On October 4, 2021, Waseda University’s Global Asia Research Center hosted a workshop entitled “Chinese and Japanese-Speaking Migrants in Germany: From Community Building to Questions of Well-being” that was presented by Dr. Zi Wang, a Marie Curie Fellow, and the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO), Paris, France.

Dr. Wang’s current research is based on the cultural heritage of the East Asian community in Germany. The main focus of the research is about the East Asian immigrants and their attitude to preserve the heritage, particularly examining the Chinese and the Japanese community in Germany.

In the beginning, Dr. Wang highlighted the previous literature regarding migrants from Japan, China, and Korea in European countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, etc. In the past decade, European countries used to be the leading destination for migration, but not the English-speaking countries. Most of the migrants who arrived in Germany were not familiar with the German language and culture. By 2019, more than 10% of migrants will maintain foreign nationalities (non-German heritage) in Germany. The Japanese-speaking community experienced two waves of immigration in Germany: the second wave of Japanese settlers, bucked up by a booming Japanese economy, formed their communities in urban industrialized areas such as Dusserdorf, Munich and Frankfurt, whereas the first wave was the gold miners that came as the guest worker from the Guestworker agreement in 1957. Like the Japanese-speaking community, the Chinese-speaking community also has a long history with multiple waves of immigration beginning in the late 19th century under the Guestworker Agreement. However, the 1st wave of Chinese migrants mainly came from Taiwan, and the cooperation with the host country focused on strategic and logistics-related industries. By the end of the 20th century, the Chinese migrants in Germany were from the mainland.

His research results revealed the different institutional structures of both communities, which influenced the migrants’ attitude toward their heritage languages. In the time of crisis, such as the current global pandemic, institutions like Heritage Educational Organizations (HEOs) have a better response amid the crisis, especially during lockdown when public schools were closed, HEOs managed to offer online classes so that students could continue studying and preserve their cultural heritage.

After a fruitful discussion, Dr. Wang responded to the debate by presenting his opinion on the future collaboration between the host society and the migrant communities. To enhance the effectiveness of preserving the heritage languages and culture, the HEOs and the host country may consider developing a new educational approach to preserve and raise awareness among the migrants’ descendants and seek more methods to secure stable financial support for HEOs activities.