TOKYO - Japan allows hundreds of Southeast Asian nurses to work on short-term contracts, but the health-care workers say the exams they must pass for the right to stay longer are so tough that almost all flunk them.

Nurses and care-givers from Indonesia and the Philippines are now asking their host country to relax the requirements that force them to quickly learn thousands of Japanese characters and medical terms on top of their work duties.

"It's really a challenge for us to pass the exam, with only one chance, after working full-time for three years," Indonesian nurse Wahyudin, 28, who uses only one name, said in Japanese at a Tokyo press conference on Tuesday.

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Foreign nurses in Japan decry tough pass-or-go-home exam - ABS CBN News