The Republic of China Yearbook 2009

CHAPTER 2 People and Language

People

Han Peoples

Seeking refuge from upheavals during the transition between the Ming and Ching dynasties, the ancestors of Taiwan’s Han people began migrating from China’s southeastern provinces to the island in sizeable numbers in the 17th century. The majority of these early immigrants were Holo from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou in southern Fujian Province, as well as Hakka from Huizhou, Chaozhou and Jiayingzhou (known today as Meizhou) in eastern Guangdong Province.

At first, these immigrants chose to settle in locations resembling their former homes on the mainland. Immigrants from Quanzhou settled in coastal regions and those from Zhangzhou tended to gather on inland plains, while Hakka immigrants inhabited hilly areas. Clashes between these groups over resources led to the relocation of some communities, and, as time passed, varying degrees of intermarriage and assimilation took place.

Holo

The Holo are the largest subgroup of Han people in Taiwan, accounting for approximately 70 percent of the population. A traditional Holo residence usually features red-brick walls and a red-tile roof. The most basic structure consists of a main living room sandwiched between two other rooms. Depending on a family’s wealth and size, buildings were often extended, with wings added to the ends to create a “ㄇ” form. The courtyard provided space for drying crops. A fourth wing was added to homes, creating a sealed compound. The most well-preserved structures manifesting the architectural styles of immigrants from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou are Chaotien Temple in Beigang, Yunlin County, and Longshan Temple in Taipei’s Wanhua District.

Holo settlers from Quanzhou brought the musical genre nanguan to Taiwan. It is believed to preserve many elements of the classical Chinese music that first appeared in southern China in the fourth and fifth centuries. A typical nanguan ensemble includes one erhu (a two-string fiddle), one sanxian (a three-string fiddle), one pipa (a guitar-like instrument), one vertical bamboo flute and one clapper, which together produce a delicate, steady and soothing sound.

Hakka

The Hakka, who make up about one-fifth of the Han population in Taiwan today, have a long history of frequent migration. They are said to be diligent and frugal. Their traditional homes are simple and are made with black-brick or white-plaster walls and black-tile roofs. Some Hakka houses in Taiwan are built with red bricks and red tiles, indicating a Holo influence.

The Hakka are also renowned for their community spirit, which is exemplified by their weilongwu house. Based on the traditional Chinese four-section compound, it has semicircular sections added to the main section to accommodate members of the extended family. The shape of these buildings lends them to their secondary role of a defensive fortress, needed in past times when the state was weak and defense was the responsibility of local communities. Examples of this style of house can be seen in Dongshi Township in Taichung County and Neipu Township in Pingtung County.

Hakka traditions include the worship of the Three Mountain Kings and the yimin (ancestors who sacrificed their lives to protect their homelands), tea-farming opera and folk songs (see Chapter 18, “Culture”). The oilpaper umbrella from Meinong in Kaohsiung County is a famous Hakka handicraft.

Immigrants Arriving in 1949

The ROC government’s relocation to Taiwan in 1949 brought about 1.3 million people from the Chinese mainland to the island. The majority were soldiers, civil servants or teachers. Unlike earlier immigrants, these people came from all over the mainland and included not only Han Chinese but also other ethnic groups from Mongolia, Tibet and southwestern China. The cultural influence of this wave of immigrants can best be seen in the use of Mandarin across Taiwan. They also brought a wide array of food cultures, with the result that all major regional Chinese cuisines can be found in Taiwan.

Indigenous Peoples

Taiwan’s indigenous peoples settled in the island thousands of years before other groups represented today in Taiwan arrived. Their languages belong to the Austronesian linguistic family, speakers of which number over 200 million worldwide and inhabit an area of the globe that stretches from Madagascar in the west to Easter Island in the east and from Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south. Some scholars have suggested that, in light of the plurality of indigenous languages in Taiwan, the island may be the place from which the Austronesian peoples began a diaspora 6,000 years ago.

Though individually distinct in many ways, Taiwan’s indigenous groups do share certain customs with one another and with other Austronesian peoples. These include building elevated houses, weaving with bamboo and rattan, tattooing and chewing betel nuts. These groups also have common types of holidays, such as coming-of-age ceremonies and harvest festivals.

Thanks to centuries of intermarriage between indigenous peoples and Han people, however, many in Taiwan who consider themselves Han also have indigenous ancestors. At the end of June 2009, the official indigenous Austronesian population was around 499,500. Of this number, around 30,000 did not identify themselves as belonging to a particular group. While 14 indigenous groups have received official recognition, activists continue to push for the recognition of other tribes, such as the Siraya.

Both the culture and lifestyles of the indigenous groups have continued to change as the descendants of Taiwan’s earliest inhabitants adjust to modernization. Many young people have left such traditional occupations as farming, hunting and fishing for jobs in the cities. To help better preserve the cultural heritage of Taiwan’s aborigines, the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) was established on December 10, 1996. The CIP is in charge of planning programs, making policies and implementing laws concerning indigenous groups in the areas of education and culture, health and welfare, employment and land management.

Amis

Numbering nearly 181,000 and residing mainly in valleys and coastal areas in eastern Taiwan, the Amis are Taiwan’s largest indigenous group. The tribe’s Ilisin harvest festival, which has rituals for celebrating the transformation of boys into men, is held between July and September and is well known for the vibrant singing and dancing of participants.

The Amis are divided into the Nanshi, Xiuguluan, Coastal, Taitung and Hengchun sub-tribes depending on their respective geographic locations. Each of these subgroups has its own dialect, set of customs and style of dress. The Amis have a matrilineal clan structure and system of inheritance. Decisions on family affairs including finance and property holdings are made by the female head of household. Important affairs concerning marriage or the allocation of wealth are determined in a meeting with the uncles of the female household. Public affairs involving tribal politics, laws, warfare and religion are dealt with by an institution composed of a male leadership group that includes members of different age groups.

Atayal

There are about 79,000 Atayal scattered throughout the north of Taiwan’s central mountainous region. Their society centers on the ancient gaga system of regulations and beliefs. Slash-and-burn rotational farming and hunting are their traditional way of life. Male members of the Atayal take their father’s first name as their last name.

The tribe has also developed intricate fabric weaving skills, featuring sophisticated patterns and designs. In the past, a woman’s skills in this area could determine her social status. To the Atayal, red symbolizes blood, which represents the vitality of life. The color is believed to have the power to dispel evil, and is therefore a favored color for clothing. Facial tattooing was formerly a key part of Atayal coming-of-age ceremonies, and ancestral spirit worship is still an important social activity.

Bunun

The Bunun number around 51,000 and live in Taiwan’s central and southeastern mountainous regions with average altitude of 1,000 to 2,000 meters, where they practice shifting cultivation and hunting. In addition to the harvest-time “millet ceremony,” major Bunun festivals include the pre-hunt “ear-shooting ceremony”—a hunting ritual in which arrows are shot at animals’ ears in the belief that this will ensure a successful hunt.

The society is built around a patriarchal structure, and a family may include blood relations from outside the nuclear family. The famed Pasibutbut, an eight-part harmony, is sung at planting time, and the Malahtangia ceremony marks Bunun boys’ passage into adulthood.

Kavalan

There are over 1,200 members of the Kavalan, who are based in eastern Taiwan. They are considered one of the pingpu (lowland) groups, most of whom assimilated by marriage into the dominant Han population following the latter’s arrival in the plains of Hualien and Taitung counties.

Traditional Kavalan ceremonies have been influenced by the Amis due to geographic proximity. Nevertheless, this group’s distinctive language, myths and shamanist practices remain. Believing that each creature has its own spirit, the Kavalan have developed unique rituals and healing ceremonies. Clan chiefs, who can be male or female, are chosen by election.

Paiwan

The Paiwan number around 87,000 and comprise two major subgroups: the Ravar and the Butsul. In bygone days, this group had a strict social hierarchy consisting of chieftains, nobility, warriors and commoners, and tribe members followed an ambilineal (combination of matrilineal and patrilineal) system of inheritance. Commoners tilled the land, but could be elevated to the warrior class, while the nobility were free to engage in leisurely activities such as sculpture.

They are famed for their glazed beads, skill in carving wood and stone, and use of “hundred-pace snake” totems as decorative motifs. The snake, Agkistrodon acutus, is one of five large poisonous snakes in Taiwan and is held in high esteem by the tribe. The Paiwan hold their most important ceremony, called the Maleveq, every five years. This is a 15-day celebration during which, they believe, the spirits of their ancestors come down from Dawu Mountain to commune with their descendants.

Puyuma

The Puyuma, based in Taitung County and numbering around 11,600, can be divided into eight subgroups. Each of these subgroups has its own legend about its origins. For instance, while members of the Nanwang group say their ancestors were born from bamboo, those of the Zhiben group hold that their predecessors had their origins in stone.

Their traditional social organization is built around two systems: the one is the family, with inheritance by the eldest daughter; and the other is a system of separating males into different age brackets. The trakuban serves as the tribe’s political center and as a school for males. Before getting married, the men undergo military training and are tasked with defending the community. Ranks are determined based on age. Despite high exposure to Christianity and Han religions, the group has retained many traditional religious practices. For example, high priests and priestesses are still responsible for identifying good and bad omens.

Rukai

There are about 11,800 members of the Rukai group, who have a social hierarchy comprising nobles and commoners. The group follows a patrilineal inheritance system. The lily is a significant flower to the Rukai—worn by men, it denotes bravery; adorning women, it signifies purity. While the nobles enjoy privileges laid out in Rukai mythology, common people can elevate their social status through showing leadership skills, by bringing in large harvests or by marrying up.

Only men are permitted to participate in the Tsatsapipianu harvest festival held in August every year. At this festival, a millet cake is baked on a stone plate. If the cake comes out dry and brittle, this signifies that the coming year will see little rain and a poor harvest, while a moist cake indicates that there will be sufficient rain and an abundance of food.

Saisiyat

The Saisiyat, a patriarchal society with a population of about 5,800, are best known for their Pas-ta’ai ceremony, conducted to commemorate the spirits of the Ta’ai—a short-statured, dark-skinned people who they say were the earliest inhabitants of Taiwan and passed on many of their skills to the Saisiyat. Legend has it that because Ta’ai men sexually harassed Saisiyat women, the enraged Saisiyat men killed virtually all of them. Afterward, the Saisiyat experienced years of poor harvests. To placate the spirits of the dead Ta’ai, ritual chanting and dancing are performed four nights in a row once every other year in communities in northwestern Taiwan’s Miaoli and Hsinchu counties.

Their social organization is maintained predominately via a patriarchal structure. Traditionally, each clan had a totem or symbol by which it was known. During the Ching dynasty, the Saisiyat changed their original totems into Chinese surnames, such as “Feng” for wind, “Ri” for sun and “Xia” for summer.

Sakizaya

The Sakizaya live on the Qilai plain in Hualien County. Because they have long interacted closely with the Amis, their customs and attire have become essentially identical to those of the Amis. The Sakizaya people’s fusion with the Amis is said to have come about when they fled their coastal plain homeland and sought refuge in the mountains after losing a battle against Ching troops in the 19th century. Only by disguising themselves as Amis could they avoid being annihilated. The current official population of this group is 400.

Fishing and hunting are the tribe’s traditional pursuits. Their social organization is mainly based on a matrilineal system. The Mivakivaki is the tribe’s coming-of-age ritual, in which the group’s elders give a special welcome to those becoming adults.

Sediq

On May 31, 2008, the Executive Yuan recognized the Sediq as Taiwan’s 14th indigenous tribe. They had been classified as Atayal since the Japanese colonial era, given the two groups’ similarity in terms of language, customs and religious observances. Numbering around 5,700, the Sediq are famous for the intricacy of their weaving and embroidery, with a preference for star-like and other geometric patterns on a white background.

Their philosophy of life includes a code of conduct called gaya or waya, which is a set of rules for every aspect of life, such as family affairs, agriculture, hunting, religious ceremonies and social interactions. The Sisin is seen as a sacred bird. When Sediq people are considering going hunting or proposing marriage, they decide on the proper course of action based on the sound that the Sisin makes.

Thao

The Thao have a population of around 660. A tribal legend says that their ancestors found Sun Moon Lake while chasing a white deer, and, seeing the beauty and abundance of the place, they moved to the area. Later, they began to cultivate crops on earth-covered bamboo rafts floating in the lake.

Thao society is patriarchal. Decisions regarding ceremonial rituals are made by the chief, a hereditary position passed on from father to eldest son. In the corner wall of each Thao home hangs an ulalaluan, a basket in which the tribe believes dwell ancestral spirits.

Truku

The Truku have a population of around 25,000 and live on the eastern coast around Hualien (the famous Taroko Gorge takes its name from that of the tribe) and in the mountainous regions of Nantou County. Three to four centuries ago, a number of Truku set off from Nantou, conquered the natural obstacles they faced, climbed over Mount Qilai in the Central Mountains and then settled along the Liwu River Valley in the east, in what is today’s Hualien County.

The Truku people are noted for their hunting, weaving and knitting skills. And in the past, only those Truku who were good at the aforementioned skills were allowed to wear facial tattoos. To this day, they maintain their traditional knife-making techniques and shamanistic practices. Ceremonies are held every year to worship ancestral spirits.

Tsou

The Tsou, who number about 6,600 and originated in the area around Jade Mountain, are divided into northern and southern subgroups that have variations in dialect and customs. A strict patriarchal structure and well-organized clans mark the Tsou’s social and political organization. Tribal affairs are conducted by men in the kuba, a house where young men must live and be trained before getting married.

The group holds the Homeyaya harvest ceremony every year. Many of the tribe are skilled at hunting and preparing animal hides, but there is a taboo on hunting or eating bears and leopards. Their Miyatjgu ceremony is based on a belief that ancestral spirits bringing peace, health, beauty and other blessings reside in sacred shell beads. Priests are the keepers of the beads, which are brought out into public view only for the annual ceremony.

Yami

The Yami, who refer to themselves as the Tao, live on Orchid Island off Taiwan’s southeast coast and number around 3,600. Unlike the tribes of Taiwan proper, they have an oceanic culture. The launch of a newly built boat is cause for a major celebration, as is the Flying Fish Festival in the spring. The women’s hair-swinging dance is unique to the tribe, while the men’s warrior dance is used to display the strength and beauty of the body. This indigenous group has no leadership system. When disputes occur, the immediate family and extended relatives of parties to the argument are called upon to negotiate a settlement. Social affairs are administered by the male heads of each household and by the community’s fishing groups.

Traditional Yami homes are low houses of stone and wood built in depressions hewn out of stony hillsides. This design helps to retain cool in summer and heat in winter. Genetically and culturally, the tribe is related to peoples of the Batan Islands in the Philippines.

Recent Immigrants

Starting in the late 1990s, there was a marked increase in the number of marriages between ROC citizens and foreign nationals. The majority of these immigrant spouses are from mainland China and Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Ministry of the Interior (MOI) statistics show that in 2008, marriages of ROC citizens to foreigners (21,729 couples) accounted for one in every seven marriages, among which 58.79 percent of non-ROC spouses were from mainland China (including Hong Kong and Macau), whereas 18.58 percent came from Vietnam, 5.10 percent from Japan and 3.82 percent from Indonesia.

Assistance for Immigrant Spouses and Their Children

In May 2003, the MOI promulgated the Measures for the Care of and Assistance to Immigrant Spouses, the text of which covers eight areas, including lifestyle adjustments, child-raising and proposals for amending laws to safeguard the rights of immigrant spouses. In 2005, the MOI allocated a budget of NT$3 billion (over US$90 million) to be disbursed over 10 years to support the above measures as well as to provide immigrant spouses with medical subsidies, legal services and vocational and language training. Help is also offered to immigrants seeking employment.

To integrate affairs related to foreign residency, naturalization and immigration, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) was established under the MOI on January 2, 2007. The NIA places special importance on providing guidance to new immigrants to help them adapt quickly to life in Taiwan and to aid the development of a multicultural society. Some of the services provided to foreign and mainland spouses by the NIA’s 25 service centers are:

• Accommodation counseling and language classes, as well as after-school services and baby-sitting for their children;
• The Foreign Spouse Protection Line, the Information for Foreigners Web site and a call center to provide telephone consultation;
• The Foreign Spouse Care and Guidance Fund—a project entailing expenditure of NT$300 million (over US$9 million) by the government every year from 2005 to 2014; and
• Provision of information about immigration, including the brochure “Information for Foreign Spouses on Living in Taiwan” distributed at household registration offices, social affairs units, the ROC’s embassies abroad and foreign embassies in Taiwan.

The NIA also carries out educational campaigns in conjunction with civic groups and non-profit organizations on such topics as Taiwan’s culture and laws, the cultures of foreign spouses and gender rights.

Demographic Trends

The first census in Taiwan, carried out in 1905, showed that there were 3.12 million people living on the island. Forty years later, the population had doubled to 6.62 million. Although a baby boom after World War II caused a rapid increase in population, subsequent policies and family planning helped slow growth. The population growth rate in 1957 was 3.5 percent. It gradually declined to 1.8 percent in 1982 and further dwindled to 0.34 percent in 2008.

Economic and political transformations over recent decades have led to changes in the makeup and structure of society. Statistics show that a declining birth rate starting in the 1970s has been accompanied by a rising divorce rate and a higher average age of marriage. The average marrying age for men rose from 27.1 years to 32.9 years between 1975 and 2008, while for women it increased from 22.7 years to 29.5 years. Meanwhile, the divorce rate rose from 1.1 percent to 2.44 percent between 1985 and 2008.

The total fertility rate (the average number of children born to a woman during her childbearing years) was five during the 1960s. It then fell to two in the 1980s, and was 1.05 in 2008. This latest figure is among the lowest in the world.

The population structure has undergone great changes over the last few decades, and Taiwan is now an aging society. With medical advances raising the average life expectancy over the years, the proportion of people aged 65 and older has been steadily increasing. In 1949, it was 2.5 percent of the population, and in 2008, 10.4 percent. The 15-64 age group, which comprised 56.4 percent of the total population in 1949, grew to 72.6 percent in 2008. Conversely, the proportion of those under 15 years of age has been decreasing.

Based on the trends, the Council for Economic Planning and Development has forecast that Taiwan’s population will peak at 23.84 million in 2026, then fall for successive years to 20.29 million in 2056. By then, the proportion of those over 65 will increase to 37.5 percent, while the percentage of those in the 15-64 age group will decline to 52.3 percent. Similarly, the percentage of people under 15 will fall from 17.0 percent in 2008 to 10.2 percent.

To counter the effects of an aging population on national development, the government has been promoting a new population policy. This policy, mirroring those adopted by other nations facing a “graying” society, aims to foster an environment conducive to raising children, improve pre- and post-natal care and preventative health care, further raise the quality of life through education, establish a comprehensive social security net, promote environmental protection and sustainable development, and formulate an appropriate immigration policy.

Immigration and Emigration

Although Taiwan has a strict immigration policy, the number of foreign nationals (not including people from mainland China) living in Taiwan still jumped from around 30,000 to 417,385 between 1991 and 2008. This was mainly due to the arrival of blue-collar guest workers beginning in the early 1990s as well as an increase in marriages between ROC citizens and foreign nationals. In 2008, guest workers accounted for about 74 percent of the total foreign population, while maids and students made up 17 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively, followed by English teachers at 1 percent and businesspeople and engineers, each at less than 1 percent.

Between 1989 and 2008, approximately 677,000 ROC citizens emigrated. Statistics for the past 15 years show the United States as the top choice for Taiwan’s émigrés, followed by Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

Languages

The written language intelligible to speakers of all Sinitic tongues is Chinese, the only pictograph-based writing system still in use on a large scale. While mainland China chose to adopt “simplified” characters in a bid to ameliorate widespread illiteracy, in the ROC, “traditional” written characters are still employed. Though the official spoken language of the ROC is Mandarin Chinese, large segments of the population speak Holo or Hakka. Austronesian languages are used by indigenous peoples, while the study of foreign languages has gradually taken root as the nation has become more connected to the world community and as more immigrants have made the ROC their home.

Mandarin

Mandarin has four tones and is called Guoyu (national language) by people in the ROC. Its origin can be traced back to the late Ching dynasty, when the government decided to make the dialect spoken around Beijing the official language. Today, Mandarin is used or understood by the vast majority of the population.

However, in the early days of the Republic, this was not the case. In 1913, the Ministry of Education (MOE) established a commission to formulate a standard phonetic system based on the phonology of the Beijing dialect. Consisting of 37 phonetic symbols and four tone marks, the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols system has helped people learn proper Mandarin pronunciation since it was first introduced in schools. The system is still used in Taiwan today.

As an ideographic language, Chinese—whether written or spoken—is not immediately intelligible to those conversant in alphabet-based scripts. Over the years, a variety of Romanization styles have been employed to construe Chinese phonetics in an accessible way. The most popular of these, historically, have proven to be the Wade-Giles system, the Tongyong Pinyin system and the Hanyu Pinyin system. To conform to a global convergence spearheaded by the 2006 U.N. Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, the ROC government decided in December 2008 to move to the Hanyu Pinyin system. (For a comparison of different Romanization systems, see Appendix IV.)

With a substantive commitment to language education, the ROC offers some of the best resources in the world for foreigners wishing to study Mandarin Chinese. The Mandarin Training Center, established in 1956 by National Taiwan Normal University, was the first institution to offer language courses for foreigners in Taiwan. Today, language programs are provided by 30 university-affiliated institutions. Details on Mandarin programs are available on an English-language Web site set up by the MOE at http://www.studyintaiwan.org.

Holo

Holo is spoken by around 73 percent of the people in Taiwan. Among a variety of methods for representing the tongue in script, one of the most popular has been the Romanization system known as Pėh-oē-jī, which was first introduced by Presbyterian missionaries.

Many attempts have been made in Taiwan over the years to promote a natively formulated written system. The MOE, for instance, unveiled the Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet in 1998. In 2006, the MOE rolled out the Taiwanese Romanization Scheme for use in Holo teaching and language textbooks. However, as of today, most native speakers of the Taiwanese dialect of Holo remain untrained in reading their native language.

Hakka

The Hakka language in Taiwan has five variants, of which the Sixian and Hailu dialects are the most widely spoken. Sixian is prevalent in Hakka communities in Miaoli, Pingtung and Kaohsiung counties; and Hailu is most commonly spoken by the Hakka population of Hsinchu County.

Hakka is, like Holo, primarily an oral language, and fluency in Hakka is becoming increasingly rare among Taiwan’s young people. To promote the language, the Council for Hakka Affairs (CHA) has drawn up and implemented a number of plans. These encompass the creation of a database for basic Hakka language materials, the publishing of dictionaries of the various Hakka dialects and the providing of funds to schools to teach Hakka. The CHA administered language proficiency tests for speakers of Hakka in 2008 that resulted in an 88.84-percent pass rate.

In 2008, the CHA organized two Hakka language competitions—the National Hakka Language Competition for Schools and the Hakka Modern Children’s Song Lyric Competition—to boost interest. The CHA also sponsors research on the Hakka language and culture, chiefly through university programs.

Indigenous Languages

Taiwan’s indigenous languages, classified as Formosan languages, belong to the same Proto-Austronesian language family as Malay and Hawaiian. Overall, the number of indigenous language speakers are declining, as new generations growing up in cities become more fluent in Mandarin or Holo than their tribal tongues. To help keep these languages alive, the MOE has included them in school curriculum.

Many indigenous languages were Romanized by Christian missionaries during the Dutch colonial period in the 17th century (see Chapter 3, “History”). The writing system developed for the Siraya, a pingpu group that lived in Tainan County, is a notable example. The Siraya used this system for signing contracts with Han people into the 19th century, after which time they became largely assimilated.

In 2005, the CIP and the MOE jointly promulgated the Romanization-based Writing Systems for Indigenous Languages for 12 languages and dialects.

Language Education

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of preserving Taiwan’s rich linguistic heritage. This has led the government to promote the teaching of Holo, Hakka and indigenous languages. Since 2001, primary school students have been required to take a course in at least one of these languages.

For decades, English as a foreign language has been a required subject for students in junior and senior high schools in Taiwan. English was made compulsory from the third grade in 2005. In support of English learning, the MOE commissioned the Language Training and Testing Center to develop tests for five ability levels. From 2000 to 2008, more than 2.6 million people took these exams. In 2005, the five-year Plan for the Promotion of Second Foreign-Language Study in Senior High Schools was implemented, adding Korean, Russian and Latin as new elective courses to the already available Japanese, French, German and Spanish. In 2008, Japanese was the most popular choice.

Those wishing to pursue language study outside the university system may do so at private language schools or public educational institutions. While the most popular foreign languages taught here remain English and Japanese, interest in major European languages has been growing. A rising number of immigrants and guest workers from Southeast Asia has also encouraged schools to provide courses in such languages as Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese.