Becoming Japanese

The Application Paperwork, in multiple copies. Each envelope is one full set. From 2014 to 2016, when I went through the process of naturalisation, I wrote a whole series of articles about it on my blog . One of those articles was an account of my naturalisation interview, in March 2015, which I wrote on the evening of the interview. Everyone's interview is different (if you are single, for example, your spouse won't be involved), but people nervously waiting for their interview may be interested to see what it was like for me, so I am reposting the account here. I went to the 法務局 { Hōmukyoku } (Legal Affairs Office) in Kawasaki, and my wife, Yuriko, met me there (we were both going from work). I arrived a bit early, but my case worker soon came to speak to me. First, she took all my application documents off me, and took them into the Nationality Consultation Room to look through them. That took her about twenty minutes, while I waited. Yuriko arrived just after she ...