Net café refugees (ネットカフェ難民, netto kafe nanmin), also known as cyber-homeless (サイバーホームレス, saibā hōmuresu), are a class of homeless people in Japan who do not own or rent a residence (thus having no permanent address) and sleep in 24-hour Internet cafés or manga cafés.[1] Although such cafés originally provided only Internet services, some have expanded their services to include food, drink, and showers. The term was coined in 2007 by a Nippon News Network documentary show NNN Document.[2] The net café refugee trend has seen large numbers of people using them as their homes.[3]
Prevalence
editA Japanese government study estimated that over 5,400 people are spending at least half of their week staying in net cafés.[4] It has been alleged that this phenomenon is part of an increasing wealth gap in Japan, which has historically boasted of having an economically equal society.[5]
A cultural anthropological perspective suggests that net cafe refugee is one of the phenomena that arose amid Japan's "lost decades" associated with the 1989 Bubble Burst and the 2011 Triple Disaster that left a long-lasting sense of "precarity."[6] Alongside other youth crises like freeter and irregular employment, net cafe refugee can be seen as exemplifying the insecurity and hopelessness shared among the contemporary Japanese society.
As of 2020, it was estimated 15,000 people stay overnight in internet cafés in Tokyo.[7]
The closure of internet cafés during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan made the homelessness problem more obvious.[8]
Economics
edit
According to the Japanese government survey, the homeless staying have little interest in manga or the Internet, and are instead using the place because of the low price relative to any of the competition for temporary housing, business hotels, capsule hotels, hostels, or any other option besides sleeping on the street. It was also estimated that about half of those staying have no job, while the other half work in low-paid temporary jobs, which paid around 100,000 yen ($1000) per month – lower than what is needed to rent an apartment and pay for transportation in a city like Tokyo.
While net cafés basically charge hourly rates, most venues promote overnight packages with discounts. The price varies by cities, but 6- or 9-hour packages typically cost around 1,500 yen. Compared to capsule hotels and dormitories (around 2,500 yen) and business hotels, the relatively cheap price made net cafés an attractive "housing option." Although they are not officially considered as accommodation facilities, their hostel-like function has taken over their primary purposes, internet service and mangas.[9] One net café franchise's name "Net Maru" exemplifies this shifting paradigm of the entire industry, a compound word of net (ネット, netto) and stay (泊まる, tomaru).
Facilities
editSome internet cafés offer free showers and sell underwear and other personal items, enabling net café refugees to use the internet cafés like a hotel or hostel.[5][7] Most venues offer complimentary soft drinks and soup varieties at the lounge, and some venues sell a wide variety of restaurant-quality food items.
Net cafés offer different seat types at different rates. Seats range from a regular chair, a reclining chair in booth, and a flat seat in booth (フラット, furatto). In addition to the night package and accommodations, this implies that the industry is expanding in accordance with the constant demand of net cafe refugees.
Cyber-homeless
editAnother word for Net café refugees is cyber-homeless, a Japanese word based on English.[10] Typically, the cyber-homeless are unemployed or underemployed and cannot afford to rent even the cheapest apartment, which is more than the cost per month to rent an internet booth daily. The cyber-homeless may even use the address of the internet café on resumes when applying for jobs to conceal their present form of accommodation.
The fee of around ¥1400 to ¥2400 yen for a night – which may include free soft drinks, TV, comics and internet access – is less than for capsule hotels. Some cyber-homeless may also be freeters.[11]
See also
edit
References
edit- ^ Justin McCurry (28 September 2007). "Tokyo dreaming". Guardian. Retrieved 15 January 2017.
- ^ “NNNドキュメント バックナンバー（2007年1月28日）”. 日本テレビ放送網. 2015年12月20日閲覧
- ^ BusinessWeek. Japan's Net Café Refugees. August 28, 2007.
- ^ Water Week. New Japanese underclass, “net cafe refugees”, emerges: homeless and low-paid, living in cubicles, and net lounges. 17 October 2007.
- ^ a b Paul, Kari (18 March 2015). "The Japanese Workers Who Live in Internet Cafes". Motherboard.
- ^ Allison, Anne (2012). "Ordinary Refugees: Social Precarity and Soul in 21st Century Japan". Anthropological Quarterly. 85(2): 345–370 – via Project Muse.
- ^ a b Emiko Jozuka; Junko Ogura; Will Ripley (4 May 2020). "When your home is a Japanese internet cafe, but the coronavirus pandemic forces you out". CNN. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
- ^ Emiko Jozuka; Junko Ogura; Will Ripley (4 May 2020). "When your home is a Japanese internet cafe, but the coronavirus pandemic forces you out". CNN. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
- ^ Hirata, Tomohisa (2011). "Being Quiet in Internet Cafes : Private Booths and the Isolation of Net Cafe Nanmin". Journal of Socio-Informatics. 4(1): 41–48.
- ^ Japan's recession BBC News, Tokyo 18 March 2009
- ^ "Cyber cafes a homeless haven". Television New Zealand. Reuters. 7 May 2007. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
External links
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