Intercultural experiences of Japanese retired seniors and international students : Related factors and Transfarrence of Cognitive Appraisal towards Cultural Norms

本研究以日本退休老人和留学生为对象，调查他们如何适应和体验新文化。然而，由于研究退休老人的研究很少，了解退休老人留在海外的现实成为本研究的首要任务，本研究采访了约60名在澳大利亚和泰国的日本老人，解释了澳大利亚和泰国的社会背景，如何以及为什么接收来自日本的退休老人。它描述了老年人在新环境中享受高尔夫或新的人际关系的光明生活，也描述了“长住”的阴暗面;日本老年人选择留在海外是因为担心养老金，或者是因为养老金太低而无法在日本生活的老年人，或者是单身男性老年人在日本找不到合适的地方。在文化接触方面，本研究考察了他们在东道主语境中的人际互动， ...更多信息 他们留下来。另外，通过访谈了解了他们的语言能力、交际过程中的压力以及他们对东道国文化规范的看法，以了解这些因素之间的关系。结果发现，澳大利亚和泰国的背景下有很多不同的日本老年人。据报道，在澳大利亚，夫妻经常外出，做同样的活动，呆在一起，他们有很强的联系。在泰国，有很大的日本人社区，他们之间的互动很活跃。泰国和日本的文化距离比日本和澳大利亚的文化距离更远。然而，在泰国的日本老年人，虽然他们的泰语能力较低，但在与东道主的交流中，互动积极，压力较小。另一方面，在澳大利亚的日本老年人有更高的压力，他们与主机的互动取决于个人，尽管他们的英语能力较高，这一发现不同于目前的文化接触理论，它被认为是退休的老年人很好地适应他们的新环境，即使他们不了解主机的文化规范，并没有太多的互动与主机。此外，它还发现，当人们离开他们原来的文化规范时，人们可以获得更好的和健康的心理状态;例如，老年人感到舒适，不担心日本复杂的人际关系规范，或者单身男性老年人找到自己的位置，以适应其他单身男性和当地女性。少

This research started to investigate the Japanese retired seniors and Japanese overseas students, looking at how they adjust to and experience their new cultures. However, as there are few research studied retired seniors, to understanding the reality of retired seniors staying overseas became the first priority of this research.This study, which interviewed with about 60 Japanese seniors in Australia and Thailand, explains the social background in Australia and Thailand, how and why receive retired seniors from Japan. It describes the bright lives of seniors enjoying golf or new interpersonal relationships in new environment, and also the dark side of "long-stay" ; the Japanese seniors decided to stay overseas because of the worries for their pension, the seniors who cannot live in Japan with their low pension, or the male single seniors who find nowhere to fit in Japan.Regarding cultural contact, this investigates their interpersonal interaction in the host context considering the ar … More ea they stay. In addition, their language ability, stress during the communication, and their perception towards host cultural norms were also grasped through the interview to understand the relationship between these factors. As the result, it is found out that Australian context and Thai context have many differences for Japanese seniors. In Australia, it is reported that the couples, wife and husband, often go out, do the same activities and stay together, they have strong ties. In Thailand, there are big Japanese community and active interaction among them. It is considered that cultural distance between Thailand and Japan is further than that of Japan and Australia. However, Japanese seniors staying in Thailand have active interaction and low level of stress during the communication with their hosts though they have low Thai language ability. On the other hand, Japanese seniors in Australia have higher stress and their interaction with the hosts varies depending on the individuals, despite their higher English language ability.As the findings which are different from current cultural contact theories, it is recognized that retired seniors are well-adjusted to their new environment even they do not understand the host cultural norms and not have much interaction with the hosts. In addition, it found cases where people can obtain better and healthy psychological status when they move away from their original cultural norms ; for example, the seniors who feel comfortable not to worry about Japanese complicated interpersonal norms, or, single male seniors who find their place to fit in among the other single males and local women. Less