Becoming Japanese

A regular job is good / best, but not always necessary As this site is in English, I often get questions from people whose native language is English and they have worked and lived in Japan for quite some time. Of that subset of people, three types of employment come up most often: English teachers Software programmers Japanese to English translators Of these professions, it's not uncommon for them to be contractor work, freelance, or self-employed — rather than working as a regular employee ( 正社員 { seishain } ) at a Japanese company. I'm often asked by people "how much money do I have to make to qualify for naturalization?" While Japan's MoJ ( 法務省 { hōmushō } ) doesn't reveal their exact criteria, I have spoken to case officers and inquired about other successful applicants, and the general answer is: you don't have to make much . The generic answer is: if your take-home income, minus your liabilities (debts, expenses for food a...

I was reading the English Wikipedia entry for the Japanese Nationality Law under the section of Naturalization (which apparently was originally written by a young student as part of an assignment) and came across an interesting bit: For many years naturalized citizens were required to adopt a Japanese family name¹. The Ministry of Justice determined in July 1983 that naturalizing citizens were no longer required to adopt Japanese names. As of that time most naturalizing citizens were Koreans². A well-known example of someone who did not adopt a Japanese name is Masayoshi Son, the wealthiest man in Japan as of 2007, who naturalized using his Korean family name rather than the Japanese family name he used during his youth³. I was curious as to where it got this information, so I looked at the sources. There were three, all English: The Boston Globe: " In Japan, Koreans still feel sting of discrimination " by Charles A. Radin (July 29, 1994) Hoover Press: " Japan D...