Becoming Japanese

In this ruling, "welfare" means the 生活保護 { seikatsu hogo } (livelihood protection), not any other "social service" like (un)employment insurance ( 雇用保険 { koyō hoken } ). A recent ruling by the Japanese Supreme Court that denied the right to receive welfare payments to a Chinese permanent resident in Oita Prefecture as reported in the Japan Times , has created a stir among the foreign residents of Japan. Many argue that receiving public assistance and participating in government programs should be a taxpayer right. For some, this move by the court may serve as an example of an advantage for naturalizing, while for others it is a symbol of the battle non-citizens face in being counted fairly in society. In any country a lack of citizenship creates vulnerabilities. In the United States, non-citizens became more susceptible to deportation following changes in the law and the inception of the Department of Homeland Security. Those interested in gaining Japa...

Canadians, like Americans, renounce after obtaining Japanese nationality Depending on your nationality, you may have been required to Relinquish, Renounce, Abandon, or Lose — the exact legalese word that applies depends on your country and your situation — your foreign nationality after you receive your Japanese nationality. The reason why this is done before for some countries, after for others, or not at all for some countries is due to the legal procedures of your other citizenships or nationalities. You will know whether you are required to renounce afterwards or not based on the oath to promise to renounce they give you along with additional written instructions regarding the final steps for naturalization that they give you. Officials inspecting paperwork generally know if you need to get rid of your other nationalities by the field in the 帰化 kika (naturalization) 身分事項 mibun jikō (personal event) in your 戸籍 koseki (family register): the 『帰化の際の国籍』 "kika no sa...

I had a long video chat and exchanged a few brief emails with an American last night who wanted me to share his story with this site. Because of his fear of the U.S. IRS (tax agency), he has asked that I not reveal his identity. I have seen (digitally) much of the paperwork he describes in the account below. The below is a rough transcript and rewrite of what he has told me: David [pseudonym] is a natural-born U.S. citizen who immigrated to Japan in 1997 [confirmed] and lives in western Tokyo and works in the 23 wards of Tokyo. He works in the finance industry [unconfirmed] for a foreign multi-national, and makes "well over ¥10 million a year" [unconfirmed]. He naturalized to Japanese in 2007 [confirmed], receiving his Japanese nationality before losing his American citizenship . In 2009, rather than relinquish his U.S. nationality, he went to city hall and submitted a "Choice of Nationality Form" ( 国籍選択届 { kokuseki sentaku todoke } ) and chose "Jap...

One motivation for naturalizing to Japanese that I hear from well-to-do foreign residents of Japan who travel a lot is the practicality of a Japanese passport over their native country's passport. In particular, businessmen and engineers who travel internationally often find a PRC passport, an Indian passport, or a Russian passport (especially given recent events in Crimea and the Ukraine and how the international communities responded by restricting visa-free travel for Russian passport holders) to be too restrictive for frequent international travel. If you tally up the number of countries (depending how you define a "country", there were anywhere from 189 to 219 "destinations" in the world in 2013), and rank passports by the total number of places one can enter without pre-arranging for a visa, the world's top five passports of 2013 rank as follows: (G7 countries are in  red on a lime background ) 173 territories Finland Sweden United Kingdo...

♪ Bad girls, bad girls Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do When they come for you ♪ Hopefully, very few people plan to get into trouble with the law, either in Japan or overseas, after they naturalize. After all, in order to naturalize in the first place, your record (even for driving offenses), including immigration record, needs to be almost flawless . Both inside Japan and outside of Japan . However, the real meaning of becoming legally Japanese isn't about speaking or acting Japanese or even living in Japan forever (it's perfectly possibly to gain Japanese nationality then live as a Japanese expat elsewhere in the world). Naturalizing and becoming Japanese is about establishing a legal permanent link between you and the sovereign state of Japan. When the Constitution of Japan says "sovereign power resides with the people" ( 『主権が国民に存すること』 { "shuken ga kokumin ni son suru koto" } ) in the preamble, by "people" — a constitutional law term ...

Japanese & American love was very taboo around WW2 March 14th is a recognized in Japan for many reasons, the top two of which are: It is "White Day" ( ホワイトデー { howaito dē } ), a day where boys & men reciprocate for the gifts they receive from women on Valentine's Day exactly one month before. White Day was invented by Japan in 1978, and now the "tradition" has spread and some men in close Asian countries (South Korea, Taiwan, China) also follow the commercially invented custom. It is much lesser known as "International Marriage Day in Japan" ( 国際結婚の日 { kokusai kekkon no hi } ), recognizing the day that Japanese nationals were permitted by law to marry non-Japanese nationals for the very first time. This law was enacted during the Meiji Era ( 明治時代 { Meiji jidai } ): 1873 When the first marriage attempt between a national and a non-national occurred, neither the "Meiji Constitution" ( 『明治憲法』 { "Meiji Kempō" } ) no...

Donald Keene was an honorary citizen of Tokyo before he naturalized and became a legal Japanese citizen Throughout the world, there are all sorts of "honorary" statuses that cities give to living (and dead) people, animals, fictional characters, and even abstract concepts: Honorary degrees (i.e. Harvard & Princeton ) Freedom of the City (also: Key to the City) Honorary citizenship (nations and municipalities) Honorary/special residency registrations (Japan) Japan and its cities and prefectures are no exception. In Japan, an "honorary citizenship" has no basis in law as it is issued by the public relations department of a particular city. Because of this, there are often no defined legal steps one has to do to earn it. Foreigners are capable of achieving and earning "honorary citizenship" and "special residency registration" as well as Japanese nationals (naturalized or natural-born); for the particular case of special residenc...