Indochinese Refugees Return Home From the Promised Land

　Passers-by to Sannomiya Station in Kobe used to enjoy the rap tunes belted out by rapper Cream Cungbell.

　But Cungbell's rhyming lyrics told a much deeper story, of the hardships of his life and the agony he felt inside.

　For the 30-year-old former refugee from Vietnam, music was the only outlet for expressing the frustration of his ethnic roots and his long exile from the conflict-torn country.

　He also became tired of Japanese audiences viewing him only as a "refugee-turned-rapper."

　This frustration eventually prompted Cungbell to return to his home country, which he and his parents fled in 1980, in search of a new haven where he can be recognized just as a hip-hop artist.

　"I wanted to be viewed just by who I am, and I am a hip-hop artist more than anything else," said Cungbell, whose street performances once were identified with the Sannomiya area.

　Decades after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, Ho Chi Minh City now has a burgeoning middle-class population and a "hip" young generation, Cungbell said.

　With young people searching for their identity amid a rapidly changing society, hip-hop music is also gaining momentum, and Cungbell's solo concerts, held once every two months, attract hundreds of devoted fans.

　It has also allowed Cungbell to earn a living selling original T-shirts and other hip-hop-related items.

　"In Japan, I also felt stagnant seeing even young people not being optimistic for the future," Cungbell said. "Here, everything seems as if it just started, and people are all looking forward to seeing what will happen tomorrow."

　Cungbell's return to Vietnam symbolizes the desire of many Indochinese refugees in Japan to return to their home countries. His parents have also returned to Ho Chi Minh City to operate two electronics stores, selling imported home electronic appliances.

ＩＴでベトナムの発展に貢献

　Ruan Inose, a 30-year-old former employee of Livedoor Co., also made a triumphant return to his home country in 2006 when he set up information technology venture firm JV-IT in Hanoi.

　The company, whose name means bridging Japan and Vietnam with IT businesses, has dispatched 14 Vietnamese IT engineers to Japanese firms in the past year.

　It also plans to subcontract Inter-net website production and maintenance from Japanese companies, taking advantage of Vietnam's inexpensive labor costs, which allows the company to manage projects at one-third of the cost in Japan, Inose said.

　"Having experienced large projects with major Japanese companies, I hoped to transfer Japanese business customs and technologies to Vietnam to help its development," said Inose, who immigrated to Japan in 1988 to join his father, who had gained asylum in Japan.

　But operating a business in Vietnam is much more difficult than he initially thought. The influx of foreign capital had caused a real-estate bubble, and the recent rise in oil and food prices brought rapid inflation, constraining small ventures financially, Inose said.

　"The other problem is that Japanese companies still hardly recognize the Vietnamese IT industry, making it difficult for us to win contracts from them," he said.

　Saburo Takizawa, former Representative in Japan of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said that such efforts by former refugees in Japan would have great impact not only on their compatriots, but also on Japanese perceptions of refugees who gained asylum here.

　"While many Japanese still view refugees as those merely requiring help, they actually have potential to bridge Japan and their home countries, once the political situation back home stabilizes," said Takizawa, who teaches at United Nations University in Tokyo.

　UNHCR is currently interviewing about 300 former refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to compile a report on their lives by next spring.

　The report is aimed at helping the government formulate effective refugee assistance amid the recent increase in the number of refugees accepted by Japan, Takizawa said.

　Between 1978 and 2005, Japan accepted 11,319 refugees and their family members from the three countries, including 8,656 Vietnamese.

祖国への複雑な思い

　With half of the interviews conducted, Takizawa said he found that many have frequently visited their home countries in recent years, but the great majority feel that they have not benefited from the recent economic liberalization and development back home.

　It is because many refugees, due to language difficulties, barely make a living here and lack the resources and networks to take advantage of the recent development of their home countries, said Nguyen Tran Kim, a 58-year-old community leader of Catholic Vietnamese in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture.

　Some attendees at a Vietnamese Mass at Fujisawa Catholic Church earlier this month said that they still harbor strong resentment against the current socialist regime, and will not set foot again in their homeland, even today.

　Still, most of the 300 attendees willingly tossed bills and coins into green bags that were passed around during the Mass, to support orphanages and schools operated by Catholic churches in Vietnam.

　Church members across Japan donate about ¥200,000 each month to help the orphans, Nguyen said.

　"The fact we stay here does not mean that we forget about our home country, families and friends there," he said. "With many of us reaching old age, our yearning for our native land is growing stronger."