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

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.