Becoming Japanese

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.

Newsweek International (Asia) September 11, 2006 [ This article appeared in Newsweek International (Asia) on September 11, 2006. This slightly revised version is posted at Japan Focus on November 8, 2006. It is being republished and slightly annotated here in accordance with Japan Focus' Creative Commons license . ] By Christian Caryl and Kashiwagi Akiko A few years ago, when Milton Minoru Takahashi first set out to improve conditions for Brazilian guest workers living in Nagoya, he thought he'd be telling Japanese about soccer, samba and Brazilian beaches. They were the sales hooks the Brazilian-Japanese Takahashi—who works for a nonprofit foundation that aids the 60,000 foreigners in Nagoya—thought could open locals' eyes to the beauties of Brazilian culture. But, he says, "the Japanese didn't want to hear about those things. They wanted to talk about noise and garbage"—problems allegedly caused by the Brazilian immigrants in their neighborhoods. ...

From the time this site started until half a million page views later, general knowledge of Japan's naturalization has improved greatly. Thank you everyone! The amount of sites, comments, and forums that say "It is impossible to become Japanese. Japanese only let people with Japanese race/blood" be Japanese has dropped over 40% since I started tracking it, via web searches, in 2010. They don't always mention that they're reading this site, but some do. For example, another commenter will point out to someone that there information is not true and they should look at our site. When people say it's impossible to become Japanese, they often point to the data point of how there are hundreds of thousands of Koreans who have lived for generations without obtaining Japanese nationality to support their claim. Take this comment about the Koreans in Japan — known colloquially as 在日 { zainichi } (literally "Japan resident") — made by a Slashdot commenter...

This was an unplanned impromptu Hangout on Air discussion where I joined the weekly program " 2½ Oyajis ", run by  +Hiko Saemon  and  +Victor Boggio  . The conversation was originally supposed to be about Deputy Prime Minister 麻生 太郎 { TARŌ Asō } 's controversial comments about "quietly revising the Japan Constitution" , but some people weren't prepared, so we talk about living in Japan issues instead. Issues covered: Immigration Policy in Japan Assimilation in Japan by immigrants Whether there is a " Japanese citizenship test " as part of naturalizing Urban myths regarding the naturalization procedure coming to your home and seeing if you're "assimilated" or not Japanese-Fillipinos seeking citizenship ... and lots of other (mostly silly) stuff +Victor Boggio  announced that he will soon be doing his own personal info on permanent residency versus naturalization on his YouTube channel , and he will be using...