This website is about life in Japan from the viewpoint of one American-born writer residing in Sapporo, Japan, both before and after he became a naturalized Japanese citizen. It may interest people who want to know more about Japan, and how it affects residents who have the appearance and/or status of non-Japanese.

Who am I?

My name is Dr. Arudou Debito (in Kanji ), formerly David Christopher Aldwinckle, born 1965 in the United States, Permanent Resident of Japan from 1996, and naturalized Japanese citizen from 2000. Father of two with a Japanese woman and employed for eighteen-plus years as a tenured associate professor at a university in Hokkaido, I bought land and built a house out in the countryside in 1997, which was the main reason I took Japanese citizenship.

What is this site for?

This site gets around 60,000 page views and 5000 individual visits on average per day, and many people have emailed to ask what I seek to accomplish with it. It started out quite simply: I like to write, and have over time put out hundreds of essays over internet mailing lists. I felt some essays were worth archiving on a personal website, so on March 15, 1996 I put up a couple hundred. However, as I got involved in social issues I thought deserved wider attention, the reports I wrote got archived as well. You can find many of those (updated daily) on my BLOG.

What is this BLOG for?

At the risk of sounding pretentious, let me quote a famous philosopher:  “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.  Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without direction from another.  This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolve and courage to use it without another’s guidance. Sapere aude! Dare to know!  That’s the motto of Enlightenment.” (Immanuel Kant, from “Critique of Pure Reason”, as cited in Francis Wheen, “How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World”, page 2).

The point is, by blogging this information on a daily basis (which some people say can find depressing), we are daring to know and inform ourselves of the condition of human rights in Japan.  It necessarily means we hear the bad news before the good news, become aware of how to convert bad into good, and celebrate the small but hard-won and incremental victories over time.  For this field, that is the process of Enlightenment.  Still, if you just want to see the good news, click here.

Now, with well over 5000 essays, articles, publications, and reference materials floating around this domain name, this site has two categories:

WEBSITE: For Longer-Term Residents of Japan

Japan has a standard of living high enough to convince some people to stay permanently. Some steps I have made and recorded might be of reference to those people. Information on topics such as Permanent Residency, Naturalization, Housebuilding, Employment, Education etc are mixed in with other, hopefully amusing and poignant, anecdotes on travails of life in this fascinating country. Click here to have a look.

Of particular interest:

• Japan’s Permanent Residency and Naturalization Requirements
• Housebuilding in Japan
• Survival Strategies in Japan
• Debunking Myths about Japan
• plus even Humor and Travelogue

Note that not all of the stuff above is for the “lifers”, so drop by if you don’t think you’d be interested in the next category:

WEBSITE: For Social Activists in Japan

People who love a society often seek ways to improve it. No society is perfect, after all, and I say there is nothing wrong with working for improvements if one means to live here, pay taxes and contribute to Japanese society much like anyone else. In fact, most “registered foreigners” in Japan are here longer than one might expect (a little under half are legally Permanent Residents, born in Japan). This raises questions about the oft-claimed “monoculturality” of Japanese society, and casts doubt on the “you’re-guests-in-Japan-so-don’t-complain” canards thrown at foreign-born social activists. So if you are interested in how people like me are working towards making Japan a nicer place to live for everyone, click here.

Of particular interest:

• Otaru Lawsuit Information Site and “The Rogues’ Gallery”–photo records of exclusion in Japan by nationality and race
• “Treatment of Japan’s International Residents–Problems and Solutions for a 21st Century Japan”: (A handout at my speeches)
• Japan’s Questionable Human Rights Record, particularly vis-a-vis domestic discrimination, according to UN Reports
• Blacklist of Discriminatory Japanese Universities
• Academic Apartheid in Japan’s Universities and Important Cases
• Arbitrary ID checks by Japanese Police, and what to do about them
• Submission of Anti-Racial-Discrimination Ordinance (jourei) to negligent Hokkaido municipal governments
• “The Community” Website, for budding activists
• My Japan Times columns, 2002 to the present

WHAT TO DO IF…

Are you in a tight situation? No time to navigate the entire debito.org site? Here is an easy FAQ site of important topics:

WHAT TO DO IF… (click on a link to go directly to that heading on the site)

…you are asked for your “Gaijin Card”.

…you are stopped by the Japanese police.

…you are arrested by the Japanese police.

…you overstay your visa.

…you see a “Japanese Only” sign.

…you are refused service at a business catering to the general public.

…you are turned away at a hotel.

…you want to protest something you see as discriminatory.

…you want to take somebody to court.

…you want to get a job (or a better job) in Japanese academia.

…you are having a labor dispute in the workplace.

…you are swindled in a business deal.

…you need a lawyer.

…you want to get Permanent Residency (eijuuken).

…you want to become a Japanese citizen.

…you want to run for office.

…you want to build a house.

…you want to get a divorce.

…you want to do some awareness raising.

And more. Updated and added to frequently. Don’t see exactly what you’re looking for? Start at the very top of the “What to do if” site and see what headings are on offer.

About the Website Author as a Person:

There is of course plenty of me that comes through as an interested observer in my writings, but in a nutshell: If you want “to know my biases,” see the page on my background. If you would like “to see my street cred” in the print and broadcast media world, please take a look at my publications (including the abovementioned Japan Times columns)

In sum, I see the Internet as a marvellous facilitator of information, and a good way to deliver individual opinions to people who, considering paths not taken in a very esoteric society, might want to hear one person’s experiences. I hope you find this site useful and interesting.

If you would like to join some internet fora which discuss issues raised here, please visit either The Community Website or the Japan Reference Page. You are welcome to share your viewpoints there in public, or else email me individually at debito@debito.org. (NB: I may not be able to answer everyone punctually due to a perennially full mailbox, so please be patient. Also, please write subject lines that are unlikely to be snagged by spam filters. A simple “Hi” won’t reach my inbox, I’m afraid. Thanks to web search spiders grazing on my site, I get hundreds of spam messages a day. Sorry. Yoroshiku!)

. . . . . .

TWO OTHER NONFICTION BOOKS

“Japanese Only–The Otaru Onsen Refusals and Racial Discrimination in Japan”

By Arudou Debito

(Click here– or on the Book Cover above –to visit a special site with news, book reviews, and more!)

SELECT REVIEWS:

“A reasoned and spirited denunciation of national prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry. It’s not that the Japanese have all that much more of it than anyone else, but that they lack an interface to fight it. This lively accounting will help them find it.” —Donald Richie

“An important, trailblazing work that will go down in the annals of civil activist journals. It is, on the one hand, a gripping tale of one man’s pursuit of justice and equal treatment in a foreign land, and on the other, an engaging primer on how to fight city hall in Japan. The detailed descriptions of how the opaque machinery of Japanese government bureaucracy and its legal systems work are in themselves worth the price of admission. Will be the book of reference on the subject for decades to come and should be required reading for anyone studying social protest.” —Robert Whiting, author, The Meaning of Ichiro, You’ve Gotta have Wa, and Tokyo Underworld:

“Deftly capturing the devil of Japanese xenophobia in the details of simply getting a bath, Debito Arudou combines intellectual honesty, moral courage, and sheer physical perseverance with a wry sense of humor to show how difficult it is in Japan to mount and sustain a campaign to dismantle racially discriminating barriers that would be illegal and quickly laughed out of court in the US. Arudou’s love of the Japanese people is proven by taking out citizenship, and by a fluency in writing and speaking the language that would put to shame most Western ‘Japan Experts’. He treats us to a startling expose of the twisted logic employed by the defenders of discrimination, be they Japanese or resident foreign Uncle Toms. A powerful, poignant, and path-breaking docu-narrative.” —Ivan Hall, author, Cartels of the Mind and Bamboozled.

• (More reviews, including those from the Japan Times and the Daily Yomiuri, at https://www.debito.org/japaneseonly.html)

HOW TO ORDER

Go to https://www.debito.org/japaneseonly.html

ENGLISH VERSION (now in it’s 3rd Edition): 432 pages, 3500 yen (paper) or JPY 999 (ebook on Amazon) ISBN: 4-7503-2005-6

JAPANESE VERSION: 272 pages, 2500 yen, ISBN: 4-7503-9011-9 C0036

MAKE A DONATION TO THIS WEBSITE?

This site won the Kampai Budokai Hot Site Award in 1998,

the Japan Reference Page Site of the Month for April 2001,

and the A Look Into Japan Site of the Month for July 2001