Japan-born Nepali children struggle to ‘be Nepali’

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.

“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,” remembers Pratibha.

Japan is now a major destination for Nepali families like the Dallakotis. Officially, there are 180,000 Nepalis in Japan and 35,000 more left just in the past year – a 30% 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 in Japan can also take along their families. Which is why 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.

According to Masako Tanaka, a professor at Tokyo’s Sophia University, 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 yet got permanent resident status, staying on 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. 

Take the Subedi family who have permanent resident status in Japan, but brought their daughter Shibika to Nepal after she completed Grade 1 in Japan. 

Many migrant children like Shibika had to repeat grades they had already studied in Japan. She had to repeat Grade 1, and is now in Grade 9. Her mother Nitu Bista Subedi feels that repeating a year was necessary to strengthen her daughter’s foundation in the Nepali curriculum. 

“Shibika has fond memories of Japan and misses being together with the whole family there, and she worries that her Japanese classmates are getting ahead of her,” says Subedi.

Ten-year-old Ahana Odari had her own struggles when she was brought to Nepal by her mother a year ago. She too 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.

In more extreme cases, migration can hinder the psychosocial development of returning children.  

“Early-age children are good at learning dual or multiple languages, but because of the limited vocabulary they are exposed to, they might not always have words to express how they are feeling. And that is where the problem lies,” says Srijana Adhikari, a clinical psychologist at Happy Minds. 

“For healthy development, the environment the child grows up in and the needs to be stable,” she adds. “If not, this may lead to problems adjusting, separation anxiety and struggles in building relationships.”

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?” 

Tanaka was in Kathmandu recently for a workshop on Nepali language education for migrant children during which she presented research findings of her Migrant Children Language Education project.

Tanaka’s conclusion is that mother tongue Nepali language education is the best way to help the reintegration of children returning from Japan.

“The government can start by developing Nepali language learning resources for online or home learners abroad, training teachers abroad, and organising and encouraging events for Nepali children overseas,” Tanaka told Nepali Times. 

“Nepal can learn from countries like Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and Brazil which are working on national language education for their migrant children in Japan.”

To be sure, there are also students who are doing well despite the culture shock of moving back and forth between Japan and Nepal. 

Sapana Kharel’s daughter, Saurya was born in Japan. She came to Nepal when she was six to study in Nepal. Soon after, she went to Japan. She came back when she was 12 to appear for the Nepali BLE. She initially struggled and had low confidence, but soon overcame it and did well.

“Now, I’ve realised the importance of learning my mother tongue and have taken up Nepali classes as part of my course,” says Saurya, now 17, in flawless Nepali.

But for other migrant children whose parents do not speak enough Nepali when they were in Japan, mastering the mother tongue is still a big hurdle. 

Ayan’s mother looks at her two children playing at her home in Kirtipur, and says, “The sacrifice we made as a couple, living far from one another, is for our children, their education and for a better future.” 

Nepali in Nippon

In June, when the SEE (Secondary Education Examination) results came out, one of the students who passed was a Zambian national student from Japan.

He was studying at the Everest International School Japan (EISJ) in Tokyo which follows the Nepali curriculum, and accommodates the need of families in Nepal and other countries in Japan to also learn 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. 

“As of now, the only country to have schools that follow Nepali curriculum is Japan,” says Parshuram Tiwari, director at the Education Review Office at the MoE in Kathmandu.

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.”

Many Nepali families enrol their children to such schools without knowing this, adds Tanka. But even those who know about drawbacks want to provide their children with the opportunity to get international exposure with English language skills.

Nepali curriculum schools are mostly based in and around Tokyo, and many Nepali families who live in the suburbs of Japan opt to come to Nepal for their children’s education. (Adjoining article)

“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.

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.

“There are several other international schools in Japan that are certified by both Japanese and foreign dual standards like the  Kyoto Kokusai School,” wrote Professor Tanaka in an email interview. “It is for the better that these Nepali curriculum schools like EISJ become similar to KKS which makes it easier for the children as they can get a certificate from both the government. ”