Stopped when he said he waited forever to get naturalized, skipping 6 years, and then saying he never got his permanent resident card, so he was just living off renewed visas, and they thought it was strange.
It is strange. A lot of the things he said he needed, would have been done in the permanent residence portion of his time in Japan. Just as it is in any country.
Once you are living in the country for a while, you can pretty much do anything and people don’t care about your resident status at all. For my daily lives in UK I only need my address and driving license. You pretty much have the feeling that you’ll be fine without bothering to do the paperwork, that’s how things work in the last 20-50 years.
Yes my friend moved from Sydney to London for work and he said it was a nightmare. He had his job in London lined up but he needed a UK bank account. He couldn’t get a bank account until he had a UK residence. His apartment lease needed his proof of employment.
He had to use his friend’s address for the bank account and then changed it.
I also moved from Sydney to Britain and just paid my rent from my Australian bank account until I got my British bank account. Your friend may not have thought to do this because he probably expected the ‘prison guard LARP’ attitude that Australian real estate agents have to also exist here in Britain.
I thought Japan requires 10 years residence for PR, but only 5 years residence to naturalize, in which case it wouldn't be surprising if many people naturalize before getting PR!
The rules changed in 2025, as of q2 2025 it was only a requirement of five years residency within Japan to become naturalized and this route as considered easier than permanent residency.
Everything is now harder. Even business manager visa. So many 夢の日本 have been shattered and pushed into other Asian countries. I’ve also seen a push into Europe , Italy, which also changed the rules last year too which was considered a very easy way to become a European citizen, Canada for Americans protesting Trump, etc.
It really does feel like the prelude or reshuffle of the world balance, open borders, Covid, closing borders, higher qualifications..
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. [0]
This gratifies intellectual curiosity -- how does one become a citizen in one of the most isolationist countries? What is that like??? Read this to find out.
Japan is probably not the best choice if your goal is a second or third passport, as others mentioned above. Countries outside East Asia, especially in Europe, tend to be more lenient about granting citizenship through naturalization, and many have friendlier tax systems (i.e., unlike the U.S., they don’t tax citizens who live abroad)
Having learned too my own share of languages and conquered bureaucracy and process across them, the manner in which this guy writes comes across as vomit-inducingly glib.
Stopped when he said he waited forever to get naturalized, skipping 6 years, and then saying he never got his permanent resident card, so he was just living off renewed visas, and they thought it was strange.
It is strange. A lot of the things he said he needed, would have been done in the permanent residence portion of his time in Japan. Just as it is in any country.
Once you are living in the country for a while, you can pretty much do anything and people don’t care about your resident status at all. For my daily lives in UK I only need my address and driving license. You pretty much have the feeling that you’ll be fine without bothering to do the paperwork, that’s how things work in the last 20-50 years.
What do you mean? Any major employer in the UK will need more than that for you to work there.
Yes my friend moved from Sydney to London for work and he said it was a nightmare. He had his job in London lined up but he needed a UK bank account. He couldn’t get a bank account until he had a UK residence. His apartment lease needed his proof of employment.
He had to use his friend’s address for the bank account and then changed it.
I also moved from Sydney to Britain and just paid my rent from my Australian bank account until I got my British bank account. Your friend may not have thought to do this because he probably expected the ‘prison guard LARP’ attitude that Australian real estate agents have to also exist here in Britain.
that's... really abd
I thought Japan requires 10 years residence for PR, but only 5 years residence to naturalize, in which case it wouldn't be surprising if many people naturalize before getting PR!
Not anymore.
I'm pretty sure this is more data than what's required for security clearance.
It absolutely is.
Why is the word 'interrogation' (appears at least twice) interleaved with unprintable characters?
> every address you've ever lived at, and the dates you lived there.
Well cross Japan off my list. I would not be able to produce that residence list under any circumstances.
I can recommend keeping a list from now on. It's helped me quite a few times.
Anything that needs that data I can do without. Besides that, they'd never believe it in the first place.
Would have to be able to do without many jobs in the USA! (Obviously glad though you’ve got your options and they’re sufficient.)
Also recommend to others keeping a list of all places from the past seven years.
Australia generally requires at least 10 years for some things.
The rules changed in 2025, as of q2 2025 it was only a requirement of five years residency within Japan to become naturalized and this route as considered easier than permanent residency.
Everything is now harder. Even business manager visa. So many 夢の日本 have been shattered and pushed into other Asian countries. I’ve also seen a push into Europe , Italy, which also changed the rules last year too which was considered a very easy way to become a European citizen, Canada for Americans protesting Trump, etc.
It really does feel like the prelude or reshuffle of the world balance, open borders, Covid, closing borders, higher qualifications..
Wonder what it all means.
why is this HN worthy or related?
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. [0]
This gratifies intellectual curiosity -- how does one become a citizen in one of the most isolationist countries? What is that like??? Read this to find out.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ty. this is genuine repsponse unlike jackasses downvoting without any good explanations.
What's up with all these, "you can't ask that" in HN now?
No problem! Ya, I’m on the same page, genuine questions deserve genuine answers. Glad I could provide one this time!
1. Nerds like Japan.
2. People with money like acquiring passports.
3. This community has above average representation of both.
If you like acquiring passports, then I'm not sure if you want to go for the Japanese one, since you have to give up your previous citizenship afaik.
The fact that multiple replies to my post know this fact only serves to prove my point though. :)
You could’ve stopped at 1.
Good reply unlike some who downvotes without good explanations.
> People with money like acquiring passports.
Japan doesn't allow dual citizenship, so not very attractive for people who want more than one passport.
Japan is probably not the best choice if your goal is a second or third passport, as others mentioned above. Countries outside East Asia, especially in Europe, tend to be more lenient about granting citizenship through naturalization, and many have friendlier tax systems (i.e., unlike the U.S., they don’t tax citizens who live abroad)
The study of arcane procedures and immigration of all sorts comes up here very often.
I upvoted it because I found it interesting. That is all.
It's interesting. That's it. That's the only criteria.
I knew Japan made it difficult. I clicked, I read the whole thing. Now I know Japan makes it (nearly) impossible.
I'm a typical HN reader (I think) and I found it interesting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's not but to be fair HN is full of similar exaggerated instances "I migrated my backend to COBOL because it was faster" (it's really not btw)
I agree, it’s so off topic.
What topic?
AI of course!
Having learned too my own share of languages and conquered bureaucracy and process across them, the manner in which this guy writes comes across as vomit-inducingly glib.