Becoming Japanese

Landing immigrants at Castle Garden, NYC It is true that Japan doesn't have promotional policies where they reach out to other countries and ask or encourage them to immigrate, but Japan does not set up laws with the intent of reducing the number of mid to long term foreigners. And sometimes they tweak new or existing immigration laws if they perceive them as being too hard to too lenient or they have loopholes which can be exploited. Limited "family reunion" policy reduces "chain migration" The primary difference between the U.S. (which has a high level of immigration) and Japan's immigration system is that the U.S. immigration policy allows for two major paths to legally immigrate: By employment: getting a job that is considered immigration worthy. By "family reunification": having a family member (brother, sister, mother, father etc) already in the country. "other" includes "diversity" (green card lottery) c...

Magician "Teller" (on the right) legally changed his name to a mononym last name A mononym is a person with only one name: it may be a "family" name, a "given" name, neither, or a combination of both. In general, non-Japanese foreign residents of Japan can have mononyms and middle names, hyphenated names, and separate last names for those who are married, with the pragmatic restriction that the name must be transliterated into alphabet and be identical to the alphabet name on your passport. Japan foreign residents can also have 通称名 { tsūshō-mei } (registered Japanese kanji/kana aliases), and this name may also be a mononym or multiple names — good luck getting a mononym or three or more names recognized and recorded on most Japanese paperwork requiring a name though. However, with the new immigration laws, this name is not imprinted on the 在留カード { zairyū kādo } — it was with the old ARC (Alien Registration Card; 外国人登録証明書 { gaikokujin tōroku s...

They will probably outlive you. Anybody that believes they can massively extend their lifespan by changing their passport is unfortunately probably going to be disappointed a few decades down the road after they acquire their Japanese passport. And by "disappointed", I mean dead. Nobody thinks that becoming legally Japanese is going to magically add years to your life. Many, however, are under the impression that if you live in Japan that there must be something in the water, air, or food that makes Japanese have one of the longest lifespans in the world. As of 2011, Japanese in Japan had the following average lifespan: Males: 79.5 years old (#12 in the world) Females: 85.8 years old (#1 in the world) Overall life expectancy for Japanese in Japan: 82.7 (#1 in the world) What people outside of Japan (and many foreign residents in Japan are in denial over) don't realize is that even foreigners — and those whose naturalize — who live in Japan for decades rarel...

Non- AFIS biometric systems record features, not the whole fingerprint Yes they can be, but it is not required except for employment in certain specialized professions. Not all non-Japanese are fingerprinted either: Special Permanent Residents (特別永住者; SPRs) those under sixteen (16) years old and overseas VIPs (anybody using a "Diplomat" or "Official" passport to enter the country) are also exempt. The origins of fingerprinting foreign residents in East Asia The process of fingerprinting foreign residents as part of the registration law in (post War) Japan first began in 1952. The reasons for this were primarily to supplement and support weak identification technology at the time: international and domestic identification such as passports and alien registration cards lacked the modern technology of today such as: microprinting, holograms, ultra-violet reactive ink, color-shifting ink, advanced tamper resistant materials, trackable ID numbers, and ...

I discovered an old scanned version of the informational pamphlet that is distributed to people who are interested in naturalization to Japan. In a previous post, I analyzed the pamphlet I got, which was color and had "friendlier graphics" . An OCR converted version of the original Japanese pamphlet , as well as a English translation, is available on this site's Documentation page . The older pamphlet is very similar, except it: is not in color uses a real photograph for the front cover is more formal looking The old document is titled 『日本へ帰化するために』 { "Nihon e kika suru tame ni" } ("For the purpose of naturalizing to Japan"), is sub titled 『申請手続きについて』 { "shinsei tetsuzuki nitsuite" } ("regarding the application procedures") and is six pages made from a folded pamphlet. Here are the scanned pages: A folded-page pamphlet of six (6) pages summarizing the procedures The front page of the pamphlet is the most ...