Becoming Japanese

Statelessness is the condition where a person has no legal nationality associated with them. The Japanese Constitution, Article 22 , specifically grants Japanese nationals the right to lose Japanese nationality by choice: Freedom of all persons to move to a foreign country and to divest themselves of their nationality shall be inviolate. Despite this, however, it is currently impossible for a Japanese national to simply give up their only  nationality and become a person with no nationality. This is because Japan is a signatory to the 1961 UN Convention to reduce statelessness . The Japanese Constitution was written before this, and Article 98 of the Constitution says that Japan must obey the UN Conventions and treaties that it signs: The treaties concluded by Japan and established laws of nations shall be faithfully observed. Thus, the only way to lose Japanese nationality is if you already have another nationality to fall back on. What if it's discovered that one's naturaliza...

Nick Zappetti, American "mafia boss of Tokyo" A few years ago, I reviewed the excellent book "Tokyo Underworld" by Robert Whiting , which featured an Italian-American by the name of Nicholas aka Nick Zappetti who immigrated to Japan after The War and became a bit of a minor kingpin in the legitimate (and illegitimate) recovering economy of the State of Japan during the "anything goes" days of the black markets. One of his big contributions to the post-war creature comforts of Tokyo, especially if you were a soldier (or spy) stationed in Japan, was his American-style Italian restaurants that featured American style pizza (contrary to what Americans believe, the common U.S. versions of pizza is no more authentic than Japanese style pizza ). I featured the book on this site because Zappetti was one of the early pioneer Americans who would naturalize to Japanese, becoming 小泉二コラ { KOIZUMI Nikora } . While he was definitely not the first to do so — not just As...

A few months ago an American interested in becoming Japanese mentioned to me that he looked forward to not needing to repay his crushing student debt he left back in America. The United States has gone through an unfortunate bubble of costs for real estate in tech areas (ex. Silicon Valley), healthcare, and education, have seen its costs escalate wildly out of control over the past few decades. Most people attempt to solve the education cost dilemma by taking on student loans, which is a special type of loan that you must eventually pay back — you cannot escape the debt by declaring personal bankruptcy. This seemingly inescapable debt, compared with the changing nature of the workforce where people who choose non- STEM  employment find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet compared to past generations, has led some to consider desperate measures. Some have proposed intentionally forcing the government's hand by collectively not paying student debt en masse — suc...

Can You Bring Your Spouse, Family Member, Boy or Girlfriend, S.O. , Lawyer, Friend with you to all the personal interviews? The placeholder photo that serves as the avatar for the pseudonym "Ken Seeroi" aka "Ken C Roi". TL;DR : "No". I noticed a popular blog, called "The Japanese Rule of 7" , had written recently an anecdote about attempting to acquire Japanese Citizenship because it had a link to this site, which generates an automatic notification to me. I read it. And I enjoyed it. Very funny tale. However, it's important to keep this in mind while reading it: It's a fictional account. Normally, I'd leave fiction alone and not file it in the "Misinformation" page . Unfortunately, from reading the comments on the post and other entries in the blog, it's not clear that most of the blog's fans are in on the joke. In the real world, they want to interview only the actual candidate (or if it is a l...

Eiji (Evan) Koehler, born American, and Olaf Jong, born Indonesian, describe their experiences about acquiring Japanese nationality for the YouTube channel "Where Next Japan?" In the video, they describe the process of becoming Japanese citizens and explain not just how they did it, but also how other people reacted, and their thoughts on the place they now call home. 00:06 Intro 02:17 Why did you change your citizenship? 04:16 How did your family react to your decision? 04:57 How do other people react to your decision? 05:29 When did you start the process? 09:26 Were you surprised by any part of it? 10:48 Did you encounter any misinformation or misconceptions? 11:57 What was it like choosing a Japanese name? 14:20 Has your sense of self changed at all? 18:28 Final comments It's an interesting video, and I recommend checking their blog out for other interesting Japan topics.

(Most graphs in this post are redrawn to reflect absolute numbers instead of percentages) Last year, I encouraged people who were native English speakers in living in Japan, regardless of whether they were naturalized Japanese citizens or not, to participate in a short 26 question survey run by Victoria Ferauge, an American academic expat (and political advocate relating to various nationality issues) who has lived in various parts of the world including Osaka and Versailles, France. Over six hundred (615) valid participants were tabulated from June to August of 2016, and the results were published for the University of Kent on March 24th, 2017 as part of a master's dissertation. I received permission to republish the raw data and add my interpretation here. Of the questions, the first two questions: Do you live in Japan? Are you a native speaker of English? … determined whether or not the remaining 24 questions, listed below, would apply. Disclaimer : while the ...