On Aug 25, 11:29 am, The 2-Belo <the2b...@msd.bigREMOVETHISlobe.ne.jp>
wrote:
> We have a report from the fj.life.in-japan Dynamics Officer that chuckers has
> exploded. Flight director confirms that:
>
> [...]
>
> >> Good to know. Thanks for the tip. In the event I am someday able to convince the
> >> wife that naturalization is a good idea...
>
> >What does naturalization have over, say, permanent residency?  The right to vote is
> >one thing that springs to mind but if/when the DPJ comes to power this time next
> >week, foreigners might get the right to vote anyway, at least at the local level.
>
> I don't know, I actually find myself opposing this for a number of reasons,
> mostly ideological. If you're going to be committed to a country you should go
> all the way. If I'm going to get the right to vote I don't want "at least at the
> local level". I want the whole thing. I don't pay taxes just at the local level,
> either.
>
> Does the US extend suffrage to non-citizens? I forgot.

I believe the US has suffrage for non-citizens in certain areas for
local elections.
Some elections require citizenship, others do not.  Some areas require
citizenship,
others do not.  Way too messy.

>
> >Oh, you won't have to carry your gaijin card, I suppose but I don't consider that to
> >be particularly onerous.  Any non-Asian would have to convince the local PD
> > that you don't need a gaijin card because you aren't gaijin whenever they roust you,
> >which, according to Debito, HAPPENS EVERYDAY SO LETS ALL SING "WE SHALL OVERCOME!"
>
> Although I have only ever been requested to show my alien card to random cops on
> the street once in 17 years... yeah. I won't have to carry my alien card, but I
> will have to carry my Japanese passport to prove that I don't have to carry my
> alien card. Win-win!
>

I have yet to be randomly stopped to show my card by the local
constabulary but
have had to show it at various places (hotels etc.) because I had no
other form of ID.
Whether ID was actually required is a seperate issue.  Now that I have
my DL converted,
I use that when I am required to show photo ID.  Haven't been accosted
on my
bicycle, either.  Having my daughter strapped into the back may have
helped with
that, though.

> >You will soon be listed in the Juminhyou, once the recently passed law goes
> >into effect.
>
> And I will have my own family register. Currently, I taint my wife's.
>

True.  But to what advantage?  And you might likely have to go to
family court
to get it changed so your wife was to "taint" yours if that is what
you/she wanted.
IANAL.

> >The only other advantage I have heard was that Japanese citizens are perhaps better liked
> >than certain other countries so getting visa (or even being able to go without a visa)
> >to travel to various places is easier with a Japanese passport than some other
> >types of passports.
>
> I don't travel to places where such things would be required anymore. I do my
> biannual trip to the US to see my family, and that's it.
>

I don't travel back home near as often as that.  Again, this was
pretty much only an advantage
for people from 4th world types of countries.

> >Am I missing anything?
>
> Currently the only other thing I could think of in the same vein as the above
> would be, you could come home again to the country you live in without needing a
> re-entry permit and a terrorist photo and a terrorist fingerprinting EVERY.
> SINGLE. TIME.
>

Re-entry permit (the only really TRUE gaijin-only tax in Japan) is
also going away when the
new law comes into affect.  YAH!

Fingerprinting and terrorist photo, yes, that is annoying.  But it
isn't as if I am not leaving
fingerprints all over the place everywhere I go anyway.

> This is the thing that burns my britches the most, more than Mr. James (I don't
> eat at McDonald's); more than the Roppongi white people drug testing (I wouldn't
> go to Roppongi at machete-point); more than the stupid onsens (I have a bathtub
> and I know how to use it). I'm a permanent resident, and the current immigration
> requirements have rendered it completely meaningless. I don't like that.
>

That sounds like me.  I am PR as well.

What it got for me:

Ability to sign most of my future earnings away to the bank until
they deem I have paid them enough to sign over the entire house to my
name.

The ability to be ungainfully unemployed for a brief period without
having to worry
about getting deported if I couldn't find a job before my visa ran out
(my PR app
completed about 1 month after my previous company folded up shop and
left Japan.
I didn't mention that when I went to get my passport stamped.)

The ability to not have to remember to renew my visa once a year (or
every 3 years.)
A friend of mine became a visa overstayer because he forgot to renew
and his employer
didn't remind him.  After apoligising, imigration issued him a new
visa.  But then he did
the same thing AGAIN the next year.  He had to find a bigger wig to
apoligise to in order
to get his visa renewed again.  Being nikkei might have helped.  Lord
knows what might have
happened if he was from a tin pot little African country.

Okay, so I have to remember to keep my passport updated as well as the
re-entry
permit but the former problem is unavoidable and the latter is going
away on its own.

> >I am sure my wife would throttle me if I ever got it into my head that
> >I ought to naturalise to Japanese.
>
> I decided long ago that I'm going to live here for the rest of my life. My
> entire life is here now, so why wouldn't I want to state my full commitment to
> the country in which I reside? And in return, wouldn't I want a legal guarantee
> (if a cultural one was otherwise impossible) that I would be recognized as a
> member of that society?
>
> I would keep my US passport to facilitate visits to family members, but I see no
> reason why I shouldn't do it, to make it *really* permanent. I believe the
> proper phrase is けじめをつける。Either do it all the way or don't do it at all.
> I would be willing to go through the paper chase (I already have the vast
> majority of the required documents) and the invasive interrogations and
> floggings by the jackbooted storm troopers if it meant proving that goddammit I
> made a decision and I'm sticking to it.
>

I am pretty much settled in here myself and in it for the long haul.
Or at least
until I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night screaming
"WHAT AM I
DOING WITH MY LIFE!?!?"

Starting over back home would be difficult, to say the least.
Especially in this
economy.  I fully understand about けじめ and think that if I were to do
the
"hardcore" thing (as Debito refers to it) I *would* do the "hardcore"
thing and
actually throw away my home country's passport and NOT renew it.  Why
be
a weasle?  It is one thing to have dual citizenship by birth or having
someone
come up and giving it to you because you are a good guy, but if you
are going
to make a decision to change to a new nationality, you should have the
balls
to go all the way and forego your previous one.  You don't have to
forego your
culture or upbringing of course.

I just don't feel I need to give up my current nationality, even if I
am here for a long
time.  Sure, PR can be taken away, but then so can Japanese
Nationality if
you weasle it, according to Japanese law.

Of course, doing the non-weasley hardcore thing means having to be
fingerprinted
and terrorist photo-ed whenever I go back to my home country.
Besides, the wife is convinced we will be retiring to Hawaii when the
time comes.
Being a hardcore non-weasle would probably put a crimp in that (which
may not
be a bad thing....)