YOTSUKAIDO, Chiba Prefecture—A plate of yellow long-grained rice makes its way over to a table at the restaurant Arian, with its cumin and coriander-infused aroma as equally vibrant as the dish.

Afghanistan, long regarded as the “crossroads of civilization” and bearing the less flattering association with its history of civil wars and invasions by major powers, is among the countries where biryani is a familiar sight.

The dish is the flavorful result of stir-frying and slow-cooking a hodgepodge of ingredients and seasonings into a comforting dish most commonly found in South Asia and the Middle East.

To order a plate at Arian or other entrees from India or Nepal, however, first means traveling about an hour by train and bus outside of Tokyo to the restaurant in Yotsukaido, Chiba Prefecture.

The city is home to 1,200 Afghans who comprise 30 percent of its non-Japanese residents. Walking along a prefectural road lined by a drugstore and large retailers, one may occasionally come across women in hijab.

Run by an Iranian man, Arian is not only a place that offers food from home—it doubles as a place to pick up groceries with a shop area stocked with meat and other halal (“permitted” in Arabic) food products with Muslim customers in mind.

NOTHING TO FEAR

The evening brings a stream of Afghans to the shop after they get off work. Most appear to work for automobile dismantlers or used car exporters in the neighborhood.

Tomoko Fukuda, an associate professor of global sociology at Chiba University well-versed in economic activities of immigrants, said the foundations for what would grow into Yotsukaido’s Afghan community were laid in the 1980s.

The city’s lower land prices and easy accessibility via an expressway encouraged many auto dismantlers to relocate there from Tokyo where real estate was already notoriously expensive.

Some entrepreneurs in Afghanistan were starting businesses importing and selling used parts from Japanese cars around the same time.

As Afghanistan’s civil war intensified in the 1990s, a growing number of citizens began seeking new lives abroad, with Japan being one possible option.

Yotsukaido is said to have been singled out because the concentration of vehicle dismantlers in the Japanese municipality made it an ideal place to buy in auto components.

More recently, the city’s Afghan population has risen 1.7-fold since the Islamist extremist group the Taliban took control of Kabul in 2021 after all U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan.

Some at the shop said relatives working in the used car industry helped them with the moving process and obtaining business-related visas.

Mohammad Abbas Ghulam Ali, 20, is a newcomer who relocated from his hometown of Kabul to Japan in January 2024. He now works at a used car export company founded by his older brother.

Anime drew him in as a child, making Ali no stranger to “Naruto,” “One Piece” and other popular series that he watched online.

“Coming to Japan someday had long been a cherished dream of mine,” Ali said, eyes shining. “I would like to live here permanently and become an actor or model at some point.”

Ramazan, 33, who works at another used car company, said he secured a visa thanks to a friend who arrived ahead of him and works at the same company.

“Taliban members killed former government officials (from 2021 or beforehand) and abducted their families,” said Ramazan. “My homeland was in danger.”

In recounting why he came all the way to Yotsukaido, Ramazan touched on his experience in the country.

“I have nothing to fear here in Japan,” he said. “I enjoy a sense of freedom, too. I want to continue my life in this place forever.”

MOTIVATED STUDENTS

Even with a sunnier outlook, some challenges still remain.

“We have few opportunities to master the Japanese language,” said Ramazan. “My hope is to smoothly communicate with Japanese.”

Children of non-Japanese parents are immersed in the language daily at school, but adults, busy with work and child-rearing, have limited chances to learn the language.

To address this issue, the Cross-Cultural Association in Yotsukaido holds Japanese language classes three times a week. Association members and volunteer instructors are local citizens and most of the roughly 90 students registered are from Afghanistan.

To accommodate religious practices and other needs that make it difficult for Afghan women to study in the same room as men, two of the three weekly lessons are women-only.

One such class recently took place at a dedicated space in the city's general welfare center where students wore hijabs in a variety of colors, including blue, black and deep crimson. A stroller was also spotted.

With textbooks open and ready, teachers provided students with one-on-one guidance and posed questions such as, “How many lunch boxes did you prepare (for family members) today?” or “What did you eat for breakfast this morning?”

According to Hidetoshi Kojima, the 77-year-old president of the Cross-Cultural Association, those in the women-only class have a range of motivations for learning Japanese.

Some are struggling to keep up with their children’s conversations as their Japanese proficiency grows at school. Others intend to help with homework, only to find that the Japanese used in educational materials is too difficult for them to decipher.

While a highly motivated student reportedly walks as long as 40 minutes to attend the course, this might be seen as a minor inconvenience considering warfare and that the Taliban prevents women from pursuing regular education in Afghanistan.

For example, the Taliban has barred girls junior high school-age or older from enrolling in school.

Atsuko Himeno, 75, has catered to students in the voluntary educational program for nearly 10 years. On one occasion, she accompanied an Afghan woman not proficient in Japanese on a hospital visit.

Her dedication has earned Himeno the affectionate nickname “sensei” (teacher).

“Helping people is my motivation,” she said. “I want them (foreign women) to live without anxieties in Japan, as they already went through tough times in their homelands.”

A 33-year-old student in the course and mother of three lamented the educational limitations placed on women in Afghanistan.

“It is a kind of sorrow that girls cannot attend school,” she said.

However, she grew determined when speaking on her time in Japanese class.

“Studying is my favorite thing, and I am grateful to my teachers,” she said.