Thekakyo:Chinese in Japan

Abstract

The Chinese language is traditionally found in the various Chinese communities located in the urban centres of Tokyo‐Yokohama, the Kansai region, and parts of southern Kyushu. Several bilingual (Japanese‐Chinese) schools serve these long‐term resident populations. The importance of the Chinese language in the transmission of knowledge from Continental Asia to Japan was crucial to Japan's development. Medicine, religion, poetry, food, art, clothes and design and other fields were conveyed through Chinese language texts. There is also a tradition of learning Chinese for commercial purposes; the systematic learning of Chinese as a modern language began in the Edo period. Á recent trend in the composition of the kakyo or overseas Chinese there has been an influx of Chinese students, student‐workers and ethnic Japanese who have returned from China with their families. The latter phenomenon has prompted some town administrations, such as the city of Mitaka, in the suburbs of Tokyo, to initiate short‐term language transition programmes for ethnic Chinese children. Among naturalised Chinese there appears to be a strong desire to maintain some knowledge of the Chinese language whilst at the same time advance successfully through the mainstream education system. Returnee families, migrant workers, students, and the booming commercial prosperity of the Chinatown areas of Yokohama or Kobe have led to a reconsideration of the values of multiculturalism and the place of Chinese language in the local communities. The Chinese language will prosper in Japan not because of the geographical proximity of China nor nostalgia for a continental heritage but because Chinese residents’ presence in the community is culturally valued and economically important to the urban life of Japan.

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