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wheresmycraisin

We'd love to but the immigration policies are very unfriendly.

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A while back I looked at how I would score on their "points based" immigration calculator thing.

It wasn't good at all.

I suspect they will have to have a strong rethink of their immigration policies in the next 10-20 years.

It's very intentional. Japan is largely homogenous and there's a lot of support for keeping it that way.

Until they homogenous their way to a country that doesn’t breed and has 75% of the population above 60.

I’m pretty sure they’re more okay with that than letting immigrants in. The Japanese have no interest in bringing different looking people into the country.

I’m sure they are but will that sentiment persist when threatened with extinction/forced breeding programs.

There's many ways to immigrate to Japan, and the point system is one of the hardest because it gives you direct access to Permanent Residency (incidentally I will apply next year to it) instead of the temporary Work Visa.

As far as you have a degree and a job offer from a Japanese company (both should be related) it's trivial to fill the paperwork to come here. Engineers in particular have it pretty easy, with many Engineering jobs not even requiring you to speak Japanese.

But that's the trick, it's "okay" to come to Japan with a work permit, which allows you to work and pay your taxes but you have to be actively working with those, unless you have switched to PR (which IS a lot harder), or get out of the country. This has been criticized a lot, Japan is very friendly for young professional workers, but will never treat you as one of their own and once there's a sign of trouble you are on your own.

In practice if you’re out of a job you can be put on a special visa to look for work and if done in good faith I’ve heard of people who were on such visas for like 6 months.

Another point about being “on your own”. Basically every service that exists to help people out of work is accessible to foreigners. My locality offers “loans” (partially aid, part loan) for people who experience massive drops in salaries, for example. Any resident. Ive almost never run into a service gated on citizenship (except for some job postings with the govt)

Oh it's even simpler, you just keep the same visa and officially you are good for 3 months, unofficially it's much longer (as long as you have left in your previous visa), so that's good and much better than in e.g. the USA, I'm just saying that the jump from normal work visa to Permanent Residency (equivalent to the greencard) is a bit harsh.

Say for example you've been working for 7 years in Japan and your father gets sick back in your home country. If you go back for few months to help out you are basically a goner (unless you can keep remote working). Or that after working e.g. 10 years abroad and 5 in Japan you just want to take 6 month break for a bad burnout. No cannot do.

>A while back I looked at how I would score on their "points based" immigration calculator thing. >It wasn't good at all.

So I take it you don't have a college degree or work in the software field like most people here.

It's true: if you have no skills and work as a barista or janitor, Japan isn't very interested in having you immigrate here. If you're a skilled tech professional, however, it's the easiest country in the world to immigrate to. Experienced software engineers can easily score 70-80 points. With 80, you can apply for permanent residence in 1 year.

I have a degree and 10+ years in tech.

I redid it today, and now have 85 points.

Amusingly, I just did some back of the envelope maths and worked out I could probably bump that to over 120 points in 2 years if I set my mind to it.

As for "easiest", no.

I've moved a lot, there's many countries that are far easier :)

I don't know of any highly developed nations where you can easily get permanent residence in less than 1 year.

Do you have a college degree or 10 years professional experience? Congratulations, after finding a job you can move here. And on top of that your visa is not tied to your employer so there’s no visa risk if you find a better job on the spot ([0])

There’s some immigration stuff that’s tougher, but based off everything I’ve heard from dealing with Anglo countries or the EU, most people on this website would have zero problems dealing with immigration.

[0] technically the high skilled professional visa is employer-associated but people doing these jobs can easily pay to navigate the subtleties in any job change

Can you become a citizen? Because most people aren’t interested in some perpetual limbo.

Yes, “easily” based on what people who do it say. But getting citizenship requires [0] renouncing other citizenships.

There’s a permanent resident status which is I think is closest to a green card. You can’t vote but you don’t have to work or otherwise justify your existence. You can temporarily leave the country for several years if you intend to return (apparently this is pretty loose so “several” = 10)

There was a window during COVID where permanent residents were stuck outside the country. It was a couple of months, and I’m hopeful future incidents would be more humane… but citizens were not stranded.

[0] there is some pedantry on “requires”.

The answer is no. No, it isn’t easy and no you will not get citizenship. Japan is notoriously difficult (impossible) to become a real citizen in.

I've lived in Japan since 2009. In my opinion, most foreign residents who want to stay here long-term are interested only in permanent residence, and not citizenship. Reason being they don't want to give up their existing non-Japanese citizenship (which is technically a requirement for citizenship in Japan).

That's a bald-faced lie. Anyone can apply after 5 years and it's not that hard. I know people who are naturalized here.

I don’t know why you would say it’s impossible. 10k people do it a year, it’s a well documented process. The biggest hurdle is probably the language? Since most people can exist in Japan without a full grasp of the language in more ways than other countries

Would really love to see the LDP decide to open up immigration for folks from ASEAN member states. The JICA's infra projects in the region are a strong soft power play, and are getting delivered faster than anything funded by the Belt and Road initiative (or at least when I look at the different projects in Metro Manila, they are).

I would certainly prefer to drive on a JICA-built bridge than a OBOR one.

Not sure how true it is but an Asian friend told me the race that an Asian hates the most is another Asian...

Looking at the immigration policies of China and Japan, I think he might be right.

Yeah but all that can change in the span of a generation. The old die and things change quickly.

It can -- maybe. So far don't see that happening.

On the flip side, you have subreddits like 2asean4you where nationalist rhetoric is acknowledged and lampooned in their memes.

There's also so much shared between cultures in the region, like how kakigori evolved into Halo Halo in Manila or how Takoyaki is popular all over the Philippines. Most of the names of our popular foods have names rooted in Hokkien/Southern Min.

I've met a bunch of Chinese people here, some of whom are naturalized Japanese. How much more open do you think it needs to get, open borders?

If you can secure a job in Japan (admittedly a big if), they're far more friendly than, say, the US.

Not in how you're going to be treated. During Covid permanent residents were kept out because they're foreigners while citizens were able to travel to Japan[1]. Anyone who expects a western immigrant experience in Japan would be sorely mistaken.

[1]: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/19/national/social...

If you are from the US: tit for tats :)

I’m joking, none of that is the individual faults.

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