Becoming Japanese

My credo. Not a single regret. Not even a single letter, ya know what I'm sayin'? I obviously can't speak for everybody; I can only answer personally. And my answer is: no, not at all. In fact, the longer I live in Japan, the more reassured and confident I have become in knowing that I made the correct choice (for me).  Perhaps this is because my primary investments in Japan are my Japanese family and Japanese friends. I've enjoyed watching my immediate and my extended family grow up and be happy and advance their careers in Japan; I'm made an effort to be on good and close terms with my extended Japanese family of in-laws and their children. Their upbringing and lives are built on the foundation of the country and society of Japan. There are probably other countries where this could have happened too, but in my case, my family is in Japan, and this is their home. Having the unconditional eternal right to be in Japan protects my ability to enjoy my maturing ...

(non-commercial blog-use license from CartoonStock) A few years ago we covered the 2013 Henley & Partners Annual "The Henley & Partners Visa Restrictions Index" in a post , noting that Japan is one of the countries that is lucky enough to be in the top five list of passports that can go to the most countries (as a visitor) without needing to apply for a visa in advance. As Henley & Partners is a visa/international residence legal firm catering primarily to wealthy expat clients, they do a few press releases every year to draw attention to their list, and journalists that are interested in international borders and immigration lap it up like the Olympics (giving them free publicity and drumming up business) because it pits countries against each other which the internet likes to talk about. "Which country is more open / better than another country?" Anyway, even though you can go to more countries with a Japanese passport in 2016 than you could in...