Chasing the Japanese Dream

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Lessons in Culture
This new breed of Chinese immigrant is transforming the Yokohama Yamate School, Japan's largest Chinese-language academy. Founded in 1898, the school originally catered to the children of dockworkers or small-time traders, most of whom weren't eligible for Japanese citizenship. Qualified teachers were so rare that classes had to be conducted in a hodgepodge of Chinese dialects depending on who was available. But over the past decade, as the student population has nearly doubled to more than 400, principal Pang Minsheng has witnessed an educational revolution. Many of the students' parents are now IT executives or research scientists, not menial laborers. "These people are the intelligentsia of China, who went to the best universities," says Pang, who has gone on a hiring spree in China to cater to the growing student population. "They want only the same for their children, and they feel confident about China's place in the world."

Such newfound national pride is shared by many of the Chinese university students now flocking to Japan. While Tiananmen-generation scholars went as penniless scholarship recipients, the latest arrivals were raised in Chinese cities whose skyscrapers and Internet cafés aren't so different from Tokyo's. They are not looking for political or economic refuge. Le Yiping is a polished 25-year-old studying transportation and logistics at the University of Tokyo, one of Japan's premier colleges. "I plan to go back to China after graduation because the business opportunities there are very good," she says — though she admits that other Chinese friends have made similar vows, only to remain in Japan. While Le is here, however, she's on a mission to change her homeland's negative reputation. "Japanese have an image of China as still poor," she says, shaking her head. "But that's just not true anymore."

This perception gap may be the single biggest obstacle to closer regional ties. Japanese society remains suspicious of foreigners. Government surveys conducted in 2005 and 2006 found that nearly two-thirds of Japanese harbored negative feelings toward China, the highest percentages in more than two decades. Video game–loving software consultant Wu recalls how he was once walking to work — he held down five part-time jobs to afford his graduate-school tuition — and was stopped three times in 15 minutes by police demanding to see his alien registration card. During one stint when Wu toiled as a janitor, his Japanese boss took the Chinese workers aside and admonished them against stealing from the offices they were cleaning, a warning never uttered to the Japanese staff.

Much of the prejudice stems from a feeling that illegal Chinese immigrants — estimated at nearly 30,000 by Japan's Immigration Bureau — are little more than criminals intent on wreaking havoc on Japanese society. In truth, the arrest rate for violent crimes is no different for Chinese — illegal or otherwise — than that for other foreigners residing in Japan. Yet shocking cases, like the 2003 murder of a Japanese family by a trio of Chinese students, cast a shadow on all expatriate Chinese. Equally frustrating for many Chinese living in Japan is a new scheme that requires most foreigners to undergo fingerprinting every time they enter the country.