Jason Cormier wrote:

> When our daughter was born, we had a chat with the consular officials
> in Toronto aboutdual citizenship while registering her birth. They
> said she could keep both until she was 20 and then she would have 2
> years to choose one and renounce the other. In practical terms, this
> means she can be a dual citizen until she is 22. (Our hope is that
> Japan changes their policy by this time.)

I had been hoping the same thing. Now my son is 19 and clock is ticking....

In any case, I should point out that even though the official Japanese 
position seems to be that you have to actively make a choice, and they 
do have a provision for making a formal declaration of choice at your 
local municipal office, in actual fact you do not really have to do 
anything. If you (the dual-citizen, I mean), do not explicitly declare 
otherwise, it is *assumed* that you have chosen Japanese citizenship 
when you reach the magic age. This little tidbit of information appears 
practically as an afterthought on the Web pages on the subject (both 
Japanese and English versions) maintained by the Japanese Ministry of 
Justice.

> We have Japanese friends in Canada who have both. They simply did not
> inform the Japanese government when they attained their Canadian
> citizenship. They just make sure to use the same passport entering and
> leaving Japan and hope that nobody asks questions. We know of one who
> was questioned but she managed to talk her way out of further inquiry
> but I'm not clear about how this was done. Baffled them with bullshit,
> I suspect.

It would be interesting to hear more, though....

-- 
_______________________________________________________________
Scott Reynolds                              scottreyn@gmail.com