Sri Lankans in Japan

Sri Lankans in Japan consist of Sri Lankan migrants that come to Japan, as well as their descendants. In December 2023, there were 46,949 Sri Lankans living in Japan. They are the fourth largest nationality group from South Asia after Nepalis, Burmese and Indians.

Ancient
Japan has been a destination for South Asian travellers and merchants for hundreds of years. South Asia and Japan have maintained relations through direct contact and indirect contact via the Sinosphere and South East Asia.

There is evidence that Austronesian traders engaged in a trade and communications network in the eastern Indian Ocean (in particular the coasts of the south east of India and Sri Lanka), South East Asia (including Taiwan) and Japan as far back as 5000 BC. Though most Austronesians in Southern India and Sri Lanka have been subsumed and assimilated into the dominant populations, there remains a strong Austronesian cultural community in Sri Lanka. This contact is still evident in Sri Lankan languages. For example, Tamil paṭavu meaning "ship", is derived from Proto-Hesperonesian *padaw, "sailboat", with Austronesian cognates like Maranao padaw, Cebuano paráw, and Māori wharau. Sri Lanka was a major source of Buddhism dissemination through the Pali Canon and the creation of Theravada Buddhism, one of the three sources of Buddhism along with Chinese Buddhism (Mahayana) and Vajrayana. Though often overlooked in western academia, Buddhism was transmitted through trade routes across South East Asia in addition to the Sinophere. As in Sri Lanka, there remains a great deal of confluence between Buddhism and Hinduism, which are integrated into Shintoism in Japan. One of the earliest South Asians in Japan was a monk from the intellectual city of Madurai, who ultimately played a key role in the development of Chinese Buddhism and its transmission to Japan, further binding similarities between Sri Lanka and Japan.

Edo period and imperial Japan
Ceylon, the name of the island since the Portuguese conquest, was one of the largest strongholds of the Dutch East India Company, which streteched across the Indian Ocean from Dejima in Nagasaki to Cape Town in South Africa. The Dutch-Ceylonese would continue to influence the country strongly throughout British Ceylon due to the expertise they had in administration, and retained strong connections with the trade infrastructure Dutch East India Company while assuming the connections of the British East India Company. Japan maintained links to Ceylon through the various colonial companies and administrations. Artwork from the Edo period shows Indians with their stereotpical dark brown skin and colourful patterns of the Coromandel design; many of the sepoys and merchants working on the Dutch East India Company ships to Dejima were of Indian/Ceylonese descent. Ceylon became an important symbolic battleground during WWII. The Japanese were the main antagonist of the war progranda by the allies of WWII in Ceylon. Ceylon, at the time the headquarters of the South East Asian division of the British Navy and a major base for British Indian military operations in South Asia, and it was viewed as a desirable base for the Empire of Japan.

Conversely, Ceylonese supporters of the Indian independence movement formed the 'Lanka Regiment' of the so called Indian National Army which had been established by Nazi Germany, directly under Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and based themselves in Japanese Malaya. A plan was made to transport them to Ceylon by submarine, to begin the independence struggle, but this was abortive. Both the Japanese and the Indian National Army considered the Ceylonese to be "local Indians". The Kandy Conference in Ceylon was the location where former Imperial Japan forces of Burma met with British authorities in the aftermath of the Japanese surrender to decide on their new future.

Modern
A number of the Indians from South East Asian were historically categorised as "Indians" but otherwise have a lineage to Sri Lanka. Sri Lankans were also often chosen to work in administrative roles in the East India Companies due to being colonised by the Portuguese, Dutch and British at an earlier stage and having a higher literacy rate. Trade was often imported and exported from Nagasaki to Ceylon by the Dutch East India Company, such as kimonos and copper. Japan is the leading team in rugby in Asia, and Sri Lanka is the leading Asian rugby team outside East Asia (ranking fifth overall, formerly second behind only Japan). Being one of the leading teams in Asia, Sri Lanka has played a number of competitive matches in Japan and plays friendly matches on a frequent basis. However Sri Lanka has lost every single competitive match it has played against Japan.

Japan has become a popular destination for university students from Sri Lanka; advice given to prospective new students includes learning Japanese and learning about local customs and mannerisms. An ever increasing number of children from ethnic Sri Lankan background study at schools in Japan. Universities in Japan have started offering incentives to students from Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankans fill a gap in a number of professional categories including healthcare and ICT. Sri Lankans also have access to the ‘Special Skilled Worker’ category in nursing care, food service, construction and agriculture. Japan has targeted South Asia and South East Asia as sources for talent.

Schools in Sri Lanka offer training in the Japanese language at O-Level and A-Level targeting employment in 14 sectors including nursing, hospitality, building cleaning, agricultural activities, motor mechanics, electronics and electrical engineering.

In May 2024 a 31-year-old woman from Sri Lanka who came to Japan in 2018 as the first technical intern trainee in the caregiving field completed her education and obtained a qualification as a caregiver.

Cuisine
Indian food is very popular in Japan. Historically many spices were imported into Japan as these spices could only be grown in certain climates found in Southern China (including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau), Southern India (including Sri Lanka) and South East Asia. The various spices and cultural infusion that were imported along the same trade routes from South Asia into South East Asia led to the formation of cuisines in South East Asia heavily influenced by South Asia as far back as at least 2000 years ago, of which many of them are eaten in Japan.

Classical
Many of the principles of traditional Japanese cuisine derive from Buddhism and Hinduism due to their use by monasteries, including the preference for high quality ingredients and subtle flavors, angalous to Hela Wedakam and Ayurvedic cuisine in ancient Lanka. It's become a trend in Japan to learn about traditional cooking methods by travelling to South Asia.

Vegetarian food is heavily associated with Buddhism in Japan, and in nearly exclusively found at Buddhist temples. Called Shojin Ryori, Emperor Tenmu prohibited the killing and eating of meat in 675 AD, though the ban was largely ignored and eventually removed a hundred years later. The temple food is a strict intrepretation of Indian vegetarianism and avoids both dairy products and certain root vegetables. Sri Lankan temples associated with the Japanese Buddhist order serve vegetarian cuisine at their temples and associated restaurants.

Curry
Indian curry is one of the most popular dishes in Japan, sometimes labelled as the most popular dish of Japan. Curry (カレー, karē) is a loanword from Tamil (கறி kaṟi) via Indian English, popularized by naval contact between the Japan and the British East India Company. There are also curries found in Japan that were developed in ancient times in South East Asia that were derived from South Asia. It is now considered to be a national dish of Japan and dishes from various parts of India are often sold in convenience stores and restaurants. The majority of the Indian restaurants in Japan are a "fusion" of Nepali and Indian cuisine, who are by far the largest Indian ethnic group in Japan, but many restaurants are also run by Indians and Sri Lankans, the latter of whom number around 35,000 and make the third largest Indian ethnic group after Nepalis and Indians.

The majority of Japanese will eat Japanese curry purchased from supermarkets and convenience stores, or from one of the numerous Japanese chain restaurants that specialize in curry.

Tea
Furthermore, though tea is originally native to East Asia, tea is also often drunk in Japan as black tea or milk tea using tea leaves grown in South Asia (such as Darjeeling, Assam or Ceylon). Black tea is increasingly becoming more popular than green tea in Japan.

Social issues
Two Sri Lankans were accused of an illegal abortion in May 2024. They had performed the illegal abortion through an illegally obtained drug after being unable to carry out an abortion at a doctors clinic due to the period allowed under the abortion law having lapsed. Though it is abnormally common for babies to be abandoned by foreign nationals, illegal abortions by foreign nationals are seen as more rare. Analysts believe that the government needs to make the support services more well-known. Abortion is not covered by public health insurance.

Of the seventeen deaths involving immigration detention by all nationalities, one death of a Sri Lankan national who had overstayed her visa led to a campaign by the relatives of the deceased to obtain compensation. Other deaths include that of an Indian national, Nigerian national and Vietnamese national.

Sri Lankans have complained about the lack of spiciness of Japanese food. Foods that are more similar to the spiciness of Sri Lankan food include Nepali and Indian restaurants.