Court Rules Ramen Bar Can Use Chinese Chef

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Chinese ramen cook wins fight to stay
The Tokyo District Court has ruled in favor of a Chinese cook who demanded the nullification of a deportation order issued on the ground that his work at a ramen noodle shop had violated his visa status. The 44-year-old man had been working at a ramen shop after entering this country on a visa obtained on the strength of his Chinese cooking expertise in 1999. On Friday, the court annulled the order, saying his expertise had been put to good use at the noodle shop...The man started working at a ramen shop in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward in April 2009. In December that year, the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau canceled his resident status and ordered him to leave Japan, saying working at the ramen shop was an activity outside the scope of his visa. The man filed a lawsuit with the district court against the national government to restore his resident status.

Presiding Judge Norihiko Sugihara said in his ruling, "Working at a ramen shop, which also requires techniques necessary for Chinese cuisine, should not be considered an activity outside his visa." The immigration bureau insisted most of the dishes offered at ramen shops are noodles, such as miso-flavored ramen, which have been developed in Japan and do not require special Chinese cooking techniques. But the ruling said there are many other dishes that have a lot to do with Chinese cuisine such as fried rice and pan-fried dumplings. The district court also took into consideration the fact that the man was hunting for a job at a Chinese restaurant, concluded that the cancellation of his resident status was illegal.

[bolt_krank]

Good for him.

I like the fact there's not mention that Ramen originally came from China....

Man on a chef visa getting deported for cooking.... the immigration dept. is as bad as it is here.

[Level3]

Fucking immigration fuckers can go fuck themselves with their bullshit personal interpretations of immigration law.

Good for this guy!

As if noodles aren't Chinese!

Of course, immigration civil servants will see no punishment for their stupidity.

Only this year did Immigration decide that a grad student working as a research assistant (basically getting a stipend to do the research he would be doing anyway) is no longer "working outside visa status". Thanks a lot, 4 years too late, after 4 trips to the Immigration office for those damn permits.

Fuckers.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I never realized that you had to stick with your cuisine of expertise to keep your visa if you're a chef. This guy won because they felt the food in the ramen shop was close enough to traditional Chinese. If he had been working in another kind of restaurant, he may have lost.

[Mulboyne]

I never realized that you had to stick with your cuisine of expertise to keep your visa if you're a chef. This guy won because they felt the food in the ramen shop was close enough to traditional Chinese. If he had been working in another kind of restaurant, he may have lost.

I suspect it's also to do with the fact immigration regards a ramen bar more as fast food joint and they don't like the idea of granting a chef visa and seeing someone turn up in one.

In Britain, a friend opened the country's first kaiten sushi. At first immigration only let her staff the place with people who had been head sushi chefs. Eventually, she found a Filipino who had worked in Japanese restaurants for 7 years in Japan and the Middle East and trained in preparing sushi but had never been the boss. He was perfect, and his wife ran front of house. Eventually, immigration denied his visa application so he had to leave. A month later, he was working in a teppanyaki joint and immigration was fine with that.

That was absurd to us because grilling steak and fish is a skill far more easily found in the EU than handling raw fish. It was largely down to their perception that the kaiten sushi place was fast food, competing with sandwich joints, whereas the teppanyaki place was a proper restaurant. I also believe immigration thought "teppanyaki" was harder to say than "sushi".

In the case of the Chinese guy, it wouldn't surprise me if the judge ruled for him because he had already worked as in restaurants for 10 years, so hadn't in any way tried to game the system from the off, and had built his life in Japan. He might even have been eligible to apply for PR.

Immigration probably only found out about his job because he would have registered a change in his place of employment. If so, the judge would have taken that as a sign of his good intentions, as well as the point, stated in the article, that he was still looking for other work.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I suspect it's also to do with the fact immigration regards a ramen bar more as fast food joint and they don't like the idea of granting a chef visa and seeing someone turn up in one.

In Britain, a friend opened the country's first kaiten sushi. At first immigration only let her staff the place with people who had been head sushi chefs. Eventually, she found a Filipino who had worked in Japanese restaurants for 7 years in Japan and the Middle East and trained in preparing sushi but had never been the boss. He was perfect, and his wife ran front of house. Eventually, immigration denied his visa application so he had to leave. A month later, he was working in a teppanyaki joint and immigration was fine with that.

That was absurd to us because grilling steak and fish is a skill far more easily found in the EU than handling raw fish. It was largely down to their perception that the kaiten sushi place was fast food, competing with sandwich joints, whereas the teppanyaki place was a proper restaurant. I also believe immigration thought "teppanyaki" was harder to say than "sushi".

In the case of the Chinese guy, it wouldn't surprise me if the judge ruled for him because he had already worked as in restaurants for 10 years, so hadn't in any way tried to game the system from the off, and had built his life in Japan. He might even have been eligible to apply for PR.

Immigration probably only found out about his job because he would have registered a change in his place of employment. If so, the judge would have taken that as a sign of his good intentions, as well as the point, stated in the article, that he was still looking for other work.

I'm sure that fact that it was a ramen-ya didn't help. I wonder though if they would have been OK with him cooking at a Thai restaurant where the flavors are different but the cooking methods are often similar or if they would be OK with a trained French chef picking up a job at an Italian restaurant.