Does your Japanese spouse understand the recent changes affecting foreigners?

27 comments

1. Japanese husband. Acted the same way.

2. Mine keeps telling me that I’m overreacting and doesn’t understand why me and other foreigners are concerned. She seems to be under the impression that because I have PR The new rules will not affect us.

   She also gets irritated when I bring up things like different menu prices/items for foreigners. Since we are usually together when we eat out she doesn’t think it applies to me. But I do go out by myself sometimes, so it does matter.

3. I have stopped seeking sympathy from my wife years ago since she cannot or refuses to understand.
   If the conversation is not about the kids or her job then I don’t bother. It can be tough of course when it’s your SO but I can support from friends instead.

   That isnt to say my wife doesn’t care about me, that the relationship is toxic, etc. it’s just choosing your battleground.

4. My fiance is quite vocal about those things, then again she is vocal about politics in general. As someone who has lived and worked for some time abroad she kind of gets the sentiment of how people feel when this kind of stability being threatened and is not in favour to these changes. Although when it comes to getting the news about changes she does not really “care” that much and usually learns about it through me.

   That aside, most of the Japanese people around me, from coworkers to just acquaintances and friends seems not to understand the possible impact of these changes and just accept them as they are, or even somewhat supports them stating something along the lines that it will curb the foreigners’ problem.

5. Japanese boyfriend. He’s almost on the opposite side. We talked about the recent visa fee increase and he just said that he thinks it’s a good thing and foreigners should pay more. I’m incredibly concerned to be honest, questioning our whole relationship.

6. Well, my wife would be pissed if visa renewal is $400 or pr application is $1000 or if it becomes harder to get a 3 or 5 year visa. My wife is already annoyed they keep giving me 1 year visas lol

7. My girlfriend is the same. She was like “you can’t vote so there’s nothing you can do about it.” Zero acknowledgement of how I was feeling. Any kind of political discussion is very difficult though, so I think she just wants to avoid the topic entirely.

8. I don’t see them as a huge hurdle and neither does she, it’s just something we’re staying informed about and making sure we pay attention to new policies that get enacted. The visa price increase is unfortunate, but when you realize it hasn’t been changed since the 80s…. well, it makes sense. The issue here isn’t that the visa prices are going up, it’s that they’re going up while salaries remain dogshit, which isn’t an issue exclusive to foreign residents. The thing we care more about is if the increase in visa renewal prices will lead to more transparency/clarity about how visa length is determined. If it remains the random outcome and some people end up stuck paying essentially an annual 30000 yen fee for not being a Japanese citizen, that’ll be very frustrating and something worth evaluating.

   Wanting to change the PR/Naturalization requirements we’re both completely fine with it. Yes, it’ll be harder and more of a commitment, but why is that an issue? If you want to naturalize, in theory you SHOULD be able to satisfy all of the requirements the government is floating around like Japanese level and whatnot.

   I’m also fine with them reviewing and updating current policies concerning foreign residents, even if it leads to stricter guidelines. I’ve mentioned it in other threads, but my mindset towards this is that they’re not trying to dissuade people from immigrating here or staying here once they come, at least, not everybody. What they want are people who want to come here and live here and be members of society. The language school student visa exploiters and the eikawa teachers who come to party for a year and skip out on their pension and insurance payments are the people they want to target, not the people who come here genuinely wanting to make a life for themselves.

9. My wife is “well you’re a good foreigner following the rules”. Yet, I have to remind here there have been more than twice in Japanese history where foreigners were kicked out and basically were illegal.

   I am concerned with the sentiment, but I’m not trying to be a citizen. I’m a US citizen and a retired military veteran at that. I’m not concerned with being kicked out, I’m concerned more about rising tensions in the Asia pacific. I’m more worried about how my blonde hair blue eye girls are going to be treated at school (they are still too young for school). I am worried about doing more paperwork, but my wife does that because I’m an illiterate (studying everyday, relax).

   I do think things will get worse. I’m hesitant to ever say it will get better. Japans history doesn’t have a lot of radical fast changes though. My thought: keep paying your taxes, be “the model gaijin”. Talk to your neighbors, get involved in your community, and just keep living.

   I don’t think we will get ICE rounded up quite yet. I think there is a negative sentiment about foreigners that abuse the system, not ones with families contributing to society. That’s not to say the new proposed laws don’t affect us, they clearly do. Unfortunately, it is a side effect of a globalized anti immigrant stance happening around the world. People are looking for an easy excuse for the piss poor leadership. Leadership doesn’t want to make hard choices for a better future. It’s easier to just say “foreigner bad”. One thing I will say, this is anecdotal, the anti foreigner is aimed at Chinese, not westerners (for the most part).

   Anyway, tax wealth not work. Plan for the future, and not short term quarterly gains. Until that happens, dystopian society is our future. Good luck bud. 😊

   THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.

10. People who are online a lot tend to be caught up in all the negative scaremongering. Get off for a while and you’ll find life gets better.

    My wife ain’t on social media and I try to avoid the posters who trigger me on this subject

11. I’ve been here a long time and have PR so the changes don’t impact me really, but I’m definitely uncomfortable with where things might be heading. My wife not at all.

12. > it just feels like these issues don’t register the same way for someone who has never had to worry about visas, renewals, or residency status.

    Precisely

13. I mean I’m going through a contentious divorce so he’s probably happy about anything that shits on my life.

14. We talk about it, and I also send news article in the LINE group where her parents are to make sure they at least see what’s going on. They are sympathetic but given my situation is quite stable, we’re not excessively scared of anything directly affecting us except the possibility of fee increase in residency renewal. Yesterday, a local MP whom my wife supported drinking the latest election was doing a town hall. We went there and we talked to her about misinformation, and generalization bias.

15. My wife thinks i worry too much, she is dismissive of my concerns.

16. My wife is far more concerned than I am

17. As an American who’s lived in Japan for 25 years, I feel I can’t really argue with the changes. The US is a crapshow with immigration. The fact that Americans get to experience a 10th of what immigrants in the US are going through…

    If I was going to pick on Japan for anything, it’s not how they are managing people coming in now. It’s that you have 3rd generation people in Japan who are still seen as foreign.

    But all the people in this chat complaining about the changes are only whinging about their own situation.

    I’m grateful I get to live here.

18. She supports the visa price hikes we had the conversation last night. She compared the price to the student Visa she had in the US and said it was still cheap in comparison.

19. Nothing has actually changed though, there are proposals for changes, most of which will amount to nothing at all or if they are implemented will be neutered from their current proposed state. That’s kind of where my household falls on it.

    And aside from raising SOR fees (which I’m honestly surprised have remained so low for so long), nothing proposed so far is going to make life harder for a normal resident just working, living, and paying taxes. There’s the hypothetical “if they register the nationality of landowners it *could* be used to levy higher taxes on foreigners,” but no one has proposed taxing residents higher, especially not private parties purchasing residential homes to live in.

    I think a lot of concerns/fears are kind of overblown and a result of living in echo-chambers that make these proposals feel imminent and scary, and I think a lot of that is intentional amplification from foreign actors that benefit from current loopholes.

20. It sucks, but after going through the expensive and very long process of permanent residency for my Japanese wife in the US, Japan is still an easier and cheaper process than there (even with the increases). Our application to move my wife from a 2-year conditional green card to a 10-year one in the US cost over $2K in total and it took USCIS 37 months to approve the 10-year card, which is a normal processing time for them. Our combined salaries in Japan are close to what we made in USD, and most things in Japan are cheaper at least for the time being, so it’s better than the US system at least.

21. Though everyone here has a point to be upset, look at it from Japan’s current viewpoint. A huge factor driving all this is that Japan sees the writing on the wall. The yen has been plummeting with really no plan in place to change course. The tourist boom that come from Japan being very cheap now does two things in turn: 1. It over crowds popular cities in Japan with tourists which raises the stress level of everyone around for several reasons. 2. It reminds Japan that they are loosing their “status” of being the top dog of Asia, as everyone is treating Japan as a bargin playground. The Japanese love to travel, but most of them cant even afford it anymore with the weak yen. This further engrages the Japanese as it is constant reminder of how their country is falling.

    From this, Japan now sees foreingers as the go to target to take money from, since they are on the way down and they assume foreigners are the ones with extra money to spend. This is why most of your significant others who are Japanese are feeling the way they do. They are Japanese, and as they see what is becoming of their country and they are sour about it. Which is as they should be, because the government really has no way of getting them out of the current situation they are in. So, they come up with the quickest cash grab that they can being increasing fees for foreigners. They are humans like everyone else and are going to feel how they feel, as they are backed into a corner like a scared animal fighting for survival.

    I am not faulting anyone is this conversation, I am just giving my opinion based on having lived in Japan for 15 years and watching all this go down. Also remember, the increasing tension between Japan and China is also a huge factor in this. Honestly, this is Japan’s main “foreign backlash” target. They cant come out and say it, but its the Chinese they are most wanting to punish in this. They are the biggest foreinger group in Japan by far, but every foreigner gets the same treatment regardless.

    Just my two yen.

22. People online and here are overreacting imo. There’s bigger things to worry about.

23. They’re scared of cultural change, they’re scared of the Chinese, and they’re scared of Muslims. 

    On social media, I think there’s a gap between people with long term residency and people renewing every year or every other year. Obviously, the former are much less worried than the latter. 

24. Girlfriend loves Takaichi and all the proposed changes because, like a lot of Japanese, she hates Chinese people.

    I had to explain to her that she’s being kind of racist and that these changes affect me just as much as the Chinese. I also had to explain how I can’t just do whatever job I want since I’m on a work visa which she still doesn’t fully understand.

    Japanese people can be pretty ignorant/closed off from reality.

25. I’m a Japanese and honestly unless they have been outside of Japan for too long, they’ll never understand it. However I understand it because one of my parent is a foreigner and I have many colleagues who are working here.

    my husband is also a foreigner and I’m quite anxious about this because he’s a colored foreigner (if you understand how they look down on colored south-east asians)

    They overall see it as a good thing because of superiority 島人mentality and lack of knowledge of immigration issues. (they’ve never been outside of Japan too understand such issues)

    btw, I’m against all of it. Raising the prices is fine but to the extend of 100k above that’s outrageous and also they should fine the tourist not legal foreigners working here. (the issue started when the influx of tourist became so bad)

26. My partner has worked with the technical trainee scheme – and applied for visa renewals etc. She has a lot of sympathy for difficulties they face, but has reassured me that none of this should negatively affect me. That comes from a place of knowing how things work in Japan.

    The fact that citizenship could be easier to obtain than PR is an anomaly that seems entirely reasonable for the government to want to address. I say that even though citizenship is a goal of mine and it will make it harder for me.

    Fees are actually cheap by comparison with many other developed nations and in my experience not a major part of the cost (of paying a lawyer / company to help me get it done). But I appreciate people on a shoe-string who are more skillful at form filling than I am can navigate the system themselves and are just looking at the fee by itself and the new figures (which are not yet in force) could be problematic.

    I’ve lived in atypical parts of Japan and my experience has been one of a very supportive society. Back in Kagawa, the prefecture had a lot of facilities for helping out foreigners, including various kinds of advice service and even my small town had various things it offered.

    I don’t know if there’s anything like that here in Amami, but by default everyone is extremely helpful and keen to get you integrated.

    So I havent felt a general change in overall attitude to outsiders.

    My experiences with dealing with immigration here are vastly different from dealing with my own government on matters related to my being here (getting a passport and various other things). Japanese immigration seems to me reasonable and helpful by comparison with the unreasonable and hostile approach of my own nation.

27. One thing that Japanese nationals need to keep in mind is that political change can lead to a ‘slippery slope’ effect.

    Small changes are implemented to ‘test the water’ and as they note very little protest, they will then go ahead with implementing more changes.

    And sadly, considering the lack of sympathy for the plight of migrants, it’s fair to suspect that there will be more changes on the way, and it will escalate.

    And, of course, the problems it causes won’t be apparent to Nationals until it is too late.
    Talking from experience being on the receiving end up anti-migrant (anti-Japanese/anti-Asian) political rhetoric in Australia.

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