Laborers’ hopes of a fresh start in Japan turn into a living nightmare
TOKYO — Fang, a 36-yearold Chinese woman, came to Japan a year ago on the promise of job training, decent pay and a chance to achieve a better life back home.
One year later, however, she has a job that involves little training, is repetitive and strenuous, pays poorly and comes with the added humiliation of severe scoldings from her boss.
“I really regret coming to Japan,” Fang said at her tiny, makeshift room converted from containers in Hiroshima. She asked for her full name not to be made public.
Fang’s job is sewing clothes at a home-run factory in a remote farmland area, where she works with 28 other Chinese “trainees” who were brought to Japan under the Japanese government-sponsored Technical Intern Training Program.
“We have to work at a hectic pace here, with almost no time to rest,” she said, citing the fact that though the Chinese trainees already work very hard, the boss often scolds them for no reason, and yells at them to work even harder.
Despite such a heavy workload, Fang has not been able to earn as much money as she had expected, as wages for foreign trainees are roughly half the amount Japanese workers are paid for similar work.
Meanwhile, her living conditions are dreadful as she has to share with five other trainees a 10-square-meter makeshift room which has no kitchen, bathroom, air condi-
I hope my compatriots could know what we’ve been through here in Japan, so that they won’t be fooled and make bad choices like us.” Lu, 35, Chinese trainee
tioning heater, TV or Wi-Fi. The rent, however, amounts to $1,050 a month, which is much more expensive than even Tokyo rates.
Internship or servitude
Lu, a 35-year-old Chinese trainee working at a construction company in Hiroshima, said that almost all the Chinese trainees in Japan regret their decisions as they earn a pittance and learn little from excessive labor.
“I hope my compatriots could know what we’ve been through here in Japan, so that they won’t be fooled and make bad choices like us,” Fang said.
Fang and Lu’s stories are snapshots of the sad experience of hundreds of thousands of foreign trainees working in Japan, many of whom found