Japan-born Nepali children struggle to ‘be Nepali’
Children of Nepali parents working in Japan adjust to life and school back in Nepal
Originally published on Global Voices
This article by Pinki Sris Rana was first published on the Nepali Times. An edited and shortened version is republished below as part of a content-sharing agreement with Global Voices.
Ayan Dallakoti spent his childhood in Japan, speaking Japanese and for all intents and purposes, considered himself Japanese. It was only as he grew older that he realised he was actually from Nepal.
Ayan was eight years old when his mother Pratibha brought him and his younger brother Avan back to Nepal. Their father Anjay, who is still in Japan, had decided to send the boys home so they could “become Nepali”.
Ayan was somewhat familiar with the Nepali language and the country, but in Kathmandu, everything felt foreign, including the education system. He remembers:
Things were a little easier when he had a classmate who had also returned from Japan, but making Nepali friends did not come easily for them.
Japan is now a major destination for Nepali families like the Dallakotis. Officially, there are around 180,000 Nepalis in Japan and 35,000 more immigrated just in the past year — a 30 percent increase from the year before that.
Japanese embassy figures show that of those who left last year, 23,124 were on student visas, 8,566 were on working visas and 7,849 were dependents.
While most of the older generation of Nepalis in Japan are cooks who went as “skilled labour”, the new crop of migrants are mostly on student visas, working part-time. For the Japanese government, a student visa is a carefully calibrated temporary migration system to fill the country’s labour shortage in the service sector.
Unlike the Gulf, Korea, Malaysia and other countries, Nepalis can bring their families to Japan. In response to this, Nepali schools have sprung up in large cities in Japan. These schools teach Nepali language, culture, and also English. But for families who work far away from those cities, the children have no option but to get a Japanese education.
Anjay Dallakoti initially went to Japan as a student, but extended his stay with a working visa. Pratibha joined him a few years later as a dependent. Ayan was born in Japan, and six years later Avan. After 12 years, Pratibha is back in Nepal with both her boys.
In many Nepali families in Japan, it is the children who are having to adjust to being caught in between two worlds. Many have to cope with the double adjustment of first arriving in Japan, and then returning to school in Nepal.
Masako Tanaka, a professor at Tokyo’s Sophia University, told The Nepali Times in an email interview that nearly 20,000 Nepalis in Japan are minors. Tanaka has been working closely with Nepali migrants in Japan, and says many mothers are bringing their children back to Nepal because of worries that they are losing touch with their identity and culture back home.
The other reason is that the children are not learning enough English, and the parents fear they will lose out in later life.
“Returning to Nepal and studying in schools here helps create an environment for the children to either stay and work in Nepal in future or go to a third country,” says Sapana Kharel, who also returned to Nepal with her two children.
For Nepali families who have not received permanent resident status, staying in Japan and continuing their children’s education is too uncertain. They worry that this could interrupt their children’s education if they have to leave Japan midway through school.
“There is fear that the children will neither have a place in Nepali schools nor there in Japan,” adds Kharel.
Others say that they would have returned to Nepal for the sake of the children no matter what, even if they got permanent residence in Japan. Indeed, there are Nepali mothers who are already permanent residents who have opted to return with their children.
Ten-year-old Ahana Odari had her own struggles when she was brought to Nepal by her mother a year ago. She had to repeat Grade 3. “She just wouldn’t speak for the first few months because of the language problem,” remembers her mother, Balika Odari. “Ahana took a whole year to adapt and adjust to Nepal and its ways. But this was necessary.”
Like a lot of parents, Balika feels that although Japan’s education system is one of the best in the world, children there are more reclusive and do not socialise as much. “We were worried our children would turn out the same way, and that is why we decided to bring them back and introduce them to their country and culture,” she explains.
Sneha Khatri, now 14, oscillated between Nepal and Japan over the years. She was born in Japan but was brought to Nepal when she was six. She studied here until Grade 3 and then went to the Nepali-run Everest International School in Tokyo.
Sneha came back to Nepal a month ago to appear for her Basic Level Examination (BLE) but is worried about her results. She is taking extra tutorials in mathematics.
Ayan is now in Grade 7, and is also worried about his BLE next year. He says in Japanese-accented English: “Social Studies is my first hardest subject, and Nepali is the second hardest.”
Speaking Nepali with family and friends is not hard for the returnee migrant children, but Nepali as an academic subject is difficult.
Professor Tanaka says migrant children have fallen through the cracks between Japan and Nepal. She asks rhetorically, “Who will think about the welfare of the migrant children? Who is responsible for them?”
Nepali in Nippon
Everest International School Japan (EISJ) in Tokyo follows a Nepali curriculum, and also teaches the students English. Initially started in 2013 by the Nepali community, this school came under Nepal’s Ministry of Education (MoE) in 2015. EISJ is the only school in Japan that is certified to take Nepal’s SEE in Japan.
Other schools that follow the Nepali curriculum have also opened up, over the years. But only two of them, Tokai Batika International School in Nagoya and Himalayan International Academy in Tokyo are certified to conduct Nepali curriculum as per Nepal’s Ministry of Education. But both provide education only below Grade 10.
The majority of Nepali families and a few non-Nepali families working in Japan decide to send their children to schools like EISJ because of the English medium. But these are private international schools, unlike the Japanese government schools which are free of cost.
And because these schools are not certified, the Japanese government provides no subsidy, no transportation discount among other privileges to these schools, says Professor Masako Tanaka at Sophia University in Tokyo.
“Most importantly, graduates of EISJ cannot get visa status independently even after graduation from high school level, while the migrant students who graduate from Japanese schools are eligible,” adds Tanaka.
While schools that follow the Nepali curriculum in Japan have been a relief for Nepali parents who want their children to pursue Nepali curriculum education, these schools getting certified by the Japanese government would be better.
“We lived in Niigata. It would take us six hours to travel to Everest International School in Tokyo. So, we came to Nepal to give our children English medium education,” says Pratibha Dallakoti, who returned from Japan with her two sons in 2020.