Ruby restaurant in Takadanobaba is one of a growing number of ethnic restaurants that now dot the landscape of Tokyo. Like many others, Ruby is run by members of Japan's small but growing community of immigrants, many of whom have risked their lives to escape persecution in their native countries and start afresh in Japan.

Kyaw Kyaw Soe and his wife, Nwe Nwe Kyaw, fled Burma, now known as Myanmar, 23 years ago to escape a brutal government crackdown on democracy activists. Their life represents one of Japan's rare positive asylum stories: They have managed to build new lives in a country that is notorious for its closed-door policy toward asylum seekers. Still, as is the case with most foreigners who settle in Japan's famously homogeneous society, this does not mean they do not yearn for home.

Over a cup of steaming oolong tea, Kyaw, now a gray-haired 50-year-old, says he has never considered the possibility that he might never return to the country of his birth. If he thought otherwise, he explained, that would mean the dream he has nurtured in his heart — one that has helped him through his darkest hours as he struggled to build a fair and equal Burmese society from his base abroad — would have died.