Tin Win recalls having "butterflies in my stomach" when he found out three years ago he had finally received refugee status from the Japanese government."The refugee status would change my life completely, I believed," says the Tin Win, 47, a native of Myanmar.
Yet it did not take long for events to prove that belief wrong. He has since struggled to find a decent-paying work and is trying to make ends meet for his family."Nothing in my life has changed even after receiving that long-cherished document," he says.
Tin Win is one of a small number of pro-democracy activists from Myanmar who have received refugee status from Japan.He grew up in relatively affluent circumstances with his family that operated a clothing store in Mandalay, Myanmar's ancient capital."I spent my childhood not knowing about the pain under which the people of my own country were living," he says.
He joined the pro-democracy movement after becoming increasingly skeptical of the policies of the country's military government. At university, he studied economics and then traveled throughout Myanmar.
In 1988, Tin Win was jailed for five months on suspicion of organizing a large-scale pro-democracy rally. Yet he continued to play an important role in the pro-democracy National League for Democracy (NLD) of Aung San Suu Kyi, serving as a branch head of the organization.In 1996, close friends and NLD activists were arrested, and secret police raided Tin Win's home while he was away. His wife Tin Nwe Oo, 44, suggested that he flee the country.
"You will be killed if you are arrested again," he remembers her saying. "You can contribute to the opposition movement if you survive overseas."Tin Win left his family and country in a mood of deep depression. "It felt like falling into hell," he says.
Immediately after arriving in Japan, he applied for refugee status at the Justice Ministry. Included in his application was a photo showing him posing with Aung San Suu Kyi.Shogo Watanabe, a lawyer who helped with the application, says, "If Tin Win cannot be a refugee, then no one can. This is a plain and simple case."
Until his application was formally accepted two years later, Tin Win actively took part in a variety of meetings with Burmese living in Japan and Japanese supporters. The gatherings were an effort to explain to the Japanese people what was happening in Myanmar and to persuade the Foreign Ministry not to resume its official development assistance to Myanmar's junta.
In 1999, Tin Win's family was reunited at Calcutta airport. The three children were surprised to see their father there, as their mother had told them they were on a trip to India to attend a relative's wedding.Tin Nwe Oo had concocted the ruse to get permission from the junta to travel overseas."It was like a dream. I could not imagine that I could meet my father who fled our home country again," says Hay Mar, Tin Win's 17-year-old daughter.
After the family settled in Japan, Tin Win had a difficult time finding work, despite his ability to speak five languages. He has done a variety of menial work in Japan, such as jobs at pachinko parlors and restaurants.
"The Japanese government did not introduce any job opportunities to people who are formally accepted as refugees," Tin Win says.Members of his family were having troubles of their own in adapting to their new home.His 13-year-old son Demo cried over not being able to understand classes at his Japanese school, so the father sought counseling at an organization that helps Asian refugees.His family was accepted by the Foundation for Welfare and Education of Asians, which is entrusted by the central government to give Japanese-language lessons and vocational counseling to refugees from Indochina.Although Tin Win's family is not Indochinese, it was made an exception and accepted at the center, thanks to the efforts of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.All the family members described the Japanese-language teachers there as excellent.
Even so, Tin Win remembers the bureaucratic discrimination his family received. Refugees from Vietnam or Cambodia, trained at the center, receive allowances for settlements worth 150,000 yen per person upon graduation. However, Tin Win's family members, who graduated from there, were refused the money.
"The government is thinking about easing the regulations," a government official in charge of the issue explained later.Tin Win, however, is critical of the government's policy. "The policy of the Japanese government seems to be one of not accepting refugees," he says.
The family now lives in Ota, Gunma Prefecture, in central Japan. The parents work at a nearby factory for 800 yen to 900 yen per hour, a wage so low that they are becoming more and more indebted.
"It is hard for me to see my children short of money," the mother said tearfully.Hay Mar, who attends high school classes in the evenings, has recently started a part-time job at a supermarket, and she finds her economic independence an exciting challenge.
"I get excited when I buy something with my own earnings," she says. She adds she is saving up to pay for a university education.Nay Yi, Tin Win's 11-year-old daughter, uses Japanese when she speaks to her parents."Life in Japan is pleasant. I want to go to Myanmar for pleasure instead of returning home," she says.
"My children's prospects are not necessarily bright," Tin Win said. "But I have been optimistic. I could not have overcome the hard times in the past unless I was this way. I believe we can return to our home country any time."
Watanabe, agreeing with Tin Win's remarks, said, "The democratization process is historically inevitable. When that happens, Japan will be blamed for what it did for refugees in the past." (Kyodo News)