u/Jace678

Just a couple minutes ago, my school held the school-wide "If Japan was a village of 100 people" seminar. I think it's an interesting topic for both students and teachers since it does a good job of putting in perspective the current situation of Japan's demographics. But what caught my attention was the portion about foreigners.

They asked the question, "how many people do you think would be foreigners?" Being the only foreign teacher, many students and teachers asked me what I think. I already knew the answer so I returned the question to them. From students, I heard numbers of 45-50 foreigners out of 100. (This made me laugh a little but they're just kids so its understandable.) But from teachers, I heard realistic numbers and also 20-30 foreigners. Now that was concerning. And it seemed to catch everyone by surprised when the answer was around 3-4 foreigners. The overall consensus was that recent news and social media gave the impression of a much higher amount. That there aren't many in our city but in major places like Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo. So I assume they were thinking about foreign tourists as well.

I'm curious if this line of thinking is common among Japanese people. I assume the answers may be skewed since most of the Japanese people here are used to hearing stuff like this. But like among friends or families, is this sentiment shared?

So as the title says, how do I get the point across without directly saying it obviously.

To preface, I made a post a couple weeks back about my co-workers speaking to me in English. And the general advice was to just keep speaking Japanese when they speak to me in English. For the most part, majority of them have gotten the point and just use Japanese which is great. The issue is the co-worker next to me hasn’t.

If I speak to him in Japanese, he will listen, and just respond in English. If he had good English, I don’t think I would mind it as much. But he doesn’t sadly. It takes him a minute to get his point across, he gets stuck on words so I need to help or the conversation grows longer, and etc. To summarize, our levels aren’t the same and talking with them is bothersome. It’s harsh but the truth. Was I at a point like that, yep. Instead of talking with busy co-workers though, I went to classes, tutors, and language-exchange to improve!

Just because I speak English and sit nearby doesn’t mean I’m a free tutor. I’m not sitting at my desk to talk, I’m trying to get work done like everyone else. It’s getting to the point where it’s affecting my work and I actively find other places to work instead of my desk.

Do I need to just go against Japanese culture and be direct about it?