Loving from afar: Japanese language learners and their imagined target language communities in contemporary Hong Kong

Abstract Research has shown that Japanese language learners in Hong Kong are affectively rather than instrumentally motivated. Put simply, they tend to learn Japanese because they like people or things associated with Japan(ese). To better understand their affection for Japan(ese), I explore how Japanese language learners’ imagined target language communities shape their symbolic investments in Japanese and Japanese-speaking cultural identities in contemporary Hong Kong. To this end, I conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 18 ethnic Chinese Hong Kong learners of Japanese. After data analysis, three main themes emerged: “symbolic investment”, “perceived marginalisation”, and “voluntary peripheralisation”. My findings suggest that these Japanese language learners make diverse and personalised symbolic investments in exchange for valuable intangibles, particularly security and well-being. While they perceive themselves as marginalised from imagined Japanese-speaking communities, they also tend to remain voluntarily on the periphery of such imagined Japanese-speaking communities to construct positive Japanese-speaking (but non-Japanese) cultural identities and to secure their imagined “Japan” as a safe haven from the difficult realities of Hong Kong. These learners of Japanese thus see their “Japan” as imagined “foreign” communities to which they do not want or need to fully belong. I conclude this paper with useful implications for researchers and educators.