The success story of Dewi Rachmawati may hold the key to coping with Japan's declining population and quickly aging society. The struggles the Indonesian nurse has endured during her four years living in the country are what the government must rapidly remedy.

"It was a very challenging time," Rachmawati, who arrived in Japan in August 2008 to become a certified nurse, told The Japan Times last month. In an essay she wrote in Japanese that won a special prize from the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, she said the country "is not prepared to open up as an international country."

Tokyo, although having an economic partnership agreement with Indonesia and the Philippines to accept their nurse candidates, even appears "somewhat opposed to the idea," she wrote. "Japan was a popular destination for nurses in Indonesia at first. But a number of those have given up and returned home, and it became clear for many that working in the country is not easy."