I Became a Citizen of Japan

We can freely move, work, marry, create companies, and everything else here already, I don't even think I'd think about it very often if I had a different passport (and it's not a thing I've only thought about for the last five minutes). (Of course this isn't true for all of them, but some of the neigboring countries).

Japan doesn't allow dual citizenship if you acquire the japanese one later in life.

Plenty of people in Japan, like my nephew, have dual citizenship by birth. I don't know if they can keep both when they're adult. But as kids 100% guaranteed Japan allows it.

And then a great many mixed couple do, on purpose, give literally two different identities to their kids. One by registering them, say, in Germany with the name written in roman characters (say "Akane") and the other in Japan with the name written using kanjis (or kanas for that is allowed to).

I'm not talking about dual citizenships / two passports: I'm talking about the same person having two entirely different identities because his parents registered him, on purpose, differently in two different countries.

So, yes, there are literally a few people counted twice on earth. And you probably don't want to do that with the US citizenship (for US taxes its citizens worldwide and it's a reporting clusterfuck). But if you've got, say, a japanese identity and whatever european one: you're totally fine.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/form-rs1-guidance...

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Having PR isn't a prerequisite for naturalization, nor does it waive any of the requirements. Do you mean he should have collected extra copies of documents and applied for PR in parallel?

If you won't be able to produce the accurate list, the chances are that the agency reviewing it would not be able to fail your application by cross-referensing it with some dataset that proves it inaccurate.

If they just started allowing large numbers of people to become citizens, their culture, people, and society would rapidly shift in a way that their historical roots would have little place other than in the footnotes of history textbooks. Even their language itself could die.

I think the big take-away when both sides are saying the same thing, even if on a sort of horse-shoe of logic, is that the only really good solution is for the people within countries to actually start having a sustainable number of children again.

yes, you certainly can continuously replace the natives with outsiders from around the world. a number of countries had chosen to do that rather than address the reasons why the natives are no longer able to even maintain their numbers. but I'm rather baffled that such atrocity is celebrated by the very same people who endlessly harp about the capital being the root of all evil, for it is the capital who doesn't give a shit about ethnicity and culture of its indebted laborers. it's the rich you claim to want to eat who benefit, who are removed from the negative consequences of the policies they promote, and who are free to leave on a whim.

You could wonder the same if they would accept a massive influx foreigners, like Europe did.

In 50 years they'll probably have a population of 90mil or something, which'd still be top 20, and probably comparable to the current population density of the UK.

Is it really such a crisis? Especially when AI is going to automate a lot of things away. It'd probably be more worrying if the population was exploding.

Here's my best stab at an answer: The short story is, the western world has been tied to Japan moreso than most other countries in Asia for centuries, and Japan's position in western culture grew from that foothold more and more as time went on. This meant that for a long time now, Japan has been the most "foreign" place that westerners frequently interact with, making it naturally very interesting to talk about and think about. It's also been a relatively safe, stable, and industrialized place for a long time, meaning that it's an easy way as a westerner to visit and experience somewhere very different without having to actually go that far off the beaten path.

I think you could trace this back even as far as World War 1, where Japan was the a notable power in the allies, having a special relationship with Britain, and thus already having a special position in the European subconscious. Add on to this the close bond between America and Japan after WW2 reconstruction, which was amplified even more in the 80s when Japan became a huge presence in everyday life through its automotive and technology exports, and from there its cultural exports too, to the point where Mario and Pikachu became household names. Japanese cuisine became popular through the Japanese diaspora in America and Britain. And, of course, the position of Japanese media in western culture has continued to grow dramatically since then. So in my mind, what we're seeing now is essentially the continuation of a special relationship between Japan and the west that goes back much longer than people realize.

In Italy, grandpas and grandmas know soccer AND dragonball. Which is kinda hilarious in a certain way.

I would quote videogames too, but animes probably had a bigger reach, think of the animes with mechas from the 70s and 80s

Some westerners are obsessed with Finland, the happiest country in the world.

Some westerners are obsessed with the idea of being an artist and musician in Berlin.

In short the internet makes these niches and obsessions seem larger than they are, because people with such a shared interest can find others to talk to. But I'd wager that most westerners aren't specifically obsessed with any specific country, or region.

I'm very aware there are many dark issues as well, but you asked why.

Oh, you asked why _obsessed_? You don't really think everyone thinking Japan is an attractive country is automatically obsessed with it?

Europe has been warring with Middle Eastern powers forever, so there's no mystery and wonder. Someone new popping up, however, and actually rising to take the fight to established powers and become an actual competitor is pretty impressive. Maybe the Brits liked the fact they were an island, too, and lots of wonder and interest stemmed from that?

I'm guessing it'd have been the same if the Inca didn't collapse, and went on to hyperdevelop upon contact..

Would be interesting to see how Japan was referred to by Europeans in imperial times. That messaging might have continued onwards in the common psyche.

But actually to answer the question: it's a weeding-out process. Only the people who genuinely in their heart of hearts feel that they belong will persist. And those people will act in the nation's interest because they feel part of the nation, even if the process of being recognised as such is a bit demeaning. Just look at how OP rationalised his abuse by bureaucracy...

What's not seen is how many people gave up which would have made perfectly fine citizens. That's IMO the real problem with this approach.

"I want nothing more than to raise a family, but alas I simply can't face brining a child into a world in which people applying for citizenship in this country have to present such a long list of documents."

"I feel the same way, honey."

For example a EU citizen may travel through most of EU without a passport.

It's less hidden since the Brexit campaign encouraged the xenophobia on the streets, TV, papers, even one of the past PMs was famously racist and xenophobic and it flew without any issue.

Japan is not the only one.

What it means (IMHO), if things don't get better, is more unpredictable politics. The Old Guard is already seen as having gotten us into this mess, and people will be more likely to try something new. We've seen a more authoritarian turn on both the right and the left. The ship could still right itself, but a lot of our problems are feeding back into each other and we may be seeing the beginnings of a phase transition, to borrow a metaphor from complexity theory.