Japanese IT glitch leaves foreigners' ID cards incomplete A computer error has been blamed after countless foreign residents in Japan received new ID cards this week without the key addition of an electronic signature designed to prevent counterfeiting. The Immigration Bureau began issuing the new zairyu cards for the first time on Monday but soon realised that a technical …
Can't figure out whether to downvote or upvote you. Can't figure out if you are putting down the commentary about the overriding major problem with foreigners and Japan, or disagreeing that it is a problem.
Japan has decided to put itself out of the running as a major economy, through cultural protectionism. That is its right, but it is seldom that one can put one's finger directly on the cause for a country's decline.
At least, no one is going to agree for another generation or three on the cause for my country's decline. (That that doesn't give you a clue about which country I'm talking about shows you that other models of governance (like, say, Sweden?) are needed in too many places!)
Eh, no you don't. With the Alien Registration cards you will only get a year if you seem like you won't be around much longer than that but if you have a spouse visa or PR you will get issued a card that lasts a lot longer. My latest card is for 3 years... the new system does away with alien registration anyhow.
Hasn't expired yet, anyway, but I am a permanent resident...
Having pointed at that inadequacy in the comments, I'll just say that the article was also a disappointment bordering on waste of time. Okay, so there was another computer glitch and some of the new cards are less 'perfect' than the politicians specified they should be. Are you entertained yet?
There is a LOT of room for some substantive reporting there, but it was barely hinted at in the closing part of the article. I think there is a widespread feeling among foreign residents of Japan that our governments are treating resident Japanese much better than we are being treated. There is a plausible opinion that this new law is supposed to make things more fair, but the article didn't go there.
The comment about encouraging immigration to offset the age-based silvering of the society was actually the most interesting bit. However, the Japanese are not likely to go there. More of an IT aspect that they hope the robots will pick up the slack... "But are they friendly robots?" (You remember, don't you? The squirrel? The moose? The spirits that were about to speak? The commercial.)
> I think there is a widespread feeling among foreign residents of
>Japan that our governments are treating resident Japanese much better than we are being treated.
Only if you have the mindset of that moron Debito. As long as you pay your way you get exactly the same treatment from the government as a native Japanese would. The only thing you can't every really do here as a foreigner is vote. They don't stop foreigners enrolling into state health insurance or state pensions.. they don't make foreigners pay different tax rates..
The bottom line is the Japanese government doesn't care as long as you pay.
Disbanding the Alien Registration system ends most of the issues that the most vocal disgruntled "I'M GAIJIN!!!!" people had too.. the main issue being that they didn't like the fact that their wife was head of their household. When I go to buy something like a phone now I can use the same documents as a native would to prove my identify etc instead of needing to get the alternative alien registration system version. None of this was an "OH NOES THEY IS CALLING MES GAIJIN BOOOHOOO" issue though.. it just makes life a ton easier.
>However, the Japanese are not likely to go there.
Except that they did. They imported tons of Brazilians with some Japanese heritage to work in factories etc. The reason for trying it with nikkei opposed to plain old foreigners was they though they might be able to speak some Japanese and maybe be better suited to living here... instead they got tons of people that were interested in the money side of things but had no interest in integrating into their new home.
If you look hard enough you'll see that Japan exported tons of people to Brazil. Now they want to come back and they have proper parents and the rights to do so. They do pretty well integrating, much better than a Japanese person would going to Brazil. Maybe next time you'll side with someone different in a global conflict. This one is already won.
Only if you are white.
The Japanese still are and always have been a bunch racists assholes. Try being Korean, Chinese, Filipino, or even Russian in Japan. You are about as welcome as Martin Luther King Jr at a KKK rally.
Oh and especially if you mother was taken from her home when she was 13 so she can be repeatedly and brutally raped on some shitty island in the middle of the Pacific? You'd be lucky if they called you 'gaijin', the shit I've heard coming from elderly Japanese people...
Well, apart from the fact that if you step outside your house without your shiny id card, you're committing a criminal offence, whereas Japanese citizens aren't required to carry any id at all.
I fell foul of that law when I neglected to put my gaijin card into my running shorts when I went running one night. Inspite of my profuse apologies to the officer who 'randomly' stopped me, I spent a couple of hours in the koban explaining myself. In the end, he let me off...
But you'll never have citizenship there, nor will your children, even if they are born there, you're riding an unstable wave mate. The Alien Cards are what is at issue here and since they DO have to reapply every year it is easier to replace the defective cards when they come back 'round for a renewal.
>loosening immigration controls
The new ID cards/disbanding the alien registration system improves the situation for foreigners in Japan.. Apparently I can actually be head of my own household now instead of just a footnote in my wife's registry.
Getting a visa for Japan isn't actually all that different for the UK for non-eu nationals.. I'm not sure where everyone gets this crazy idea that you have to give your right nut to get a visa. If you have a degree or have real work experience and a company that wants to employ you can get a visa. Does any developed country give resident status to foreigners without any education or skills and no hope of employment aside from asylum?
> in order to help an enfeebled economy saddled with a shrinking population.
Well, maybe they want to fill the population with more Japanese people opposed to slowly replacing the population with foreigners?
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