Becoming Japanese

South Korea is so high it needs a separate scale: see yellow / right side I met a gentleman who was referred to me a few days ago by a friend. While I get this a lot from those who are interested in naturalization, his situation was a first for me: he was a native Japanese who had naturalized to United States citizenship . In doing so, he renounced his Japanese citizenship . However, life circumstances (returning back to Japan and he doesn't wish to be hooked into two tax systems) meant he now wishes to re-acquire Japanese nationality and relinquish his U.S. nationality along with his Japanese national wife's U.S. LPR status. This means he will have relinquished/renounced two nationalities in his lifetime. That's very unusual, but it made me wonder: but how often do people give up their other nationalities? The general answer is: with the exception of South Korea, not very often. Even the highest number of renunciations (excluding the ROK , this would be the USA ) ma...

♪ Bad girls, bad girls Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do When they come for you ♪ Hopefully, very few people plan to get into trouble with the law, either in Japan or overseas, after they naturalize. After all, in order to naturalize in the first place, your record (even for driving offenses), including immigration record, needs to be almost flawless . Both inside Japan and outside of Japan . However, the real meaning of becoming legally Japanese isn't about speaking or acting Japanese or even living in Japan forever (it's perfectly possibly to gain Japanese nationality then live as a Japanese expat elsewhere in the world). Naturalizing and becoming Japanese is about establishing a legal permanent link between you and the sovereign state of Japan. When the Constitution of Japan says "sovereign power resides with the people" ( 『主権が国民に存すること』 { "shuken ga kokumin ni son suru koto" } ) in the preamble, by "people" — a constitutional law term ...

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...

Non- AFIS biometric systems record features, not the whole fingerprint Yes they can be, but it is not required except for employment in certain specialized professions. Not all non-Japanese are fingerprinted either: Special Permanent Residents (特別永住者; SPRs) those under sixteen (16) years old and overseas VIPs (anybody using a "Diplomat" or "Official" passport to enter the country) are also exempt. The origins of fingerprinting foreign residents in East Asia The process of fingerprinting foreign residents as part of the registration law in (post War) Japan first began in 1952. The reasons for this were primarily to supplement and support weak identification technology at the time: international and domestic identification such as passports and alien registration cards lacked the modern technology of today such as: microprinting, holograms, ultra-violet reactive ink, color-shifting ink, advanced tamper resistant materials, trackable ID numbers, and ...