Topic: Japanese life
Job hunt: A reluctant Japan is being asked by Asian nations to open up its labor market. The Asahi Shimbun / April 7
.... Nursing is a job area given special treatment. Foreigners can work up to four years in the profession in Japan as long as they have passed Japan's national qualifying exams, which are difficult and require high competency with the language.
Nguyen Thi Duyen, 23, from Vietnam, recently passed the national exam after graduating from a nursing school in Chiba Prefecture this spring. She arrived in Japan three years ago at the invitation of the Tokyo-based civic organization AHP Networks, which supports Vietnamese studying for Japanese nursing qualifications.
``Just learning Japanese was difficult (in addition to studies in nursing),'' she recalled.