Made in Japan, Sold on Britain

54,400 Japanese live in Britain. How do they find life here?

4.400 Japanese live in Britain: 12,000 are business people, 5,800 are students, most of the rest are their families. The Japanese like Britain. They find it strange, but they like it.

Masami Sato, one of only 70 office ladies' – junior women managers - in Britain, is happy. She says, most things are better here than in Tokyo -there are so many parks and green fields'.

As an office lady, she cannot be promoted above her present junior managerial position, but she thinks the UK is less male-dominated than Japan. She is in London as part of a scheme to give office ladies overseas experience (they are allowed to go to 10 cities considered safe - none of them are in the United States), and she does not want to go back to Tokyo when the time comes next year.

When I go back to Japan, I have to live with my family', she says. There are few amusements and we can't be relaxed because all Japanese are very busy'.

The Japanese appreciate the space, the more relaxed atmosphere and the longer holidays, but they also experience some difficulties: the most obvious is the language beerier was very hard at first. I used to sit hours at the parties not understanding a single word. But the children become absolutely bilingual. Mr Kojima has lived in Wales for two years, and still has problems. “The language is very difficult, but the staff are very experienced at explaining to the Japanese”, he says “I can understand the explanations, but I can't understand when they talk to each other”.

Besides the language, there are also cultural differences which can make life difficult. Banker Kaoru says the British like arguments, the Japanese don't. They dislike raising the opposite opinion. In Japan everyone respects the opinion of the majority'.