Considered the industrial heart of central Japan, Nagoya is home to more than 5,000 Nepali residents. Resham Upreti, a 38-year-old who moved here from Dhading, is one of them.
“When young people move here, they cannot speak Japanese — they don’t know about Japan,” says Upreti, recalling his own experience and that of the young Nepali people he has met here. “Since they’re from different regions of Nepal, they don’t have Nepali friends either. I wanted to create a place to change all that.”
In June, Upreti realized a long-term goal and launched Nihongo Shabero Kai (Let’s Speak Japanese Meetup), a language-learning program he hopes will support migrants to Japan of all stripes by giving them some of the tools they need to adapt to Japanese society.