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Mongolians in Japan

Asashōryū Akinori and Hakuhō Shō glaring at each other
Total population
4,159 (2007)
Languages
Mongolian, Japanese

There is a small community of Mongolians in Japan, representing a minor portion of emigration from Mongolia. As of December 2007, there were 4,159 registered foreigners of Mongolian nationality residing in Japan, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, up from 2,545 in 2003.^[1][2]

Sumo wrestlers

Starting in 1991, Mongolians began to become especially dominant in sumo; as of 2005, Mongolians composed roughly 5% of all ranked sumo wrestlers, making them more than 60% (37 out of 61) of non-Japanese rikishi in Japan.^[3][4] In a 2009 survey conducted by a Japanese statistical agency, of the four sumo wrestlers named as most famous by Japanese people, three were Mongolians.^[5]

Students

International students form a large proportion of the registered population of Mongolians in Japan.^[6] The earliest Mongolian exchange students, all three of them women, came to Japan in 1906, when Mongolia was still ruled by the Qing Dynasty.^[7] Japan and Mongolia officially agreed to send exchange students to each other in 1974; the first Mongolian student to arrive under the agreement came in 1976. As of May 2006, 1,006 Mongolian students were studying in Japanese institutions of higher education.^[6] Aside from Mongolian citizens, there were also estimated to be roughly 4,000 members of the Mongolian minority of China residing in Japan as of 2005. Like migrants from Mongolia proper, they also came mostly on student visas, beginning in the 1990s; they were sponsored by professors of Mongolian studies at Japanese universities. They are closely-knit community; they reside mostly in the Nerima and Sugamo areas of Tokyo, and in many cases the same apartment has been occupied serially by successive migrants for more than a decade, with each passing the lease on to another migrant before leaving the country or moving on to different accommodation.^[8]

Notable people

• Asashoryu Akinori, originally Dolgorsuren Dagvadorj, sumo wrestler^[9]
• Hakuhō Shō, originally Mönkhbatyn Davaajargal, sumo wrestler^[10]
• Kyokutenhō Masaru, originally Tsebeknyam Nyamjyab, sumo wrestler^[11]
• Kyokutenzan Takeshi, originally Enkhbat Batmunkh, sumo wrestler^[12][13]

See also

• Mongol invasions of Japan

References