Uniting the local Japanese community

Macau Daily Times

03/12/2009 00:40:00 Alexandra Lages

Yuko Matsumoto Moody and Kunio Muraishi

Thirty-seven years ago Kunio Muraishi was a youngster and wanted to do something different in his life. So he left Tokyo and moved to Hong Kong. He stayed there for two-and-a-half years, and afterwards chose to settle in Macau. The same place that is currently his home, where he established his company, got married and built a family.

At that time, there were only a few Japanese citizens living in the territory. Life was easy.

Young Muraishi got a job as a tourist guide. “There were only four Japanese tourist guides in Macau. So there was not much competition among us,” he told the Macau Daily Times.

But that was in the past. Now times are changing. Currently, according to the Japanese Consulate in Hong Kong, there are 250 Japanese citizens registered in Macau. Muraishi estimates the community has around 300 members.

More and more Japanese are coming to Macau. They can be divided into two groups: visitors and non-resident workers.

Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that the total number of Japanese visitors and non-resident arrivals was 29,628 in October, travelling to Macau under the Individual Visit Scheme, which means a slightly drop of 3.7 percent compared with the same period of 2008. But analysing the first ten months of this year, visitors from Japan (306,641) registered an increase of 6.2 percent.

On the other hand, figures from the Office of the secretary for Security collected by the Macau Daily Times showed that in October there were 115 Japanese holding work permits in Macau. A unidentified source from the Government said this number is always changing. In addition, there are 18 Japanese registered in Macau in other legal situations, such as students.

According to Muraishi, the number of Japanese in the territory is increasing smoothly – it is not easy to get a resident permit. They came to Macau mainly to work in the tourism and business sectors. They are Japanese tourist guides, real estate business people, or workers in restaurants and hotels.

There are also some students and teachers. Yuko Matsumoto Moody is a good example of the new generation of local Japanese residents. She is a Business Communication scholar at the University of Macau.

Yuko moved with her husband to Macau in 2003. Here she feels at home. As for Muraishi, married to a local Chinese woman, he is completely adapted too. He can even speak Cantonese and Mandarin.

“Macau is very good,” he said with a big friendly Japanese-style smile.

“In Hong Kong, around the time of the victory against the Japanese in the second World War there was a lot of protests against us. Taxi drivers refused to drive Japanese people,” he said. That didn’t happen in Macau, because Portugal didn’t join the war. “Comfortable” is the word that Muraishi uses to describe the feeling experienced here since the beginning.

A sparse community

“Despite some difficulties, like … I don’t speak Cantonese, it is very nice to live here. Housewives enjoy it because it is safe, especially for the children. The food is good and it is not expensive. We have very reasonable hotel prices, unlike Hong Kong. And this is a very small territory. When I first came here I knew the bus would come back to the same point if I got lost,” Yuko said.

Despite the language barrier, the Japanese can easily fall in love with Macau. This community’s problem is of another kind. It is not an external issue. They lack closeness within their own group.

When Yuko came to Macau, six years ago, she realised that the local Japanese community was not so small at all. Thus, she felt the urge to get people together.

She decided to look for Muraishi, one of the eldest local Japanese residents and a representative of the old school generation of the Japanese community here.

“Most people from Japan that first came to Macau were outsiders in our country’s society. They came here willing to do something different,” he explained.

The oldest local Japanese residents are very individual people. They are self-made men and women. That’s why there was never a strong need to gather as an association.

This was the explanation Yuko heard from Muraishi. But she didn’t accept the situation and struggled to change things. The Japan Association in Macau was created in June of last year.

“I came from another generation. I didn’t know anybody here. I thought maybe we could revitalize this association. I’m trying to organize the women part of it,” she pointed out.

The new association has one main goal: to set up a network. The Japanese local community want to get together and have more opportunities to know each other.

Everyone is allowed to join the association. “We would like to include local people with very close relations with Japan,” Yuko added.

While the scholar is in charge of the women, Muraishi is the one who takes care of the business part. In particular, trying to make connections with big Japanese companies based in Macau to get some financial support.

“Before, everybody knew each other in Macau. However, more people is coming from Japan. I hope the Japan Association can get people together,” Muraishi, the president of the association explained.