Becoming Japanese

jet stories in the BigDaikon I found this story on the BigDaikon , appropriately titled "Turning Japanese," and got the permission of the author to republish it. When I boarded the plane at Heathrow back in July 1999, I knew I was leaving Britain for good. And now it's official. On February 17th 2006 my British Citizenship ceased to be, and on 4th April, I became a Japanese Citizen by permission of the Minister of Justice Seiken Sugiura. Here's the story of how I stopped being one of you, and started being one of us. As is fairly common knowledge, the first requirement for any foreign national considering taking citizenship is that they must be resident in Japan for a minimum of five consecutive years. My five year mark came around the summer of 2004, whereupon I started to consider quite seriously the possibility of taking the plunge. The ideas mostly came up as disjointed fragments, such as when I was applying for a visa extension, how nice it would be...

U.S. Naturalizers Sign a Renounciation Oath The procedures for how one renounces their citizenship differs for each country. During the first set of paper collection rounds, my case officer had a bunch of binders on his desk, outlining the laws regarding nationality for every country. The binders for South Korea and the P.R.C. look well used, and were set aside right in front. For America, he had to pull out a dusty binder from the bottom. I'm not 100% sure when this form is presented to you in the order of documentation or whether the form is a new procedure, as my second case worker — the one responsible for evaluating my paperwork and interviewing me and my spouse, not the one who collected my paperwork — was the one to bring it up. After my interview, I received a mobile phone call and the conversation went something like this: "There's something we forgot to give you regarding renouncing your citizenship. We'll mail it to your registered address. Please re...

According the the excellent blog Japan Probe : Donald Keene Will Become Japanese Citizen He's 88 years old, so obviously he's had some time to think about this. My guess is that the Emperor having awarded him the 文化勲章 { bunka kunshō } (Order of Culture) in 2008 will look really good on his application. One might even wonder if he'd qualify for 大帰化 { taikika } (Extraordinary Naturalization) , but I believe it is given to you; you don't apply for it. Anyway, here's to his health and hoping he has the longevity of a Japanese as well as a passport!