Becoming Japanese

In an old post, I mentioned how unlike the United States, Japan has no civics test quizzing applicants about their knowledge of the constitution, the country's history, geography, or government. In fact, most people are not tested on their Japanese ability either, because if your Japanese ability is comfortable enough that the case worker does not think you are struggling to communicate, understand them, and read or write simple forms, they will skip testing to see whether or not you have rudimentary ability. But what if there was a test? What would it be like? Of course, a real test administered by the Ministry of Justice would be entirely in Japanese. But for fun, I made a make-believe test a few years ago, and it was relatively popular. The post is now old though and some of the questions are dated. Additionally, Google Forms now has the capability to make a proper test that will provide graded results after you submit your answers. I have been told that the test is not e...

If they gave nationality on the basis of being smartly dressed, Chris Hart would be an honorary citizen of every nation in the world. Two years ago I wrote a post about the famous J-Pop singer with the incredible voice, Chris Hart , expressed on his blog how he wished to naturalize . This became official on February 23rd, 2017, according to the Official Gazette of the Japanese government ( 官報 { kampō } ), which by law has to publish the name of every single person who acquires nationality through naturalization by the Ministry of Justice ( 法務省 { hōmushō } ). Although this may sound like it took him almost two years to naturalize, it does not mean the actual length of time it takes is two years . There are two parts or phases to the application process: The stage where you collect the paperwork at your own pace (and the type and complexity and difficulty of getting that paperwork depends on your personal situation and well, how busy you are), which consists of going back...

We can't refer to the protected images of the international winter games in Sochi, Russia Former South Korean national 安賢洙 { AN Hyonsu } — in ハングル { hanguru } (Korean syllabet): 안 현수 { AN Hyeonsu }  — in his English preferred spelling: Ahn Hyun-Soo — is a world-class short track speed skating champion. He changed his nationality from South Korea to Russia, becoming Виктор Ан { Viktor AHN } . He won three gold medals and one bronze for the Republic of Korea in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Now, in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, he has won a gold medal for the hosting country, the Russian Federation ( ロシア連邦 { Roshia Rempō } ). Athletes changing nationality is nothing new. What is unusual about Ahn is how high profile and how he had such a long and successful sports winning career with his previous country. Compared to most naturalized elite athletes, and his motives for changing nationality were a little unusual: he had a falling out with the sports asso...

+Hiko Saemon and +Victor Boggio interview me on YouTube Live (Google+ Hangouts), talking about naturalization and this blog site. It's a little personal, and a little silly, but they did a great job introducing their viewers to this blog and becoming legally Japanese. Anyway, this is something different for this site. Don't take it too seriously. For those from Google+ or Youtube: if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. (not the best screen-cap of me. I think they went a little overboard with the flags)

I had shared my experiences with relinquishing my U.S. citizenship in past posts. Ever since U.S. Embassies and consulates around the world have beefed up security post 9.11, you can no longer just walk into an embassy without an appointment unless it was a major emergency. In the name of efficiency and modernization, they eventually began discouraging people to call the embassy, and instead encouraged (by making the telephone numbers harder to find) people to use the web to make appointments . The problem with that method was that only the most common "American Citizen Services" (marriage, birth, visas) were listed as options. Coming into the embassy for the wrong type of appointment would generally get you turned away, as the proper person that is capable of processing more complicated procedures (such as loss of citizenship) would not be at the embassy on that day. Since I became legally Japanese and, by that action, ceased to legally be American, the United State...

People that naturalize to become U.S. citizens must pass a U.S. citizenship test to become legally American. There are lots of web sites that teach you how to pass it. For Japan, there is no quiz. The only thing that comes close is the need to be able to speak and read Japanese during the interviews with the case workers. Technically speaking, it's part of the requirement that you can demonstrate that you have the skills to provide for your livelihood in Japan. If your Japanese language skills are weak, they may actually ask you to take a small quiz demonstrating that you have the Japanese literacy (as in Japanese sinogram and syllabet recognition and recall) ability of a primary/elementary school student in the third (3rd) grade. However, unlike the U.S. Citizenship Test for naturalization — which can be taken in languages other than English for certain applicants — your interviews will not have any sort of questions testing your knowledge of Japanese civics or history. A...

My final appointment with the U.S. embassy was with the consul Edward C. Burleson. Compared to everybody else I had dealt with up to that point, he was the most polite, most professional, quick, and to-the-point. I looked him up on the web afterwards and was impressed with his resume . Like me, he was an alumni of the JET Programme . He had spent a lot of time in Ishinomaki volunteering after the 東日本大震災 { higashi-Nihon daishinsai } (3.11 earthquake & tsunami disaster), which increased my respect for him. During the procedure, he was politically correct almost to a fault. He gave me the option of doing the final process in Japanese, asking me if I spoke English — he knew full well, despite the color of my skin, that I could based on my personal background which was printed in front of him, showing me to have lived from birth to 22 years of age in the United States. I figured my last official act as an American should in English, so I opted for 英語 { Eigo } . Like the re...

A Taipei tangent? At the beginning of the new year I vow to use my internal contact at the embassy again to get a hold of Oshima who will then get me an appointment to see a real consul officer who can finally process my relinquishment of U.S. citizenship. My friend (who I treated to dinner and drinks over the holidays to thank her for all her help) apologizes for her colleague's behavior, saying she has a little bit of a reputation for flakiness. I call her number. She then makes sure Oshima is aware that she's going to get a call on her desk, then transfers me. After getting Oshima on the voice line, I explain that this will be the third time I've been to the embassy and I've already spoken with the person who did due diligence and made sure I received my obligatory speech about the seriousness of the action, and I've given it some careful thought over the holidays —  あけましておめでとうございます！ { akemashite omedetō gozaimasu! } (Happy New Year!) by the way — and ...

During my first attempt at trying to relinquish my U.S. citizenship as part of the Japanese naturalization process, I learned that not just anybody at the embassy can process you, these people are very few and are very busy, and losing your U.S. citizenship is rare enough that it's not standard procedure and you will need to hook up with special phone numbers and appointments to bypass the standard "passport and visa and marriage and birth" services that make up the bulk of the American Citizen Services (ACS) work at the U.S. embassy. Unfortunately, I wasn't having much luck with the special "direct line" phone number that was given to me for making the appointment. I couldn't get a human to answer the phone; it kept going straight to voice mail. After waiting two business weeks for a return call, I called again. Got the voice mail again. I left another message. And I waited. Another week (five business days) passed and I didn't get a call bac...

Like many (but not all) countries, Japan requires that you relinquish / formally abandon / renounce your other original citizenship as a condition for naturalization, if that country allows it. The U.S. does, and the procedure is called "relinquishment", not "renunciation". The U.S. system is unique in that there are two ways to lose your U.S. citizenship, and the better way to lose it is through "relinquishment". It's a bit of a contortion of the word, as the U.S., due to the way the 14th amendment in its Constitution works, doesn't actively go out and seek out people that have committed "expatriating" acts, such as naturalization to another country or formally choosing another existing nationality like some dual-national Japanese-Americans do. Relinquishing has some benefits over renunciation: It is  [was] free ( renouncing is $2,350 ) [at the time I did it]. Certain parts of U.S. law that punish people who expatriate for tax pur...