Intercultural Communication Between Japanese Expatriate and Indonesian Local Workers

Abstract

Job opportunities in Japanese companies in Indonesia and also job opportunities in Japan are increasing every year. However, friction due to cultural differences is something that sometimes unavoidable in communication. This has been directly experienced by the author who has worked as an interpreter in a Japanese company in Cikarang, West Java, this is the basis of this research. The aim of this study are 1) to describe the problems experienced by Japanese expatriate workers and Indonesian local workers, 2) to describe the communication strategies used by Japanese expatriate workers and Indonesian local workers when facing problems they have experienced. The method used in this research is descriptive analysis method with a combined approach. The data in this study were collected quantitatively through questionnaires but the discussion was carried out qualitatively. Respondents involved in this study are 41 people, 26 Indonesians and 15 Japanese. The collected data will be analyzed by content analysis method. The results of the study show that 80% of Japanese people admit that it is difficult to work with Indonesians, and only 23% of Indonesian respondents who firmly say that it is not difficult to work with Japanese people. The difficulties experienced by Japanese respondents are in 5 categories, language behavior problems, differences in work culture, cultural differences (manners), foreign languages, and individuals. While the difficulties of the Indonesian respondents were in 2 categories, language behavior problems and foreign languages. In general, the strategy used by Indonesian and Japanese respondents in dealing with problems is a convergence strategy.