Thousands of Myanmar immigrants haunt the streets around Takadanobaba Station in Tokyo. Pic: Vida Karabuva

TOKYO – The streets around Takadanobaba Station in Japan’s teeming capital hide an estimated 5000 illegal immigrants from Myanmar.

Having overstayed their visas – some by more than a decade – they hide behind business suits and pray to Buddha that they won’t be picked up by the police.

“In Myanmar we greet each other with ‘Sa pi bi la?’ – Have you eaten? – but here we greet each other with news of who has just been arrested,” says Ma Haymer, who runs the nearby Japan-Myanmar Cultural Centre and helps Myanmar illegals when they end up in detention centres.

As if to prove this, the conversation in a local Myanmar restaurant, where Ma Haymer is having her tea, turns to a family who has just been picked up by the police.

“One family was arrested today, but tomorrow 100 more will come,” says an elderly Myanmar woman sitting nearby.

Myanmar people have been flooding to Japan over the last 15 years to make what they believe will be easy money. Most of them come from middle-class families, but when they arrive they find themselves working as kitchen crew, cleaners or in hotel laundry rooms.

“Myanmar people are too proud to tell their families back home what they are doing here,” says Ma Haymer, so more come, still believing that Japan is the promised land.

Most arrive believing they will be doing office work, Ma Haymer says, when the reality is actually very different. Many businesses refuse to hire them because they lack visas, language skills or a recognised education.

Whether folklore or reality, there is a story that is frequently retold in Takadanobaba, about two Myanmar dishwashers who got into an argument at work. “Don’t you know who I am? My father is so-and-so in Myanmar,” one said to the other. The other retorted, “Yeah, well my father outranks yours.”

“Of course it doesn’t matter here, they’re all just kitchen hands,” Ma Haymer says.

But a kitchen hand in Tokyo still earns about US$2500 a month, which for most is incentive enough to stay on despite the degradation of doing a “lowly” job.

Housing costs are notoriously high in Japan, so several immigrants will squeeze into one small apartment, and in this way they manage to send most of the money they earn home.

Zaw Min’s father ran a prosperous transportation business in Yangon, but when he died young, Zaw Min’s mother thought the best thing would be for Zaw Min to go to Japan, where some of his relatives already worked, and earn money to support the family.

He entered the country on a tourist visa five years ago and never left.
When he arrived he was very much still a boy. Now 30, he is disillusioned, withdrawn and currently unemployed.

“I don’t want to stay here anymore,” he admits.

But he is too proud to tell his family how unhappy he is.

He is thinking about trying his luck in Australia next, but more than anything, he says, he would like to go home.

Illegal Myanmar workers in Japan have few prospects; they work long hours and spend what spare time they have in Myanmar-dominated restaurants, karaoke bars and coffee shops where they feel safe.

Occupying a grey zone outside the mainstream, they cannot obtain formal education, marry legally or go to the authorities over a dispute with an employer. While a court may in fact take up their case, they are also likely to detain them.

Conditions in Japanese immigration detention centres are not harsh, but being inside means not being able to earn money to send home, or even worse, being sent home without earning enough to repay the debt they took on in order to come to Japan in the first place.

“Most of them borrow money to come here,” Ma Haymer says.

Many afternoons, Zaw Min sits in one of the several cafes around Takadanobaba Station, dressed in a smart business suit and carrying a shiny new briefcase, even though his last job was as a kitchen hand.

It is a uniform that he believes hides him from the police; they do not stop smart-looking businessmen, only those dressed in casual clothes, he says.
But not even the suit makes him feel secure any more.

Three months ago he stopped working – the fear of being arrested became too much for him. He takes taxis everywhere, because believes that this way he has less chance of being stopped than if he took the subway.

About a decade ago there were almost 10,000 illegal immigrants from Myanmar living in Tokyo, community leaders say, but a crackdown has cut that number in half.

U Kyaw Lwin, a black-market used car dealer, says he has managed to live illegally for 10 years because he looks Japanese.

He also credits the business suit he wears every day – and nightly prayers to Buddha.

“After not having any problems for 10 years, I no longer worry. But other people are afraid,” he says.

“But they still want to be in Japan, because they can earn much more money then they can in Myanmar.”