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Vietnamese people in Japan (在日ベトナム人,Zainichi Betonamujin) (Vietnamese:Người Việt tại Nhật Bản) formJapan's second-largest community of foreign residents ahead ofKoreans in Japan and behindChinese in Japan, according to the statistics of theMinistry of Justice. In December, 2024, there were 634,361 legal residents.^[5] Whereas, in 2007, there were only about 35,000 Vietnamese legally living in Japan. At that time, the majority ofVietnamese legal residents lived in theKantō region andKeihanshin area.^[6]

The oldest known diplomatic contact between the two countries were when a letter was found dating from 1591 when the Vietnamese vice-minister wrote to the "King of Japan", they subsequently exchanged gifts. (addressed as 日本国国王) Vietnamese exotic goods.^{[clarification needed][7]}

In 1609, an official trading ship owned by Suminokura Soan was shipwrecked on its return trip, along with 105 crew members, off the shores of the straits of Dan Nhai.^{[citation needed]} Taking pity on these merchants who were suffering far from home, the king of Annam had ordered the Marquis de Van Ly (Văn Lý hầu) Tran, along with the duke of Thu county (Thư quận công) and the Marquis de Quang Phu (Quảng Phú hầu), to distribute rations to the victims.^{[citation needed]} The marquises then appealed to the king for food, clothing, and a large ship for the victims.^{[citation needed]}

In the same year, the Japanese government had granted three permits for merchant ships to sail to Cochinchina in central Vietnam. This letter thus serves as proof that many merchant ships had sailed to Vietnam under the government-sanctioned maritime trade system. It also provides evidence of the friendly relations between the two nations during that period.^{[citation needed]}

Large numbers of Vietnamese students began to choose Japan as a destination in the early 20th century, spurred by the exiled princeCường Để and theĐông Du Movement (literally, "Travel East movement" or "Eastern Travel movement") he andPhan Bội Châu pioneered. By 1908, 200 Vietnamese students had gone to study at Japanese universities.^[8][9] However, the community of Vietnamese people in Japan is dominated byVietnam War refugees and their families, who compose about 70% of the total population.^[4] Japan began to accept refugees from Vietnam in the late 1970s.^[10] The policy of accepting foreign migrants marked a significant break from Japan's post-World War II orientation towards promoting and maintaining racial homogeneity. Most of these migrants settled inKanagawa andHyōgo prefectures, the locations of the initial resettlement centres. As they moved out of the resettlement centres, they often gravitated toZainichi Korean-dominated neighbourhoods; however, they feel little sense of community with Zainichi Koreans, seeing them not as fellow ethnic minorities but as part of the mainstream.^[4]

Guest workers began to follow the refugees to Japan in the so-called "third wave" of Vietnamese migration beginning in the 1990s. As contract workers returned home to Vietnam from the countries of the formerEastern Bloc, which by then had begun their transition away from Communism, they began to look for other foreign destinations in which they could earn good incomes, and Japan proved attractive due to its nearby location and high standard of living. By the end of 1994, the annual number of Vietnamese workers going to Japan totalled 14,305 individuals, mostly under industrial traineeship visas. In contrast to other labour-exporting countries inSoutheast Asia, the vast majority of migrants were men, due to the Vietnamese government's restrictions on migration for work in traditionally female-dominated fields such asdomestic work or entertainment.^[11]

During theCOVID-19 pandemic, travel between Japan and Vietnam was restricted, temporarily halting migration.^[12]

The refugees have suffered various difficulties adjusting to Japanese society, especially in the areas of education and employment; their attendance rate in senior high school is estimated to be only 40%, as compared to 96.6% for Japanese nationals, a fact attributed both to the refugees' lack ofJapanese language proficiency as well as the schools' own inability to adjust to the challenges of educating students with different cultural backgrounds.^[10] Tensions have also arisen between migrants admitted to Japan as adults, and1.5 or 2nd-generation children born or educated in Japan, due to language barriers and differences in culture; the former feel the latter are too reserved and distant, while the latter deride the former for their poor Japanese language skills. Most Vietnamese do not take onJapanese names, or prefer to use theirVietnamese names even if they have a Japanese name, though they feel a Japanese name may be necessary for job-seeking and they sometimes complain of being teased for having "katakana names".

TheRoman Catholic Church quickly came to play an important role in their community.^[4]

• Cường Để, Vietnamese revolutionary and royal relative ofNguyễn
• Phong Chi, female idol (Vietnamese parents, raised in Japan)
• Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, artist (Vietnamese father)
• Yūki Tai, voice actor (Vietnamese/Japanese parent)
• Masato Seto, Japanese Thai photographer (Born to a Thai mother of Vietnamese descent and a Japanese father)

• Japan–Vietnam relations
• Vietnamese diaspora
• Ethnic groups of Japan
• Japanese people in Vietnam

• Kawakami, Ikuō (March 2001),越境する家族—在日ベトナム系住民の生活世界 [Families Crossing Borders: The World of Ethnic Vietnamese in Japan], Akashi Shoten,ISBN 4-7503-1385-8
• Kurata, Yoshiki; Fujiko Nishino; Katsuhiko Tsuzaki (2001),ベトナム人定住者の就労と生活に関する実態調査 [Survey on attitudes of Vietnamese residents towards work and life](PDF),Discussion Papers, Project on Intergenerational Equity (76), Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, archived fromthe original(PDF) on 9 April 2008, retrieved3 January 2008
• Nishino, Fumiko; Kurata, Yoshiki (2001),"日本におけるベトナム人定住者の社会的統合 (Social integration of Vietnamese residents in Japan)"(PDF),Discussion Papers, Project on Intergenerational Equity (in Japanese) (74), Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, archived fromthe original(PDF) on 9 April 2008, retrieved3 January 2008

• Asian diaspora in Japan
• Vietnamese diaspora by country
• Vietnamese diaspora in Asia
• Japanese people of Vietnamese descent
• Vietnamese expatriates in Japan

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