassette of a television program from the United States, a set of photo negatives for a cultural exchange poster, or the appointment of a foreign professor to a regular faculty position in a university. In each and all of these cases the implicit parameters of the situation assume that the answer is "no" until incontrovertible proof is supplied, normally in writing, that the item or person is eligible to come in.46