What happens when non-Japanese see a naturalized Japanese's ID?

Previously, I mentioned what happens when airport officials inside Japan look at the Japanese passport of someone who is not "typically" Japanese; that is, a Japanese passport holding person who is obviously not racially Asian/Japanese. My experience so far: usually nothing. They barely blink.

Individual experiences may vary, but I pass through immigration in Japan and overseas about at least two times a month (sigh), so I've had at least fifty opportunities to experience something strange with my new passport so far. If there is a reason for my not getting singled out more often, it's not because I haven't had enough chances to test the system.

But what happens when you go overseas? So that can sometimes be interesting. None of it can be described as traumatic or disturbing or inconvenient, though I have had a few seconds of my life wasted that I would like to have back.

Here are ten amusing stories (they are not in any particular order) related to me showing my Japanese passport or identification like a Japanese driver's license to people while traveling:

Incident #1, San Francisco International (SFO)

The Hispanic/Latino American immigration officer begins by asking, in a non-threatening, inquisitive manner: "Where were you born?" then follows up with questions like "Is your father Japanese?" "Is your mother Japanese?" "Were you adopted?" "Do you have dual-citizenship?" "Do you possess any other passports?" "So you renounced? Really? Why?" "Did you do it for taxes?"

That's where it starts getting weird. He starts opining about "Hey, I hear that Americans have to keep paying taxes even though they live overseas. Is that true?" So I explain that yes, Americans are taxed based on citizenship, not residency, and while technically true, most people wash their additional obligation to zero due to the IRS 2555 and 1116 tax forms.

But the thing is, explaining the finer nuances of American tax obligations while living abroad takes time, and there's a long line behind me in immigration. A couple Boeing 777s/747s (the morning arrivals from all the Pacific red-eyes) and then some worth of non-Americans are wondering why I'm taking so long. Perhaps I'm getting extra questions because I'm going to get "randomly pre-selected for additional screening."

Eventually, the immigration officer sees the line and stops satisfying his curiosity, ending the conversation with, "Have you ever been convicted of a crime overseas or in the United States?" After answering "no", he gives me the ten fingerprint scan instructions and says "Welcome to America," letting me through.

Incident #2, again at San Francisco (SFO)

An Asian-American officer, whose name tag says "Lee", looks down at my passport, then looks at me, squints his eyes, then looks at my passport again, then looks at me, then flips through my passport pages, then finally smirks and says "You don't look Japanese."

The smart-aleck in the back of my head wants to say, "Oh yeah? Well, there are some people in the United States that would say 'you don't look American' So right back at ya, pal!", but fortunately the part of my brain in control of my common sense nixes that ill-advised retort. Instead I say, "Yeah, I get that a lot." He smiles and almost laughs.

So he flips through the passport again, then, as a test, tries speaking to me in heavily accented, broken Japanese (that he probably learned as part of his immigration officer training): 「モクテキは？」 {"Mokuteki wa?"} ("[Your] purpose [for visiting America]?" Knowing he probably can't understand a complicated answer but also knowing that he's testing me to see if my language ability matches my citizenship, I reply back in the simplest possible Japanese, 「ビジネスです。」 {"Bijinesu desu."} ("[I'm here for] business."). After flipping through the passport some more, and a few more questions (in English) he ends the interrogation with a friendly 「ヨウコソ！」 {"Yōkoso!"} ("Welcome [to America]!").

Incident #3, Los Angeles International (LAX), checkin counter for JAL

I get a young noob. He's wearing a generic "I help all counters" uniform, not a JAL or AA one. I tell him I'm flying to Japan. He very quickly flips through the (Japanese) passport then says "Do you have a visa?"

I smirk at him. "I suggest you look at that passport more carefully."

He flips through it again. "There's no visa in here. You need a visa to travel to Japan if you don't have a return ticket."

I stare back in disbelief, then I insult him a little bit for wasting my time — and being incompetent at his job, of which accurate identity and visa verification is an important responsibility — by saying, "You must be new at this. Stop. Slow down. Look at the passport again more carefully. I recommend beginning with the very first page. And cover."

He does, and then finally discovers his error. He doesn't say a word — either acknowledging his mistake or apologizing for his error — for the remainder of the transaction, and gives me my boarding pass.

Incident #4, Kingston International (Sydney)

I pass through the first phase of immigration without incident or word. Or so I thought. Perhaps the female officer pressed a button under the counter, because as I passed through the first checkpoint towards baggage claim and before I go through the baggage check, an officer waiting behind the first line of booths approaches me.

"Excuse me sir, may I check your passport again please?" I show it to him. He inspects it.

"How are you a Japanese national?"

"I naturalized." I add "I used to be American."

"Is Japan your only nationality?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. Carry on." He returns my passport and I proceed to baggage claim and carry on without further incident. Unfortunately, the exchange is not recorded on my favorite Australian television documentary, "Border Security - Australia's Front Line".

Incident #5, Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ)

After presenting my passport to the initial passport check, I get asked to go into the extra screening room. It's not really a room, but a separate area with about four or five booths similar to the initial immigration check point (except with nothing but a wall behind the officers. You do not clear them and continue walking through).

As the officer flips through my passport, I, in a joke-y tone of voice, say "What did I do to deserve this?" To which the officer looks back at me, half-smiles, and in a sort of joke-y voice — but I'm not so sure... Canadian humor should be easy for Americans to get, but my sense of humor was temporarily out of alignment due to the circumstances — he says back, "I don't know. You tell me what you think you did to deserve this."

His next question is "why did you naturalize to Japanese?" This is the first time I had an official ask me this question. Up to then, the Americans seemed primarily interested not so much in my Japanese-ness or my naturalization, but rather whether or not I really had U.S. citizenship or not (and whether I was hiding it or not). The actual reason I naturalized would take a few hours for me to explain fully, but I had narrowed down my oral answer to this question to a 90 second version and a 15 second version (what I call the "elevator pitches").

After a few questions which seemed targeted at me possibly staying illegally in Canada (is that a problem, by the way?), he clears me through and I proceed to rent a car. Which leads me to …

Incident #6, Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) Hertz Rental Car

This one was a case of being "overly politically correct." When I showed him my Japanese driver's license and International Driver's license, as well as my passport for the credit card verification, he asked me "would you prefer the Japanese version of our 'NeverLost' navigation system?" This was after talking to him for a quite a bit using our native languages, so he must've known that English was my native language.

I chose the "Japanese" version.

In Japan, I never press the "English" button on computer screens for ATMs or ticket machines because the translated version of the interface is often poorly done and harder to understand than the original Japanese and often missing some of the functionality that the original Japanese version has.

The same is true with software that is first done in English then translated into Japanese. The translated versions of the UI are often inferior because the software manufacturer just farms out a script to a third party for translation and integrates it at the last minute of the production process, without doing adequate quality assurance with native foreign language users. Often times the foreign language versions fail to get updates as the main language continues to get updated because they start off with an "internationalization" budget that gets cut or reduced for later versions.

I select the Japanese version even though English is my native language and the computer's user interface is probably better because I know that they often track the number of times people press these foreign language buttons on computer user interfaces. If nobody selects the foreign language, that feature often gets cut in later versons. So I select "Japanese" to indicate my "vote" that Japanese users exist out there… in order to make sure the software producers know that Japanese readers are out there.

I know, that's weird semi-obsessive compulsive. "Rock the Vote!"

The Japanese version of NeverLost was inferior to the original English, by the way.

Incident #7, Taipei Grand Hyatt

As I approach the lobby, they are being all polite, saying welcome in English, asking how was my flight, etc. As soon as I tell them my name and give them my corporate credit card, they say "I'm sorry, can I see some ID?" So I give them my Japanese passport. The Taiwanese man then instantly switches to Japanese, and apologizes, saying that because he recognized my last name as being Japanese and he saw my nationality in the reservation system, he wanted to confirm the identity and nationality.

The rest of the check-in process continues in Japanese, as if the beginning small talk in English never occurred.

Incident #8, Hotel Zico in Silicon Valley

In the United States, they often ask to see identification when you present a credit card, even though hotels don't normally ask specifically for passports. When I was an still an American living in Japan, I used to use a U.S. Passport Card instead of my Passport Book because the card was much more durable and more portable (like a credit card). And if I lost my passport card, I still had my book, which was the important one… so I was less afraid to carry my passport card on my person when going out.

Now that I don't have a U.S. passport anymore, my Japanese passport is the only thing I can use as identification in the U.S. because my Japanese IDs are for domestic use, meaning:

• The dates are in 和暦 {wareki} (Japanese era-year system)
• My name and addresses are written in 漢字 {kanji} (Japanese sinograms)

However, I preferred to show the U.S. Passport Card, as it had the least amount of information on it. My name, my photo, a number not related to anything else, an expiration date, and that's about it.

When I showed my Japanese passport book to the twenty-something manning the lobby desk after hours, she got really excited and acted like she's just seen the coolest thing in the world and starts asking all these questions about how I came into possession of it and can she have one too and oh how Japan is so great and she's so jealous! Then she mentions how she's really into animé and have I been to this convention or this convention and have I seen this show or that and how long have I lived in Japan and am I married to a Japanese?!

Uh oh.

She was polite and über-friendly — "元気 {genki} (energetic)!!" as she would probably say — but a little nosy curious and naive young, so I tried to limit each of my answers to her questions to ten words or less, as it was late and I was tired and just wanted to get to my room and sleep off the jet lag. She eventually figures this out and apologizes for asking "so many silly questions". However, she did give me a free box of Pocky chocolates with my card key for being a "loyal" (wink) customer. "They're JAPANESE and YUMMY!" she boasts. "Bet you eat these all the time!" she adds. I'm not a loyal customer by the way; I usually use a different hotel point system chain. I appreciated the Pocky. Especially because I noticed they were being sold in the front for almost $4.

Incident #9 San Francisco Airport (SFO) Hertz Rental Car

When I rent a car overseas, I have to show three things: a credit card, my Japanese driver's license, and my "International Driver's License". The "International Driver's License" is really just a translation of the important fields of your domestic driver's license (and some fields that your domestic license may not have, such as place of birth).

However, in addition to the translated information on the International Driver's License, they also want to know when the Japanese license expires. I usually have to on-the-spot translate (on the honor system). The translation is not just words; I need to translate my expiry year and birth date as they are in the 和暦 {wareki} (Japanese era-year system).

I've only met one Hertz employee who could read a Japanese license without my assistance. She volunteered that she was "Chinese" when I asked her how she knew how to read the Japanese.

Now that my Japanese driver's license no longer has my English passport name on it, I now have to show them where my "name" is on the license, and again, on the honor system, tell them that yes, it says "INOUE EIDO" in Japanese, which matches the International Driver's License.

Which is a bit silly from a security and verification point of view in my opinion; I could very well make up anything regarding my date-of-birth year, expiration date year, or even the name on the license, and they wouldn't doubt what I say.

Incident #10 India Visa Application Center, Tokyo

India has no visa waiver program with either the U.S. or Japan. For U.S. residents who live in Japan, they have it even tougher. If you are a foreign resident of Japan, you need to live in the country for at least two years before India will issue a visa. Additionally, non-Japanese in Japan have an eight to ten business day wait for the visa to be issued. Japanese living in Japan, as I read on the website, need only 24 to 48 hours to process the visa. Knowing this, I (unwisely) waited until the Monday before my upcoming weekend flight to apply for the short-term visit travel visa.

When I apply at the center, the woman looks at the passport, then asks me, "Did you naturalize?" I answer yes. She then apologizes, saying that it will take at least ten days to process my visa. "Why?" I ask. She then hands me the written form. The questions in the middle of the India visa application form say:

22. Whether the applicant or his/her parents or grandparents (both paternal and maternal) were holding the nationality of Pakistan at anytime
23. Countries visited during the last 10 years:
24. Whether present citizenship has been acquired by birth or naturalization
25. Citizenship of any other country held previously

What you can gather from the above questions is that:

• Indian immigration has an issue with Pakistan
• Anybody that has naturalized is treated as being suspicious as they could have naturalized to hide the fact that they were originally from Pakistan or another problematic country.

I pleaded my case, and said that because my previous citizenship was United States, shouldn't I be okay? No, she apologized. Anybody that answers "naturalization" to question #24 must have their application subjected to extra scrutiny and processing, so I would need ten business days. Maybe six if I was lucky.

I had to postpone my business trip because I couldn't get the visa in time. I should have checked ahead (my fault), but now I know that as a naturalized citizen, I will never be able to "fast track" an Indian visa.

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Except for the Indian visa, the incidents end quickly, without much inconvenience, and are not too probing. Many are more questions of curiosity rather than suspicion. The majority of the time, I pass through an ID check without any additional questioning or comments.

If there's any place that I seem to get a higher amount of questioning and suspicion, it's North America. But I think I understand why. I speak native accent-less American English, and racially, I look like what the majority of Americans looked like (at least in the 20th century). So it takes some, even those with training and should know better like those who deal with many nationalities (immigration) all day, to think of the situation that would lead a person being born in Washington, D.C. to not have U.S. citizenship due to jus soli.

Immigration in the U.S. seems primarily concerned about whether or not I actually have a U.S. passport, and if I have one, for some reason, why I am choosing to not present it.

If you have multiple nationalities and one of them is a U.S., you must, by U.S. law, use a U.S. passport to enter the United States. The same is true for Japan as well: you must use a Japanese passport to enter Japan if you have a Japanese passport.

I don't know if the very public U.S. citizenship renunciation by Facebook founder Eduardo Saverin will increase the amount of questioning I get about my motives for choosing Japanese citizenship over U.S. citizenship, thanks to the amount of press it received. However, Eduardo Saverin is not the first high profile case of a very rich American renouncing being suspected of doing it for U.S. tax reasons, so I believe that I will probably not get too many more questions regarding my motives being financial.