Japan Migratory Flows and Their ‘Everyday Practice’

DOI: 10.1515/irsr-2013-0002

IRSR INTERNATIONAL REVIEW of SOCIAL RESEARCH Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2013, 7-26 International Review of Social Research

Everyday Mobility: the Normalization of China- Japan Migratory Flows and their ‘Everyday Practice’

Jamie COATES•

Department of Anthropology School of Culture, History and Language Australian National University

Abstract: Chinese migrants now constitute the largest group of registered ‘foreigners’ in Japan, with over 600,000 documented in 2006. This is the result of an intersection between the Chinese government’s drive for educational and economic success, and Japan’s flexible student visa labour system. It is the product of a ‘normalization’ of mobility amongst young mobile Chinese. Based on 20 months fieldwork in Tokyo, Japan, I explore the ways in which the decision to move is experienced as mundane, and how it is negotiated as a form of ‘everyday practice.’ Through this lens, this article posits multiple relationships between mobility, its limits and how this relates to mobile people’s sense of place in the world.

Keywords: Japan, China, young mobility, everyday practice.

Contemporary movements between selected. Furthermore, the restrictive China and Japan defy simple limitations imposed on Chinese tourist classification. Like other forms of visas mean that many Chinese people mobility, the boundaries between with ‘touristic’ aspirations choose other categories of movement such as tourist, visas which afford greater mobility. As student and migrant are blurred. such, mobility is the primary marker of Moreover, the visas which define these people rather than classificatory people’s movements between China terms such as migrant, tourist, student and Japan do not necessarily encompass or labourer. what they actually do. Tourist, student The purpose of this article is to and work-related visas act merely as demonstrate how the experiences of channels for a range of aspirations that young mobile Chinese in Japan collapse do not necessarily fit the visa category simplistic distinctions of necessity and

•e-mail: [email protected]. Jamie Coates is Phd candidate at Dept. of Anthropology, CHL, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University.

© University of Bucharest, February 2013 8 | IRSR Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2013 desire for movement, and to show how securing mobility, but also in trying this experience of mobility is akin to limit mobility. Once, mobile, to other mundane realities for many. young Chinese in Japan often find Mobility involves complex relations the everyday realities of a mobile between the hopes an individual’s life disorienting and difficult. They families have for them and the hopes are unable to remain indefinitely in they have for themselves. Rather than Japan, but also find it difficult to return the common assumption that mobility to China. In particular, the difficult is a sign of flexibility or success, this choices presented by a mobile life were paper interprets mobility as the result described as less an issue of choice than of both successes and failures. It as a general experience of ‘floating.’ involves tactical and strategic reactions This draws attention to what Franke to the options available and the forces Pieke calls the ‘mundane realities of which create these limitations. In this life beyond what is immediately policy sense, mobility is best interpreted as relevant’ (Pieke 2007: 82) and shows a continuation of ‘everyday practice’ how, through the lens of ‘everyday in China rather than something practice,’ mobility itself can become exceptional or successful (De Certeau an obstacle for mobile Chinese youths. 1984). Young mobile Chinese in Japan narrate their mobility as ‘everyday’ From China to Japan and mundane; as a practical choice made within a range of options which After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 are created by wider institutional forms a period of rapid economic growth in both countries. This can be seen as and social change emerged in China. ‘normalization,’ where the institutional Since this period of ‘open’ policies and discursive encouragement of (CHN: gaige kaifang)1 , there has been migration between China and Japan a large emphasis on growth in China. becomes internalized as a ‘normative’ This period saw the transformation act for many mobile Chinese, despite of a once solely state run economy overseas movements being only into a hybrid market economy, and an available to a small proportion of opening of diplomatic and migratory China’s population. This paper argues relations with countries shut off from that an ‘everyday practice’ approach the PRC during Mao’s rule, such as to mobility allows us to acknowledge Japan. These changes were particularly the ways Chinese mobile subjects are notable in the 14 prescribed ‘special formed by these institutional forces, economic zones’ (SEZs) along China’s without dismissing individuals’ own eastern coastal cities, but have also sense of the practicality in their spread generally throughout the urban movements. centres of China. Young mobile Chinese in Japan are This new emphasis on economic subject to many obstacles in securing growth was accompanied by visas, passports and access to mobile educational reforms. Studying overseas lifestyles. However, the precarity became popular and prestigious after of their situation is not limited to June 1978, when Deng Xiaoping Jamie Coates Everyday Mobility | 9 instructed education departments to this is found in a 1992 State Council expand the scale of people travelling report on the principles of overseas overseas for studies. Since then China study policy. These principles were to has become the world’s largest exporter ‘support study abroad, promote return, of international students. In 2006 [uphold] freedom of movement,’ and to there were 343,126 recorded Chinese ‘promote overseas individuals to serve international students, constituting the country,’ with ‘serve the county’ 14% of the total international student (CHN: wei guo fuwu) becoming the population and amounting to three times standard slogan for overseas students the total of the second largest exporter, (Nyiri 2001; Cheng 2003). India (UNESCO 2006). This drive for In her research amongst students international study has become a major in the reform era, Vanessa Fong means for legal overseas travel from has argued that images of China’s China. Of the total number of Chinese place in the world are embedded in students travelling, 89,000 Chinese a broader notion of ‘modernising’ students went to the USA and 79,000 China that is subject to the perceived to Japan. However, due to special need for China to modernise (Fong vocational (15,000 students) and pre- 2004; Fong 2007; Fong 2011). The university language student (30,000 students Fong interviewed often students) visa arrangements between voiced disappointment with the rate of China and Japan, Japan arguably progress in China, and the perceived constitutes the largest recipient of inferiority of Chinese standards of educationally-channelled Chinese living. Hence, they felt it necessary to migrants. For example, Liu-Farrer has go overseas to develop themselves. At calculated the total of educationally the same time, they framed this desire channelled Chinese migrants in Japan in terms of filial duty to the nation by to be 120,176 for 2006 (UNESCO cultivating themselves overseas and 2006; Liu-Farrer 2007; Liu-Farrer returning at a later date. 2011). By the 1990s, China’s new Educational travel is one of emphasis on overseas study and the most reliable means for young migration coincided with Japan’s Chinese citizens to travel overseas. own social developments. Japan’s Legal overseas migration has been ageing population, labour shortage, encouraged by the Chinese Communist and the hesitation of the domestic Party (CCP) in the reform era as part population to engage in certain kinds of the developmental imaginaries of employment, created a new labour of the nation (Nyiri 2001; Xiang market for temporary migration (Liu- 2003; Fong 2004; Fong 2007; Xiang Farrer 2007). These developments were 2007; Nyiri 2010; Fong 2011). In the catalyst for several migratory flows particular, overseas study has featured into Japan. For example, Brazilian prominently in this promotion, as citizens with Japanese ancestry were the CCP attempts to create broad granted a special visa entitlement to international networks of economic work and live in Japan (Roth 2002). and cultural development (Nyiri 2001). Similarly, young Southeast Asian A particularly indicative example of women were attracted to Japan via 10 | IRSR Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2013 entertainment visas and trainee visas. students originally intending to enter a Entertainment visas were promoted university in Japan opt to work instead as a cultural exchange visa, although and, vice versa, those originally trying they were predominantly used within to earn money end up attempting some Japan’s adult entertainment industry form of education due to the advantages (Hisada 1992; Douglass and Roberts it brings. Moreover, the possibility of 2000). Trainee visas were designed becoming more cosmopolitan through as a form of ‘on the job training’ but ‘touristic’ experiences abroad also play have been widely criticised as an a role in young mobile Chinese lives exploitative and short sighted scheme in Japan. In this way, mobile Chinese to bring cheap labour into the care people living in Japan rarely fit a industry (Terasawa 2000). simple classificatory migration model. According to my own research, as This is due to the high living costs well as that of other scholars, young associated with living in Japan and the mobile Chinese predominantly come desire for mobile life trajectories. to Japan on educational visas (Tajima 2003; Liu-Farrer 2011). The relative ease in attaining one of the several Studying mobile people: method types of student visas and the part-time and positionality work arrangements permitted under the various educational visa categories has My research is based on 20 months of ensured that student visas have become ethnographic fieldwork in Ikebukuro, a proxy channel for labour migration. Tokyo. Ikebukuro is situated on the Liu-Farrer has noted that the possible northwestern corner of Tokyo’s central combination of work and education ring line. It is the major transfer hub via student visas in Japan has ensured for the residential areas surrounding that a variety of different aspirations Tokyo (such as Saitama) and has for social mobility and economic become a popular entertainment area success flow through similar migratory for businessmen and various youth sub- channels. cultures, such as ‘rotten girls’ (Galbraith My own research mirrors much 2011). Due to its low rents, vibrant of the current sociological research entertainment area and central location in regards to educational visas and it is a convenient space to live cheaply mobility (Cheng 2001; Tajima 2003; whilst still being able to find work and Liu-Farrer 2007; Pieke 2007; Liu- study. Consequently, Ikebukuro has Farrer 2011; Liu-Farrer 2012; Cheng also become a popular destination for 2003). The differences between the recently-arrived Chinese nationals in educational and economic aspirations Japan, often referred to as ‘Chinese of mobile Chinese are not as distinct Newcomers’ by scholars such as Junko as one might assume. Educational and Tajima (Tajima 2003). Over the past economic migration is inseparable twenty years, this area has attracted a in the context of moving to Japan, significant number of Chinese small with mobile aspirations and plans business owners, which has also shifting depending on opportunities increased Ikebukuro’s appeal to many and experience. Many language new arrivals. The growing number of Jamie Coates Everyday Mobility | 11

Chinese in Ikebukuro has culminated isolation, several part-time jobs and in over 200 Chinese-owned businesses study. Their busy lives left me with a on the western side of Ikebukuro train rich sense of the everyday nature of station and is now seen to be a thriving mobility for young Chinese people hub of Chinese sociality. from major urban centers along My reaction to my interlocutors China’s east coast. It also revealed the is related to my own experience as limitations of participant observation a mobile subject and surprise at the in such hectic mobile lives. Young increasing number of Chinese people mobile Chinese living in Tokyo juggle in Japan. I entered university as a hectic schedules between study and China studies undergraduate and work, needing to attend classes to fulfill consequently spent several years living their visa requirements while earning in both Beijing and Taiwan. Whilst money to cover their living costs. This living there, I came to make several leaves little time for social interaction Japanese friends; when I went to visit with classmates and co-workers, let a friend in Tokyo, I came across the alone a nosy anthropologist. What is prevalence of Chinese students at more, even when invited into people’s Japanese universities. It was 2004, and lives, my fieldwork mainly involved a series of violent anti-Japan protests short interviews with young mobile had ignited earlier that year in Beijing, Chinese in their dorm rooms. I was not sparked by several events during the allowed to follow them to work, lest Asian Cup, a region-wide football I cause trouble with their employers, championship. My experiences living and my efforts to follow them in in China gave me a strong sense of the other parts of their lives meant I was prevalence of anti-Japan sentiments always focusing on one interlocutor in China. I was thus surprised to find at the expense of another. All of these Chinese students to be the largest problems gave me the feeling that my group of international students in fieldwork was increasingly becoming Japan. I tried to find out more about this centered on my relationship with group, but at that time there was little several of my interlocutors, and was ethnographic scholarship on Chinese vastly altering the schedules of the people in Japan. young mobile Chinese I knew. It was only later, when I found Several small businesses in funding to conduct fieldwork in Japan Ikebukuro had petitioned the local as part of my PhD, that I was able to government to have the northern gate pursue my initial interest in this topic. area of the station re-labeled ‘Tokyo I was perhaps naively too focused on Chinatown’ (For a detailed account the question ‘Why are Chinese people see Yamashita 2010). Disappointed by moving to Japan?’ when I first started my inability to follow young mobile my research. I was attracted to an area Chinese across Tokyo, I decided to of Tokyo known as Ikebukuro after pick a particular space from which to several failed attempts to follow the try and document their lives. I lived busy networks of Chinese students in an illegal Chinese dormitory, spent who, although friendly, lived a busy hours in small businesses such as hair life which moved between purposeful salons and restaurants, and finally 12 | IRSR Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2013 established a network of interlocutors to self-support while living in Japan that started to create an ethnographic (even though it was often impossible) picture. meant that their economic background All together, I had regular contact bore only some influence on their with over 250 interlocutors and lifestyles in Japan. Young mobile conducted repeated unstructured Chinese living in Ikebukuro were interviews with a core group of 30 rarely from elite backgrounds but at the interviewees. All of my interlocutors same time they were not from China’s were between the age of 18 and 35 and poorer western regions. Japan is easy came from a range of socio-economic to reach from China, with the cheapest backgrounds. They had all lived in option being an overnight ferry from Japan for less than 10 years, and came Tianjin or Qingdao at roughly 1600- from major urban centres, mostly 2000 RMB (200-300 USD). It also from Northeast China. Although provides the most flexible work-study my interlocutors shared their family visa arrangements. Consequently, my backgrounds with me, many were hard interlocutors came from varied strata to verify and often my interviewees of socially mobile Chinese urbanites said they did not know the incomes who although not necessarily wealthy, of their families. For my interlocutors could pursue their ambitions and those who were children of small enterprise of their family. Within this paper I businesses (CHN: getihu) in Dalian will use small ethnographic vignettes or Shenyang a parents income could and interview excerpts to highlight fluctuate dramatically, from as little as the experiences of these young people 1000 RMB (roughly 160 USD) to 10000 living in Ikebukuro. RMB (1600 USD) a month, depending on their parents sales. In the case of those whose parents had government The normality of studying overseas positions, their parent’s meagre incomes (1500-2000RMB/ month) Xiaochen and I sat in the kitchen were offset by the accommodation together on small makeshift plastic provided through their parent’s stools, sharing a pack of cigarettes employment unit, as well as a range from China, which she’d tricked of commercial activities undertaken her father into sending over to to supplement their incomes. For Japan as a gift for her friends. example, one of my interlocutor’s They were in fact for her. parents, who worked within a local This kitchen was the common government unit, also imported small space I shared with 9 Chinese shipments of iPad covers to sell to students in a small dormitory in market stall owners. My remaining Ikebukuro. The dormitory was a interlocutors were reticent to discuss cramped space on the fifth floor of their parents’ incomes, often using an office block that was intended simple terms designed to deflect my for small businesses rather than residential living. Each room was questions (such as ‘wealthy’ or ‘still barely a metre wide and close able to eat’). My general observation to 3 metres deep, and although was also that students’ determination they were advertised as private Jamie Coates Everyday Mobility | 13 quarters, gaps in construction and ‘Why’s that?’ paper thin walls made it private ‘I had no interest, no ‘motivation’ in name alone. Nonetheless, it (JPN: yaruki)’ was not much worse than other forms of student living common in ‘So tell me the story of how you Tokyo, and it was located only five got here.’ minutes’ walk from the heart of ‘The year before last I finished the major station in the north-west high school. At that time I’d of Tokyo, Ikebukuro. Xiaochen, intended to attempt the entrance like me, had been introduced to it examinations at the local technical through an informal contact. college (CHN: dazhuan), but my Xiaochen and I slowly enjoyed the grades weren’t that good. I talked aroma of Panda brand cigarettes, to one of the lecturers there and he discussing the nostalgia that the said that there are more and more thick, strong and un-contaminated people with diplomas (CHN: flavour of Chinese cigarettes wenping) now, and that even brought. Xiaochen commented though they have them they can’t that though Chinese cigarettes find work. So I started to think are strong, they’re more natural, that maybe I should just work, unlike the chemically stripped that diplomas have no use in the and weaker cigarettes popular end. My mother said to me that in Japan. As we discussed this they still wanted me to study, and nostalgia however, Xiaochen suggested I go to Japan instead. paused and said: So that year I started at a language school in Fuzhou. Around July…’ ‘You know, I don’t really know how I ended up like this.’ ‘Why do you think they chose Japan?’ I responded, ‘Addicted to cigarettes?’ ‘It’s closer, the visa’s easier and they’d seen a few people go there ‘No. In Japan… I’d never really before, I guess’ thought much about it, yet here I am.’ I quickly asked her to hold ‘And why’d you agree’ that thought and took out an audio ‘Hmm, I thought that Japan is recorder, saying ‘That’s really still a place for Asians (CHN: interesting, is it ok if we talk about yazhouren), that it’d be easier than it and I record it for my research?’ English because of the writing She nodded. system, and it just didn’t seem as I asked, ‘What do you mean when far away.’ you say, ‘you never thought much ‘So what else did you do then?’ about it’?’ ‘Well I studied there for half a ‘Well, I’d often gone to help year and organised the formalities friends buy things before leaving (CHN: banle shouxu).’ the country and I’d always thought it was strange actually. Everyone ‘What did you have to do?’ seemed to be doing it but I was ‘Some things my parents pretty happy at home. So I’d never organised, like getting a passport. thought that one day I could be But I had to do some of the things like them and go overseas.’ to apply for the visa. The pre- 14 | IRSR Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2013

college student (CHN: jiuxue) China which encourage movement visa is pretty easy though. You get overseas (Nyiri, 2001; Nyiri, 2010). a year in Japan no questions asked These discourses resulted in what (CHN: meiwenti le).’ was popularly referred to as ‘leaving ‘You just need a language school?’ fever’ (CHN: chuguore) (For example ‘Yeah, yeah (CHN: dui dui dui..)’ see Ong, 1997; Ong, 1999). The term ‘fever’ is commonly used to describe any kind of popular craze in China;for Xiaochen described the procedures example, David Palmer, in his research her parents carried out to get her to on Chinese body cultivation practices Japan with a no-nonsense obviousness, known as Qigong, has discussed ‘fever’ listing the various stages she went as a kind of ‘collective effervescence through. It is difficult to capture in which occurs when official policies written form, but what struck me about and informal signals sent from above this conversation with Xiaochen was correspond with, open space for, and her disinterested tone. Rather than the amplify popular desire’ (Palmer, 2007: result of a particular personal desire, 278). This ‘leaving fever’ has been Xiaochen explained her mobility as accompanied by a rhetorical drive for merely a strategic choice made by her educational success in China (Kipnis, and her family. I would ask her and 2011), which is internalised in parents’ my other dorm mates whether there own hopes for their children (Fong had been any other influences that had 2004; Fong, 2007; Brandstadter and directed them to Japan. I asked whether Santos 2009; Fong, 2011; Kipnis, they had had dreams of moving to 2011). These various forces contribute Japan, perhaps influenced by Japanese to what Pal Nyiri has called a ‘mobility popular culture flows to China, and regime’ which insists that ‘it is essential was always met with a short ‘no.’ This for the modern Chinese subject to be blunt refusal surprised me to some mobile’ (Nyiri, 2010: 164-165). This extent as other students I knew from is not to say that all Chinese subjects southeast Asia, Europe and America are necessarily mobile, but rather it is often cited Japanese pop culture as a popularly held social fact in China a major influence in their decision that mobility is desirable. Indeed, Julie to move to Japan. My interlocutors’ Y. Chu has shown that the failure to responses suggested to me that they be mobile is a source of anxiety for had very little desire to move to Japan many of the villagers she researched in in particular, and that the need to move Fuzhou, China (Chu, 2010). was seen as an ‘everyday’ strategy My interlocutors’ strategic choice influenced by the various institutional of Japan as destination fits well with and familial factors that ‘normalized’ current scholarly work on students’ their movements. This ‘normalization’ choices when leaving China. In is understood both in terms of the Fong’s research on young Chinese’ experience of moving, and in terms of aspirations to move overseas, she my interlocutors’ reports of how their followed a group of participants whom family and friends felt about it. she had previously interviewed at My interlocutors’ responses fit high school age (Fong, 2011). The into the state-approved discourses in Jamie Coates Everyday Mobility | 15 interviewees were originally from the as an optional destination, rather than Chinese city Dalian, but had moved a ‘paradise.’ The stories of overseas to various countries, such as Ireland, travel amongst my interlocutors, and Japan, America, Britain and Australia. the motivations for leaving China were Despite voicing a desire to go to far more practical than aspirational. America or Britain, the majority of For Xiaochen, the decision to move Fong’s informants ended up spending to Japan was mainly motivated by a significant period of time in either her failure to get into a well-respected Ireland or Japan. This was due to the university, and difficulty in finding flexible visa and work systems in work after completing a short diploma these countries, and in particular, the in early age child care. The decision relative ease of getting a Japanese was also not fully her own, her parents’ student visa. Fong shows that although hopes for their only child being a larger mobile Chinese have preferences factor than her own aspirations. As for certain countries, the most Xiaochen said, she ‘didn’t know how significant distinction was whether she ended up’ in Japan, her travel being they were considered ‘developed.’ largely influenced and arranged by her Fong’s informants dreamed of going family. to a ‘developed country’ (CHN: Many of my interlocutors told fadaguojia), which was envisioned similar stories to Xiaochen’s. as a general category in their dream ‘My parents suggested I apply rather than in reference to a specific when I finished high school country. These countries were referred because my sister had moved to as a ‘paradise’ (CHN: tiantang), and over here, but I was rejected by although it was considered the less the embassy during the interview prestigious ‘silver path’ (CHN: yinse), for my application. I didn’t really 42% of her informants had spent at want to go in all honesty, but when least 6 months in Japan; making it the I was rejected, I felt left out and most significant mediator in the goals became determined to come here. I applied three more times before of young Chinese to move overseas. I was accepted. By then I was 28.’ However, while Fong’s students (32 yr old, male, from Liaoning, spoke of overseas as a ‘paradise,’ Takushita University student) my own interlocutors spoke of Japan in more sombre tones. In fact, one ‘Before the moment I sat down interlocutor sardonically made a pun on on the plane, I’d never thought the term ‘paradise’ by calling Japan a about coming to Japan. I didn’t do ‘consumption paradise’ (CHN: xiaofei well in school, and after spending tiantang). They then followed to joke a year looking for work, my mother said she’d support me. about how this ‘paradise’ wasn’t in At that time (2002) everyone was the grasp of busy and poor Chinese leaving the country. I didn’t think students. It was, they said, like being of where I was going, just that I invited to a banquet but not allowed to had nothing to do in China. It was eat. This joke reflects a broader sense a coincidental opportunity (CHN: I found among young mobile Chinese ouran de jihui).’ (27yr old, male, in Japan that Japan was merely seen from Harbin, electronics dealer) 16 | IRSR Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2013

Xiaochen and my other interlocutors’ The Everyday Practice of Moving comments suggest that the experience of Chinese transnational migration is In many ways there is little new to my neither liberating nor oppressive. Key findings about the shape and form of works within literature on Chinese young mobile Chinese in Japan. Like migration have often emphasized other researchers on Chinese migration transnational mobility as a source to Japan, I found their movements to of freedom. Aihwa Ong’s notion of be distinctly transnational, creating ‘flexible citizenship’ for example, links and networks between Japan celebrated the strategic and flexible way and China (Tajima, 2003; Liu-Farrer, Chinese entrepreneurs move between 2007; Liu-Farrer, 2011). The shape of different economically advantageous this transnationalism is not dissimilar countries (Ong, 1998). She describes to other migratory patterns elsewhere these ‘flexible citizens’ as bastions of in the world. Peggy Levitt’s work on China’s new economic growth, and a Dominicans in Boston (Levitt, 2001) model for successful Chinese subjects and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo’s (Nyiri 2010). However, Barak Kalir is work on transnational migration critical of this emphasis on ‘fluidity’ in between Mexico and the United states much of the literature on transnational (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001) show similar mobility (Kalir, 2012). He followed patterns of movements back and forth Chinese labourers between Israel between host country and home. These and China, noting the ways capital movements create networks between accumulation and state discourses the two spaces which affect migrants’ intersect with the everyday imperatives sense of place in the world. They also of mobile Chinese people. Further, he create networks which facilitate future noted that although Chinese labourers movements along similar lines. Rather often benefit from their work in Israel, than focus on the shape and form of their successes by no means outshone transnational migration however, I their peers who never left China. In take inspiration from the banal tone line with Kalir’s observations, my of my interlocutors’ migration stories. interlocutors’ stories demonstrate that Hence, instead of using migration the era of the transnational Chinese and transnationalism as the primary subject as the epitome of success is lens to interrogate their experiences, in decline. Moving overseas can be a I prefer a broader concept of mobility reaction to failure as much as a drive and ‘everyday practice’ (De Certeau for success. What is more, although ,1984) which utilises Bourdieu’s sense Chinese state discourses encourage of the semi-conscious and practical mobility as a sign of being a good strategizing that comes from habituated modern Chinese subject, mobility in social life (Bourdieu 1998). itself is not experienced as such. My In his book The Practice of interlocutors described it more as an Everyday Life, Michel De Certeau everyday practice that is experienced draws attention to ‘ways of operating’ as ‘normal,’ shaped by their families, that are considered ‘everyday’ (1984: friends and personal attempts to xi). A collection of essays, his work negotiate failures and successes. highlights the strategic and tactical Jamie Coates Everyday Mobility | 17 nature of practices such as walking took it without thinking. She said that through the city, consumption and Mongolian is grammatically similar telling stories about oneself. From to Japanese, and that she thought that these examples, De Certeau provides she might fit in more in Japan due to several useful tools to explore people’s a perceived commonality between attempts to negotiate wider contexts. Mongolians and Japanese people. Her De Certeau emphasizes innovation and move as a student would later channel negotiation, arguing that agents are her husband’s move to Japan. He ‘unrecognised producers, poets of their described his tale as follows: own acts, silent discoverers of their ‘The biggest reason [I came to own paths in the jungle of functionalist Japan] is that I met my wife rationality’ (1984: xvii). People’s (CHN: laopo ‘missus’) back life trajectories are thus shaped by where we come from. We got their cultures, which ‘determine the along really well after not having elements used, but not the ‘phrasing’ seen each other since we were produced by the bricolage (the artisan- kids and we started to date (CHN: like inventiveness)’ found within each tanlianai). However, she was step of their lived experiences. He going to go to Japan, and I thought often refers to this process as simply ‘Not a problem… it could only ‘making do’ (1984: xvii). Each of my be around a year right?’ But she interlocutors’ stories shared much in didn’t come back…after that, she common; 90% had initially moved to got a job and our lives were stable Japan on a student visa, and parental (CHN: wending le)... I know you influence in the decision-making probably want me to give a really process was very common. On the sentimental reason like ‘I came other hand, each of their stories had here just for her, blah blah’ but it a unique ‘phrasing’ and ‘trajectory’ really wasn’t like that… I really which demonstrates the teller’s own just thought ‘try studying abroad’ role in making sense of wider forces. (CHN: liuxue bei). See if I can get An Inner-Mongolian couple’s tale used to it here, see what it’s like of how they came to Japan exemplifies you know.’ the process of ‘making do’ while I include this couple’s tale to show engaging with these forces. Despite how even when mobile people take the growing up together as children, the same institutional path (student visas), desire to study had drawn them away their trajectories have unique aspects. from each other since they were 17. Unlike Xiaochen’s story, the husband The wife, Non, had not grown up within this couple had a ‘stable’ life speaking Mandarin, and had only learnt in China as a relatively successful standardised modern Chinese (CHN: small business owner. He did not have Putonghua) when she started her later prestigious qualifications (he owned years in primary school. She said that a hair salon), nor did he see this as a linguistic difficulties had always made failing. Further, his parents held little her feel out of place within the urban sway over his life. As a young boy centres of China, and so, at 17 when an he had moved often between distant opportunity to study in Japan arose she relatives and felt little bond to his 18 | IRSR Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2013 mother and father. What is more, they discourse of the mobile Chinese subject. rarely intervened in his life decisions. Focusing on mobility as an ‘everyday His tale of mobility is an example of practice’ which involves the process how we ‘make do’ with opportunities of ‘making do’ is hermeneutically and imperatives presented to us in the useful. It allows us to incorporate the ‘everyday.’ His tale is not merely a ‘normalization’ of institutional forces romantic story of following his wife. in the experience of moving without Much like Xiaochen he told this story treating those institutional forces as with a gruff, pragmatic tone, trying to deterministic. For Xiaochen and many downplay its romantic aspects. This others, their parents’ internalisation could be interpreted as an attempt to of the Chinese government’s avoid the gender hierarchy inversion encouragement of mobility was a that often comes when women migrate deciding factor in sending them first (Sheba 2005). However, I do not overseas. This created a matter-of-fact feel this entirely explains his tone. reality to the interpretation of moving After living in Japan for three years he as desirable, even if taken as a second had established a relatively successful choice after failures at home. As one hair salon in Ikebukuro which catered of my interlocutors said, the mundane to local Chinese-speaking customers. sense of Chinese mobility regimes Throughout my fieldwork with him, he now means the question is no longer never showed a sense of emasculation ‘why move?’ but rather ‘why not?’ or resentment about following his wife. The concept of ‘making do’ He also never mentioned a desire for has much in common with Henrik education or social mobility. Rather, he Vigh’s suggested use of the term would imply he was more interested in ‘navigation’ when discussing mobile ‘living well’ (CHN: guohaorizi); often subjects’ attempts to negotiate a using the phrase ‘as long as I’m happy’ mobile world (Vigh, 2009). In using (CHN: kaixin jiu hao le). These stories the term ‘navigation’ (literally to and others demonstrate an absence sail) Vigh takes inspiration from the of ambition in decisions to become fluid metaphors that have proliferated mobile lacking from current discourses in studies of globalization and on mobility. transnationalism, while highlighting some of their limitations. Vigh argues that the emphasis on flows and other Disjunctures and obstacles in fluid metaphors has made it difficult navigating everyday mobility to incorporate what people do into the wider forces they contend with. At the De Certeau recognises the habituating same time he notes that metaphors power of wider forces while showing within practice theory, such as reservations about researchers’ abilities Bourdieu’s ‘field’ (1976), often lack to accurately account for what these are a dynamic sense of the interactional (Buchanan, 2001: 18). I find this useful movements of people and the contexts when considering the congruence which situate them. between my interlocutors’ decisions ‘Navigation… highlights motion to move to Japan and China’s wider within motion; it is the act of moving Jamie Coates Everyday Mobility | 19 in an environment that is wavering access to more prestigious destinations and unsettled, and when used to abroad. However, once mobile these illuminate social life it directs our limitations also become a burden on attention to the fact that we move in people’s desire to stay in one place. social environments of actors and In many senses, once mobile, young actants, individuals and institutions, Chinese people in Japan are forcefully that engage and move us as we move made transnational; unable to cease along’. (Vign, 2009: 420) the multiple mobilities they negotiate. The metaphor of ‘navigation’ Caught in the tides that encouraged is a useful addition to a broader them to go overseas, they return to understanding of mobile people’s China only to find themselves left attempts to ‘make do.’ It allows behind by those that have stayed. us to acknowledge the changing Many Chinese people in this situation nature of situations people ‘make find it necessary to leave China again, do’ in. ‘Navigation’ also allows for a maintaining a mobile and at times recognition of difficult situations that precarious life. This conundrum is may arise unexpectedly, like a storm epitomised in the use of two popular at sea. Despite the narration of moving Chinese terms to refer to returnees. to Japan as ‘normal,’ mobile Chinese Successful returnees are referred to as in Japan still faced many difficulties. ‘sea turtles’ (CHN: haigui) which is Unexpected circumstances would a homophonic word play on another arise that dramatically changed their term that means ‘to return from imagined trajectory. This could also overseas.’ This resonates nicely with disrupt their perception of moving Vigh’s ‘navigation’ as ‘sea turtles’ can as normal and desirable. Chinese skilfully manoeuvre through rough newcomers in Tokyo often felt anxiety waters with purpose and ambition. about their lack of a place in the world. In contrast, a term that refers to the None of my interlocutors aspired unsuccessful returnees has emerged. to remain in Japan indefinitely, but ‘Seaweed’ (CHN: haidai), a wordplay at the same time those who tried to on the former metaphor, implies the return to the PRC would soon find opposite. Like the green aquatic weed, themselves drawn back to Japan. unsuccessful returnees are seen as They were transnational in terms of being spat back onto shore from the embodied mobility, and often moved in sea. coherence with the regimes of mobility Many of my interlocutors would between China and Japan. However, make jokes about becoming ‘seaweed’ their thwarted attempts to make sense if they return to China, feeling unsure of their place in the world often made about their future prospects. Their it difficult for them to imagine future futures in Japan were equally uncertain trajectories. however, as the limitations on Japan’s The limits put on movement bear immigration system weighed heavily a burden on people trying to move. on their minds. As mentioned above, This was experienced by many of my the Japanese visa system has ensured interlocutors in their efforts to secure that Chinese people enter and continue passports and in their failures to gain to live in Japan in increasingly 20 | IRSR Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2013 convenient and legal ways. At the same were often described as a ‘floating’ time, migrants on these temporary (CHN: piao), and also occasionally visas have few symbolic or political ‘floating/wandering’ (CHN: fuyou). rights. Similarly, permanent and long- Vanessa Fong’s research on young term resident visa holders have no right Chinese abroad has also noted the to engage in local politics and find it common use of the term. extremely difficult to gain nationality ‘Transnational Chinese students due to Japan’s requirement of descent often describe their sojourns in for citizenship (ius sanguinius). For developed countries as conditions of most people, this is not a concern, floating (piao), a concept associated however many of my interlocutors with instability, transience, uncertainty, would cite this example as a cynical and a lack of rootedness.’ (Fong, 2011: reason for not staying in Japan longer. 98) Consequently, it is very rare to find In general ‘floating’ has a negative a naturalized citizen amongst the connotation, constituted by a lack of Chinese people living in Ikebukuro, agency and sense of indeterminacy. even amongst those who have lived The story of ‘Laoliu’ demonstrates there for 25 years. According to my the personal tensions found within interlocutors’ understanding, this is negotiations of place, with its associated because you must change your name diasporic imaginaries and life projects. to a Japanese one, give up Chinese Moreover, it demonstrates how the citizenship and register permanently normalized fantasy of mobility as a with a municipal government in means to personal betterment popular order to gain Japanese citizenship. in China conflicts with the everyday In actuality these conditions have not imperatives of embodied mobility and been part of the official regulations the life choices presented therein. since 1985, but are maintained as a I first met Laoliu whilst watching convention within many of the local a billiards game with a group of my government offices that administer the informants. They held a weekly match municipal registration system (JPN: on Wednesdays to play for small koseki ) (Morris-Suzuki 2002; Morris- amounts of money and blow off steam Suzuki 2010). In this way, institutional from their otherwise hectic work and forces or the threat of now-defunct study lives. I sat on a couch near the institutional practices can keep a tables discussing my research question subject mobile past their desire to with a new friend I had been introduced remain so. to when Laoliu approached us. He The inability to remain in Japan wore a grey pinstriped suit and had his permanently, and the fear of being hair slicked back in a fashion almost ‘seaweed’ in China, place many reminiscent of pop culture images of mobile Chinese people in a difficult Japanese mafia. position. They are faced with the He often spoke to me weaving socio-economic obstacles of mobility, Japanese nouns and adjectives into while also no longer being able to otherwise Chinese sentence structures, cease being mobile. The uncertainties and occasionally using the Chinese associated with this kind of lifestyle pronunciation of a Japanese character Jamie Coates Everyday Mobility | 21 compound. He described Japan as a of his friends, but he declined. Despite ‘benri’ (JPN: convenient) place where repeated phone calls he remained everyone’s ‘suzhi’ (CHN: quality) was withdrawn for the next month, until he high. In particular, he talked of how he finally got back in touch and told me he wanted to learn the Japanese approach had decided not to take the promotion to ‘service’ (CHN: fuwu) as he thought but remain in his current job, waiting it was decidedly lacking in Northeast to see if he had a change of heart. He China. Amongst the people I had met so then said he’d just ‘float’ in Japan far, he was the most enthusiastic about (CHN: piao zai riben). his life in Japan. He also suggested The distress experienced by Laoliu applying for Japanese citizenship. due to the tensions between his desires Over the course of my fieldwork, to be a successful mobile subject, take Laoliu and I became very close, and care of his family and be in a place he I discovered things about his life felt he belonged is but one example of that brought many nuances to his the disruptions contemporary regimes original performance of affluence and of mobility bring for young mobile enthusiasm. In contrast to his initial Chinese. Amongst my interlocutors the display of certainty about his life sense of being unsure was incredibly project in Japan, perhaps a year after our common. The tensions between places initial meeting he came to a crossroads and life projects created this alienation. that made him question many things. I Laoliu did not simply wish to belong received a phone call from him at around in Japan, nor did he just wish to 2am in the morning. He was tentative return home. The movement between and sounded concerned, eventually places has left him vulnerable to his asking me for advice. He explained to sense of simultaneous uncertainty me that his Japanese boss had offered and obligation. In this sense, the him a significant promotion, but that normalization of regimes of mobility he didn’t know whether he wanted to within and from China has not produced take it. Chinese subjects that perfectly fit into Despite Laoliu’s excitement about it. Despite the official encouragement Japan, when faced with the actuality of of certain kinds of mobility between living there for another five years (the China and Japan, mobility still presents contract for the promotion), he became conflicting imperatives and difficulties incredibly distressed. He discussed for young mobile Chinese people. with me at length how he wanted to Laoliu’s reaction to his uncertainty get married but could never marry a was not hapless. It demonstrated a Japanese woman; how he wanted to distinct sense of navigation; even take care of his family but that they if only a short term strategy. It was could never come to Japan; how he difficult to find out more about Laoliu’s could make more money elsewhere motivations, as he did not want to in China perhaps, but that he didn’t talk about it. However, his reaction have any connections. Finally he said suggests a tactical navigation of the that ‘most importantly this isn’t my mobile forces and options presented home.’ I asked if he’d like me to meet to him. Rather than choose a particular him and suggested that we call some certainty (to take the promotion or 22 | IRSR Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2013 return to China), Laoliu opted to forego Unable to change the wider regimes any immediate outcomes. He rejected that shaped the options presented to both immobility and mobility, finding him he opted to drop his sails and stop a solution more akin to ‘floating’ than navigating for a while. This suggests voluntary movement. He kept his the tactical uses of immobility and options open for the foreseeable future ‘floating’ in young mobile Chinese by keeping multiple life trajectories attempts to negotiate the disruptions and mobilities open. and disjuncture found within wider An everyday practice approach regimes of mobility. is useful in understanding Laoliu’s attempts to negotiate the limitations of mobility. In discussing everyday Conclusion practice, De Certeau suggests we distinguish between ‘tactics’ and Reflecting on his research on ‘strategies.’ Strategies are more international Lebanese migrants, purposefully political and often refer to Ghassan Hage states, ‘it is a mistake attempts to change socio-cultural and to think that if people move across spatial orders. In contrast, ‘tactics’ are national borders, this movement ways of operating that often undercut is necessarily the most significant wider forces without necessarily and defining element in their lives’ changing them. They are what makes (Hage, 2005: 459). Critical of mi- up much of everyday practice. gration literature’s tendency to Many everyday practices (talking, overemphasize the importance of reading, moving about, shopping, ‘imagined communities’ and mobility cooking etc.) are tactical in character. as the defining aspects of migration, he And so are, more generally, many argues for more careful ethnographic ‘ways of operating’: victories of the attention to what is symbolically ‘weak’ over the ‘strong’ (whether the significant in people’s actual lives. To strength be that of powerful people or highlight what is significant in peoples’ the violence of things or of an imposed lives however, we must also take note order etc.), clever tricks, maneuvers, of the ‘insignificant.’ polymorphic simulations, poetic as This paper has taken the banal well as warlike (de Certeau 1998) tone of Chinese migrants’ narratives Vigh also applies De Certeau’s of mobility in Tokyo as a sign that the dichotomy of tactics and strategies to his act of movement does not stand out as concept of navigation (2009).’Coupling the most exceptional aspect of their the idea of navigation with a conceptual lives. Rather, it is a ‘tactic’ that fits dichotomy from De Certeau (1988), we into wider regimes of mobility found can say that strategy is the process of between China’s drive for educational demarcating and constituting space and and economic success, and Japan’s tactics the process of navigating it.’ own visa system which acts as a (Vigh, 2009: 424) proxy labour migration scheme. The Rather than portraying Laoliu as significant elements that motivate totally distraught, I would suggest his young Chinese moving to Japan are not decision to ‘float’ was a tactical one. the act of migration itself, but rather a Jamie Coates Everyday Mobility | 23 wide range of everyday imperatives. around Chinese migrants to create For many young people like Xiaochen, new ‘world-making meanings’ that it was the failure to get into a good place them in Japan long term. In this university. For others it was the desire sense, they are almost forcefully made to be with loved ones. Finally, some of transnational due to the meanings my interlocutors simply found it hard which situate them. to justify not moving to Japan when an The embodied practice of moving opportunity arose. These factors are the articulates with these wider meanings flux of the ‘everyday’ which constitute in several ways. It demonstrates not the wider mobilities we navigate. They only obstacles to movement, but also are perhaps smaller eddies, currents and how individuals struggle to control whirlpools than the wider transnational certain mobilities. For Xiaochen and flows between China and Japan, but on others, the meanings generated from the experiential level, they appeared to China’s regimes of mobility normalize be what counted for my interlocutors. the experience of moving to Japan. It An approach which emphasizes is experienced as uneventful, and is mobility as an ‘everyday practice,’ described as merely a ‘tactical’ option with ‘navigation’ and ‘making do’ as taken due to other imperatives. It was its focal point, is a useful interpretive described by many young Chinese in tool. It allows us to explore the Japan as only partly their own choice, contours of what Noel B Salazar suggesting the choice between multiple and Allen Smart call the ‘embodied mobilities as an obstacle in itself. As practices of mobility and world- Laoliu’s story shows the embodied fact shaping meanings of mobility ‘, which of being mobile means new imaginaries can be interpreted as the imaginaries are presented. However, this is not associated with mobility versus the act necessarily liberating. For Laoliu, an of moving (Salazar and Smart 2011: offer to take a promotion and remain 594). Indeed, Salazar has also noted in Japan, triggered several other that imaginaries are a dynamic mobile conflicting hopes and desires he had phenomena in themselves (Salazar for the future, some of which longed 2011). In the context of Chinese for a less mobile lifestyle. As in Vigh’s migration to Japan, the ‘world-shaping argument that the embodied practice of meanings of mobility’ are produced by mobility always takes place in a world a governmental drive for educational that is also changing and in motion, and economic success, which are then Laoliu found himself contending with internalised within parents’ hopes and possible mobilities that disrupted his desires for their children and a more sense of place in the world. Although general valuing of the self as a ‘modern he originally felt like a mobile modern Chinese subject’ (Nyiri, 2010). These Chinese subject, new options revealed meanings intersect with the imaginaries his uncertain feelings. Overwhelmed which shape the place of foreigners in by the options presented to him, he Japan. Over the past twenty years they asserted himself through his ‘everyday have been treated as an instrumental fix practice’; tactically choosing to be to economic problems with very few immobile, or at least ‘floating’ rather discourses of multiculturalism forming than ‘navigating’. 24 | IRSR Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2013

Mobility is neither liberating nor attention to the ways in which mobility oppressive. It is not indicative of and fluidity serve as useful metaphors subjects situated as victims of global for people in their daily lives. capital nor as free agents. Rather, Through the metaphor of ‘floating’ the mobility is a constant feature of our transience of the everyday takes on social worlds and is expressed by new meanings that are reflected in the agents as a part of everyday practice. fluid metaphors of mobility scholars. Although movement overseas is However, it is important to distinguish statistically exceptional, it is not between mobility as an etic theoretical experienced as such by young mobile interest, and mobile metaphors used Chinese living in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. by our interlocutors themselves. For Their experiences remind us that it is many, the language of mobility is not not their status as migrants or students concerned with the act of moving but that merit anthropological attention, the inertia of everyday life. For them, but their lives as an example of being everyday life is already moving, and human, which mobility is an important the imperative to navigate this is what part of. The term ‘floating’ used by defines their daily practice. young mobile Chinese draws our

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