Becoming Japanese

One dot represents about 30,000 people. Geographic distribution is artificial. Dot representative population graph derived from 2016 data from the SBJ , MoJ , JTO & JEES Look at this dot map. What do you see? No, it is not a Rorschach Inkblot Test. This is a graphical representation of the amount of "visibly foreign" (people who most people would not consider to be of the phenotype / race "east Asian" skin / hair / eye color) people in Japan in 2016. Try spotting the red and yellow dots in the map (those who can speak Japanese). Those dots statistically represent the people-of-foreign-origin or nationality that can understand Japanese — although it does not represent where they actually live. Not many of them, right? (If you're wondering why the colors I chose are hard to see, especially the brightness between gray & black and the colorblind traits of blue & yellow: that was intentional as in real life, it is not easy to differentiate ...

Last year in autumn a Canadian professional videographer by the name of +Greg Lam  , who creates content for a very interesting YouTube channel called "Life Where I'm From" , asked if he could interview me in my home in my man-cave/home office (the other two walls have whisky and computers instead of books). It took some time to edit the footage, but I think he did a wonderful job of making a very wonky and dull subject (Japanese naturalization and me) into something that is easy to watch and entertaining. The ten minute glossy abridged version is here: The longer, almost unabridged, one hour version, is here: If you enjoy his videos and wish to support his work, you can do so via Patreon . If you're a business and need professional video work, you can contact his business, Small Biz Doer Videos.