IN JAPANESE CULTURE, there is a tradition known as miai. This is the name given to the formal meeting, arranged by a go-between or nakodo, between a man and a woman who are each seeking a marriage partner.
This usually entails an informal written approach to one party, followed by a formal written request accompanied by a photograph and a personal history. Then, if the response is favourable, negotiations can proceed.
The Japanese Embassy has been engaged in something similar in this country for nine years, a process also, entailing careful selection and an element of matchmaking. Since 1988, it has been matching Irish graduates with host institutions throughout Japan as part of the Japanese government's JET scholarship scheme.
The JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) programme offers an opportunity for young Irish people - as well as graduates from countries as varied as Peru, the US and Korea - to experience Japanese culture and to work with Japanese people in local communities. Over 400 Irish graduates have participated in JET since it began; there arc currently 72 of them working in Japan under the programme.
Contracts are initially for one year, but may be renewed twice. Participants have their travel costs paid, are assisted with finding accommodation and receive 3,600,000 yen (just over £20,000) to cover average living expenses.
Graduates, who last year varied in age from 18 to 35, work as either assistant language teachers (ALTs) at various schools around Japan or as co-ordinators of international relations (CLRs), usually working in city or municipal governments.
The CLRs assist with translating documents, planning and implementing international exchange programmes, receiving guests from abroad and interpreting at international events. While ALTs can get along by picking up the Japanese language when they arrive in Japan, CLRs need a good standard of Japanese for the tasks they are asked to perform.
THERE WOULD appear to be an element of culture shock here, because Japanese work practices, social behaviour and language might initially appear to present obstacles for foreign visitors. Yet Irish students engage well with the Japanese way of life - so much so that the Japanese Embassy in Dublin is anxious to encourage as many of them as possible to apply for JET scholarships.
"The atmosphere and cultural background the Irish bring may be quite similar to that of the local community, and sometimes they feel that the Irish participants don't come from such a distant country after all," says Fuminori Yokote, third secretary in the Japanese embassy in Dublin.
"They are open to engaging with the local community and they are willing to learn the Japanese language, which is totally different from their own."
The most typical difficulties encountered by the Irish upon arrival in Japan, according to Yokote are the language. occasionally the diet and the adjustment to Japanese culture, "but they do very well and their performance is excellent".
Grainne Gannon, a former student of St Patrick's, Drumcondra, Dublin, and the DIT College of Marketing and Design, had only four words of Japanese when she arrived in Osaka as an ALT in 1994, including sushi and sake so she could get something to eat and drink - though a prolonged diet of raw fish and strong alcohol would probably have done for her in the end if she hadn't learned some extra words.
"Even though I was in a big city, in the suburbs it was like a country village," she says. "Even getting a dress cleaned meant I had to point at the dress and the date on the calendar. I really learned Japanese very quickly."
Still, she did have the consolation of another Irish JET student in Osaka and the more liquid assistance offered by the nearby Murphy's Irish Ear.
"I think I brought back an openness to other cultures," she says. "I found at the beginning that it was difficult to accept some of the Japanese culture. I'd think: `This is ridiculous, having to take your shoes off every time I go into the house.' I mean, I had big lace-up boots. Now I think it's dirty to wear shoes in the house."
Niamh Kelly, now a lecturer in Japanese in DCU, worked as a CLR from 1992 to 1995 in the city of Matsue, which is a "friendship city" twinned with Dublin. In the course of her work she acted as an interpreter for President Mary Robinson during herb tour of Japan. She also did research about an Irish writer, Lafcadio Hearn, who lived in Matsue 100 years ago and was the first foreign person to be made a Japanese citizen.
"I found coming back to Ireland more of a reverse culture shock," she says. "I'd read so much going out there and you're expecting everything to be new and different. I found it strange, coming back home, how much I'd absorbed of Japanese culture. Even speaking, I was inclined to bow or use other gestures."
Kelly also sees a natural affinity between the Irish and the Japanese. "I would see them as being quite similar. The island people are quite strong there. They see themselves as an island race."
The Japanese, she says, are open and welcoming, and JET applicants are in perhaps the best position to immerse themselves in the Japanese way of life, since they live and work close to the local community.
"The most important thing for me was going out after work with my Japanese work colleagues and having a drink," Kelly says. "In the end, they said they saw me as a Japanese person who happened to speak good English..."