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Kurds living in Kawaguchi repeatedly find themselves in the news

14 Comments
By Michael Hoffman

Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture, could be any suburb in the Tokyo orbit. Population 600,000. Thirty minutes by train from the metropolitan core, where many residents work, though local industry flourishes.

It’s a bland, featureless place, neither beautiful nor historically significant, not remarkably rich or remarkably poor. People do here what they do elsewhere, more or less contentedly, as anywhere. 

Why write about it, then?

On closer inspection it presents a theme after all. Japan’s future, it may be said, is beginning here, and how it unfolds will reveal much about what’s in store for the country as a whole.

Many foreigners live in Kawaguchi. Nearly half are Chinese. Vietnamese, Filipinos and Kurds, mostly Turkish, round out the ethnic mix. Together they number some 40,000 – 7 percent of the population.

The Kurds, a tiny minority of 3,000 or so, repeatedly find themselves in the news, and if they read Shukan Shincho (Jan 16) they’ll find themselves here, in an article titled “The Truth about the Kurdish Problem.” In truth it contains neither more truth nor less than other media coverage, which is generally sympathetic and honest. Probably the truth is elusive.

But “problem” – or problems – is the unquestionable heart of the matter. When cultures clash, as cultures will, which prevails and which yields? Can immigrants yield without surrendering a vital part of themselves? Can hosts demand the surrender without violating human rights or justice or simple decency? Does tolerance have limits? Is failure to respect those limits itself a form of intolerance? Is exasperation vented necessarily hate speech? Some take it so. How much deference are they owed?

And so on. Japan, on the outer fringe of worldwide migration and shielded by some of the developed world’s most restrictive immigration laws, has largely been spared the angst climaxing lately as neo-Nazism in parts of Europe and mass deportations in the U.S.

But splendid isolation in a tumultuous world is unsustainable. If it survives one challenge, it succumbs to another, or to a third. In Japan’s case the fatal challenge is demographic. Its population ages and declines, its workforce shrinks, it’s already past the point of natural renewal, barring a baby boom nowhere in sight. If ever a nation has needed a fountain of youth, that nation is Japan. Immigration is a potential one, still awaiting its due.

Kurds are the world’s most populous stateless people, some 40 million inhabiting stretches of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkiye, welcome nowhere, often persecuted. Their drift to Japan began in the 1990s. Friendly Japan-Turkiye relations opened Japan to 90-day visits, no visas required, by Turkish nationals. Kawaguchi, so conveniently located, had local industries desperately short of workers.

Prime among these industries is demolition. It’s dirty, dangerous work. Japanese don’t want it. Most have been educated to expect and feel they deserve better. Kurds and others fill the gap. Arriving as visitors, Kurds secured employment and either legalized their status or didn’t, staying on regardless. Their numbers grew. The Japanese, generally speaking, are a sedate, quiet people. Kurds, by and large, are exuberant and loud. Japanese keep their emotions to themselves. Kurds show their feelings. It’s as simple as that. One culture’s music is another’s noise; one culture’s restraint is another’s straitjacket.

Shukan Shincho runs through a list of recent incidents. In July 2023 a Kurdish man slashed two Japanese he suspected of sleeping with his wife. A crowd of 100 gathered outside the hospital, paralyzing ambulance service for five hours.

In January 2024 a teenage girl was bundled into a car at convenience store parking lot and sexually molested. A Kurdish man was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to a year in prison, suspended for three years. Then he was arrested for similar violence against a 12-year-old. He left the country, was arrested on his return and deported.

Last September an unlicensed Kurdish driver allegedly killed two motorcyclists. That rounds out the list of criminal allegations. Among various non-criminal nuisances charged to the Kurds’ account are noisy late-night street parties, brawling among themselves, urinating in public, congregating en masse at convenience stores and scaring away Japanese customers, and taking over neighborhood children’s’ parks with their boisterous adult diversions, leaving behind used condoms and empty liquor bottles.

Is it hate or prejudice or racism or intolerance to expect immigrants to behave themselves? And if any controversy arises over what “behaving” means, should not the host culture have the right to set the standards? People worldwide are on the move – political refugees, climate refugees, economic refugees – there’s much to escape from and there are fewer and fewer places to escape to. This is “human rights” on the simple level of human relations. Kids work it out on the playground and the sooner grownups learn from them the better. Imagine: 5000 years of civilization have yet to teach us the most elementary civilized lesson of all: shared humanity.

Shukan Shincho presents two revealing snatches of dialogue. The first is a handwritten note sent to city hall by a Kurd in response to comments by a municipal counselor calling for tighter regulation. The note reads: “Kawaguchi is Kurd territory. Japanese out!”

The second occurs when the magazine’s reporter enters a Kurdish restaurant. The air fills with the fragrant odor of grilling kebab. Management, staff and customers are all Kurds. Momentarily intimidated, the reporter hesitantly approaches a man who appears to be the owner and says, “I’m Japanese – may I come in?” The man roars with laughter. “Of course! This is Japan, isn’t it?”

© Japan Today

©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.

14 Comments
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These are not the people Japan needs. Why are they here?

2 ( +14 / -12 )

In January 2024 a teenage girl was bundled into a car at convenience store parking lot and sexually molested. A Kurdish man was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to a year in prison, suspended for three years. Then he was arrested for similar violence against a 12-year-old. 

Do same crime, twice?

-6 ( +5 / -11 )

taking over neighborhood children’s’ parks with their boisterous adult diversions, leaving behind used condoms and empty liquor bottles.

That just turning Japanese parks into parks like those in Europe.

-4 ( +10 / -14 )

Is it hate or prejudice or racism or intolerance to expect immigrants to behave themselves? 

Love everything Michael Hoffman writes — 25 years and counting!

Perfectly perceptive, ideally insightful.

1 ( +9 / -8 )

Japan is getting a small taste of what is happening all across Western Europe. If they copy the EU agenda, they will get the full experience.

1 ( +14 / -13 )

I got to meet a team of Kurds from "Warabistan" when a crew of them demolished my neighbor's house. It was backbreaking work in muggy summer weather, and I admired their diligence (and stamina). It's no easy thing to travel thousands of kilometers and set down roots in a foreign land, and I can't help but feel sympathetic. I sure wish the Kurds could work out some sort of modus vivendi with Turkey that would enable them to all get along, and enable the exiles to return (or at least the ones who want to go back).

-5 ( +4 / -9 )

So mostly illegal immigrants used for low wages to demolish Japan.

I think Japan could have spared itself the effort to bring any and no, immigrants should largely assimilate otherwise it is called invasion.

-5 ( +5 / -10 )

These anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim comments are expected but I really don’t understand.

When Japanese people are loud or drunk In public, no one suggests there is something inherently wrong with them or that they shouldn’t be in Japan.

Japanese people are capable of, and do some of the same things I’ve read in this article.

Asking why Kurds can’t “behave” themselves when not all Japanese people behave themselves is strange to me. Is the message supposed to be “Japanese people can do anything they want in Japan”?

-6 ( +5 / -11 )

LVToday 01:00 pm JST

When Japanese people are loud or drunk In public, no one suggests there is something inherently wrong with them or that they shouldn’t be in Japan.

I think one would be hard pressed to find a household where a sibling was disowned and put out on the street for bad behavior. On the other hand, someone who is not family would be removed swiftly. The one who is not family should be on their best behavior, recognizing they are in someone else's house.

Japanese people are capable of, and do some of the same things I’ve read in this article.

Sure. It is their home. If Kurds or anyone wants to tear down the house, let them do that in... oh wait. Well, maybe they can be moved to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast that the Jewish people don't use.

Asking why Kurds can’t “behave” themselves when not all Japanese people behave themselves is strange to me. Is the message supposed to be “Japanese people can do anything they want in Japan”?

Obviously not. But there is more leniency because Japan is their home while the Kurds' home is elsewhere, even if ethereal. I mean, if your sibling goes in the refrigerator, grabs the orange juice, and drops the carton accidentally, you may say, "Why weren't you more careful?" and expect the sibling to clean up their own mess. But if it was a house guest that did the same thing, you might say "Why were you going through the refrigerator?" The spilled orange juice would be secondary.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Good news about anyone, Kurds included, doesn't sell...."Culture of Complaint " rules

1 ( +3 / -2 )

It is odd that there has been such big issues with kurds in Kawagoe. We have plenty of kurds, turkish people and Brazilians here in Aichi and I have not heard of any similar issues. Is there perhaps a few numbskulls on both sides creating problems for everyone?

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

These anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim comments are expected but I really don’t understand.

> When Japanese people are loud or drunk In public, no one suggests there is something inherently wrong with them or that they shouldn’t be in Japan.

> Japanese people are capable of, and do some of the same things I’ve read in this article.

> Asking why Kurds can’t “behave” themselves when not all Japanese people behave themselves is strange to me. Is the message supposed to be “Japanese people can do anything they want in Japan”?

THIS!! Well said!

Good news about anyone, Kurds included, doesn't sell...."Culture of Complaint " rules

Absolutely.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

They must adapt to the country not the opposite. They are guest here and must act like it.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

They must adapt to the country not the opposite. They are guest here and must act like it.

Yes... this includes Chinese. Vietnamese, Filipinos, Americans and Kurds.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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