At a construction site in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, worker Fan Xiuyu says he's too busy to miss the wife and 6-year-old child he left behind in China.
"I came to Japan to make money and learn advanced construction techniques," said Fan, 29, a native of Taishan, who says his job making and installing metal ducts for Haruta Kogyo Co. pays him three to four times what he earned in his homeland.
"The working environment in Japan is much better than China," he said. "It's clean and Japanese colleagues are willing to teach me when I ask them for help."