Around 1 million Indonesians are currently learning the Japanese language, ranking Indonesia just behind China in terms of the number of people learning Japanese abroad.

“Indonesia has the world’s second-highest number of people learning Japanese outside Japan. This is very important, as both Japan and Indonesia are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries,” Japanese Embassy Minister Nakamura Ryo said recently in Jakarta at the 2018 Japanese Language Speech Contest for Greater Jakarta.

The contest was organized by the Japan Foundation’s office in Jakarta, and Nakamura was the head of the judges’ panel.

The first prize was won by Dimas Arvian Julyanda from Jakarta State University (UNJ), and the second prize went to Sanjeevini Pertiwi , a student of the Ikuzo! Japanese Education Center as well as the Indonesia International Institute for Life Sciences (i3L), both in Jakarta. Renny Rizka Ismaillan from the University of Al Azhar Indonesia clinched the third prize.

Arvian and Sanjeevini will participate in the 47th National Japanese Language Speech Contest, which will be held on July 14 in Jakarta.

In recent years, hundreds of thousands of young Indonesians have been showing a special interest in Japan and its culture. Japanese restaurants are mushrooming in almost all malls of Jakarta and other major cities of Indonesia.

“I personally counted around 30 Japanese restaurants at Central Park Mall in West Jakarta. In other malls the situation is the same. Many Indonesians now like to eat Japanese food,” Indra Saputra, a resident of West Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post recently.

These youngsters are not just focusing on food but also anything else to do with Japan. Learning Japanese is one of those, aside from education comics, games, J-pop music, clothes, cosmetics and tourism.

Magic thrill: Famous comedy magician Akira Kimura (right) performs at the Japanese Language Speech Contest in Jakarta recently.

According to the Japan Foundation’s 2015 Survey on Japanese Language Education Abroad, there were 953,238 learners of Japanese in China, making it the number one country in the world. Indonesia came second with 745,125 learners.

The present estimate of the total number of learners of Japanese in Indonesia is around 1 million people.

Given the growing demand for Japanese language teachers, the Japanese government, through its agency Japan Foundation, has been sending hundreds of Indonesian Japanese language teachers to Japan for training every year. Not only that, the Japan Foundation has been bringing in a large number of Japanese native speakers to teach at Indonesian schools.

“This year, we will have 150 native speakers from Japan. They will be sent to 13 provinces in Indonesia to teach the Japanese language,” Tsukamoto Norihisa, the director general of the Japan Foundation in Indonesia, said at the speech contest in fluent Indonesian.

Globally, Japanese is the 9th most widely spoken language in the world. Japan’s current population is 127 million. Nearly 5 million people speak Japanese outside Japan, mainly in Brazil, China, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.

With one of the main missions to promote Japanese language education and learning abroad, the Japan Foundation, which was established in October 1972, has succeeded in generating interest among thousands of Indonesians.

Many Indonesian students are interested in studying in Japan, which has numerous world class universities.

The Japan Foundation, a core agency of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is mainly responsible for Japanese international cultural exchange all over the world. Besides promoting the Japanese language, the foundation has also other duties, such as promoting the arts, Japanese studies, intellectual exchanges and cultural exchanges.

Feel the vibes: Students from Bina Nusantara University (BINUS) dance to Japanese hip-hop music at the Japanese Language Speech Contest in Jakarta recently.

Thanks to Japan Foundation’s efforts, Japan is now opening itself up to the outside world. Once the country was considered “closed” for foreigners. Japan has been promoting its tourist attractions in an aggressive manner over the last five years. The results are amazing.

According to Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) data, a record of 28.69 million foreign tourists visited Japan last year, a huge jump from 10.36 million tourists in 2013.

Indonesian tourists have been flocking to Japan, a country once considered as the most expensive destination, in recent years. There was an increase of around 30 percent in Indonesians tourists to Japan in 2017. Around 352,000 Indonesians visited Japan last year, thanks to large-scale promotion by the Japan National Tourism Organization and several budget airlines that offer cheap airfares to destinations in Japan from Indonesia.

Japan and Indonesia established their diplomatic relations in April 1958. Both countries have been celebrating the 6o years of their close friendship with numerous events, including seminars, cultural shows and exhibitions, this year.

According to Indonesia’s Central Statistics Agency’s data, Japan was the second-biggest trading partner of Indonesia in 2017 with a total trade volume of US$33.03 billion, a 13.58 percent increase from the previous year. Indonesia exported $17.79 billion worth of goods to Japan and it imported $15.24 billion worth of goods from there in 2017.

Japan, according to Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), is Indonesia’s second-biggest foreign investor, with a total of around $5 billion invested in 3,646 projects across Indonesia in 2017.

Japan also ranks fifth as a country of origin of foreign tourists to Indonesia, with 538,334 tourists from Japan registered in 2017.

-- Words and photos Veeramalla Anjaiah