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Myanmar refugee is one of first to enter a Japan university By MASAMI ITO Spring is a wild time for first-year college students. Between making new friends, meeting teachers, registering for classes and selecting club activities, the days go by so fast it can make your head spin. And caught in the middle of this whirlwind of excitement is Myanmarese refugee Haymar Tin Win, who has just entered Asia University in Tokyo. "It was like a dream come true for me," Haymar said, her eyes shining. "I couldn't sleep at all the night before the announcement of the (university's) acceptance list -- and when I found out that I was accepted, I was just dumbstruck with awe." After getting into a university, partying may be the order of the day for most students in Japan -- but not 20-year-old Haymar. From first thing in the morning until late into the afternoon, her schedule is packed with classes. After classes are over for the day, she rushes to her part-time job at a convenience store where four nights a week she works a five-hour shift. On her days off, Haymar volunteers as a Myanmarese-Japanese interpreter for the United Nations, support groups for Myanmarese who are seeking asylum and in courtrooms. On average she has time for only three to four hours of sleep a day. Haymar says nothing slows her down. "All of my fatigue goes away when (Myanmarese asylum seekers) thank me for being able to tell others how they feel through my interpretation," Haymar said, recalling a time when she served as an interpreter at a hospital for a diabetic Myanmarese asylum seeker who almost had to have his leg amputated. According to Eri Ishikawa, a staff member of the nonprofit organization Japan Association for Refugees, this is probably the first year that refugees who have been recognized by Japan under the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees have entered universities. Three people who have been granted refugee status -- Haymar, along with an Afghan and a Somalian -- were enrolled at universities this spring. "This has given hope to other refugees in Japan who fear they cannot pursue their dreams here," Ishikawa said. "I think it has opened the doors to a new world full of possibilities for refugees." Ishikawa explained that financial woes represent the biggest problem keeping refugees from pursuing higher education. "College is too much of a risk for refugees who have no money to spare," Ishikawa said. "Even if the refugees were to have enough money to pay tuition, they would then need money for daily life." Haymar arrived in Japan in 1999 with her mother and a younger brother and sister to join her father, Tin Win, who had been recognized as a refugee earlier that year. Tin Win was a journalist who had been engaged in the prodemocracy movement in Myanmar. Working closely with Aung San Suu Kyi as a member of the National League for Democracy, he had been on the constitution drafting committee. He fled the country in September 1996 out of fear of persecution by the ruling junta. And it was a close call, according to Haymar. "The night my father left, military officials armed with guns came to our house in the middle of the night and ransacked our house, looking for my father," she recalled. Life in Japan hasn't been easy. Her family spent four months in a center for refugees to learn Japanese. After the intensive training, Haymar acquired enough of the language to engage in daily conversation and to read and write hiragana and katakana. She even picked up a little kanji. With this, the family moved to Gunma Prefecture, where Tin Win found a job at a factory. Even though both Tin Win and his wife worked, it was a struggle to make ends meet, and the money was not enough to put Haymar through high school. Instead of giving up on her education, however, Haymar studied and enrolled in a high school night course. During the day, she worked at a supermarket packing meat. "I paid for the whole four-year tuition at that high school," Haymar said. "I was the eldest child and I thought it was the natural thing for me to do." After graduating from high school, Haymar spent a year waitressing at a family restaurant while studying for university entrance exams. Now, she is majoring in international relations at Asia University on a scholarship funded by the Michiko Inukai Foundation, which offers financial aid for refugees seeking education. She said her goal is to work at the United Nations or a nongovernmental organization to help other refugees and asylum seekers, especially those from Myanmar. "Through my work in assisting refugees, I hope I will be able to contribute to the development of Myanmar," she said. "And ultimately, I am anticipating the day when (Myanmar) will become a democratic country." The Japan Times: May 3, 2005 |
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