Ken was born in Japan to Thai parents. But Japan, where the nationality law is based on lineage rather than birthplace, considers him stateless.
He is one of an unknown number of children whose parents do not register them with their home countries or with Japan for fear of falling foul of the immigration control law.
The Japanese government's official estimate of 1,070 stateless children under the age of 14 is based on declarations in alien registration cards. But the real number is thought to be far higher.
Ken, a first-grader in a public school, lives with his mother Fah (not their real names) in Chiba Prefecture. His parents fell in love while they were working in Japan, and Ken was born seven years ago in Tokyo. A year later, his father was deported to Thailand after immigration authorities caught up with him for overstaying his visa when he was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.
Fah and Ken went to see him in police custody, hoping the family would be able to go to Thailand together. Not fluent in Japanese, Fah could not understand what the officers said and she and Ken left the police station feeling helpless.
Since then, mother and son have been living together and moving from place to place, stopping wherever she can land a job.
Ken describes himself as a Japanese with a Thai mother, but being born a foreigner in Japan, he has no nationality.
" 'Okaa-san' is mother," he said proudly, displaying his knowledge of Japanese. "Okaa-san is not 'mae.' " His mother gave him a wistful smile, explaining, "mae is Thai for mother."
"That's why I call my mother by her given name," Ken said. "Right Fah?"
Hand-in-Hand Chiba, a volunteer group that helps foreigners in Japan, made it possible for Ken to go to public school after helping his mother complete her alien and residency registrations, submit papers on his birth to a municipal office and negotiate with the board of education to let him attend classes.
The group became acquainted with Fah and Ken three years ago when the private kindergarten that Ken was attending contacted it for help. It was having a problem with Ken's mother because school notices were not getting through to her. She was inconsistent in taking him to kindergarten and picking him up and he tended to stay at home instead of going to school.
Fah could not read Japanese and had problems understanding the education system.
The group organized a team to translate the kindergarten's notices into Thai, send Ken to the school and take him to the dentist when he had a toothache. It even raised money to pay for his treatment. Since Fah had no health insurance, she could not pay the high dental fees in a lump sum.
Hand-in-Hand Chiba helped Fah when she went to the local municipal office for the first time in the nearly 10 years that she had been in Japan and was given a record book for parents. Ken received vaccinations for infants when he turned 6.
The group maintained close contact with the school even after Ken began attending classes.
Sachiyo Koike, a 57-year-old volunteer with Hand-in-Hand Chiba who lives near the boy, keeps a "Ken calendar" on which she writes events at his school. She also receives messages from his teachers.
She sees Fah and Ken at least once a week to help them fill out forms, including questions from his physician. But Koike also wants them to become independent and tries to keep a distance.
"There will be no end to it if I start worrying about them," she said. "The best thing is that I shouldn't be too close or too far from them as long as they depend on me. I feel like I have a grandchild by a strange quirk of fortune."
Full of energy, Ken has many friends at school and his teacher is kind. But he is alone at night because Fah works.
On Christmas Eve two years ago, he wandered around a shopping center in a neighboring town, bedazzled by the lights and music. The head of the kindergarten managed to find him.
Thais typically have very close family and community relationships. Someone always looks after the children when their parents are away from home. Fah thinks she is "just a normal mother" when she leaves Ken behind. But her behavior is not seen as acceptable in Japanese society.
Recently, she has been preparing to obtain Thai nationality for Ken because Hand-in-Hand Chiba told her that no country will recognize him if he remains stateless, and obtaining Japanese citizenship is unlikely.
"Ken thinks Japan is his native country," she said. "If possible, we would like to live in Japan for the rest of our lives. I will teach him Thai and (Thai) culture."
Their life may be far from stable in Japan, but she believes it is the best place for Ken to live in peace.
Fah was late in renewing her alien registration card, but she submitted her documents to officials with a letter of apology that Ken wrote in faltering hiragana that he learned in school.
One day after school recently, Koike took Ken to a stationery shop to buy a notebook. As soon as he returned home, he took out his first Japanese-language textbook and suggested, "Koike-san, may I read 'Big Turnip' to you?" The story was his way of thanking her.
"An old man planted turnip seeds in a field," Ken read, smiling. In the story, the turnip grows too big for the old man to pull out by himself, so he asks one person after another to help in the task. "And finally, the old man pulled a turnip out of the ground. Happy, happy!"
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