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The
Community
Additional information on "Tama-Chan" and "Juuminhyou" Issue
Delivered-To: debito.org-debito@debito.org
From: Edward Crandall <edo@saga-s.co.jp>
To: "Arudou Debito" <debito@debito.org>
Subject: Re: "Friends of Tama-Chan" celebration ("We can be cute too!")
-- my column piece on the topic
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 14:44:10 +0900
Dear Arudou Debito, Edward Crandall, writer and columnist for the Saga Shimbun down
in Kyushu, here again.
I too have been following the Tama-chan issue and I read with great interest your
recent emails on the topic. Please find attached to this email message
the English translation of my most recent column.
I very gingerly -- I hope -- took it up so that the Japanese readers of my paper
could see the issue from "our" point of view.
A bit of background: in January of this year a seeing-eye dog was given "honorary
[town] citizenship" ｪi篦ｶｯｪj in the small town here in Saga Prefecture where
he and his owner live. I thought this was a bit much at the time, but not wanting
to sound like the "grumbling gaijin" that people already think I am, I
brushed the topic aside and decided not to write a column piece about it. However,
when the Tama-chan thing hit the news, it was a bit more than I could bear (snip).
I went to the City Hall here in Saga City and spoke to the guy at the "Gaikokujin
Touroku Shoumeisho Kakari," and he very nicely and carefully explained the whole
legal background to the fact that we foreign-born residents of Japan are denied basic
legal paperwork. In very simple terms it goes as follows below (forgive me if you
already know all this). But simplified as it is, it is still rather complicated;
bear with me:
"A Certificate of Residency (ｶZ) is under
the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Home Affairs (ﾚｩﾚﾁｶ�) and is issued based on
information found in the Family Register (ﾔ霹ﾜ). Family Registers are under the jurisdiction
of the Regional Legal Affairs Bureau (ﾑ�) which in turn is under the jurisdiction
of the Ministry of Justice (ｶ�). Since foreign-born residents of Japan do not
have Family Registers issued in their names, there is no legal documentation upon
which to issue a Certificate of Residency. Instead, the Immigration Office (罅ﾙﾎﾉ��ﾑ�),
which is also under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, issues to foreign-born
residents of Japan their Certificate of Alien Registration (ﾉOﾙﾎﾆl縊ﾙ�ｶｯｶﾎ).
So, from the Ministry of Justice's point of view, a person is either Japanese, in
which case he or she is issued a Family Register through one of their sub-offices
(the Regional Legal Affairs Bureau), or a person is a foreigner, in which case he
or she is issued a Certificate of Alien Registration through a completely separate
sub-office (Immigration Office). It's an either-or situation as far as they are concerned.
And so from the Ministry of Home Affairs point of view, since foreigners do not have
a Family Register, there is nothing upon which a Certificate of Residency can be
issued."
(NOTE: some of that wording -- especially the imprecise use of the word
"jurisdiction" -- may seem strained. The reason is that I was specifically
told that in every instance where I use the word "jurisdiction" or "under
the jurisdiction of" the
Japanese word "kankatsu," or ﾉにﾙ, was the one and only "correct"
word).
So, while reading that did you bring to mind certain Kafka stories, as I did while
it was being told to me? Ah well, such is Japan.
One other note: As you can read in my column, Saga City is informing foreign-born
residents via mail of their right to have their name listed on their Japanese spouse's
certificate of residency. The guy at city hall who explained all this to me was proud
of the fact that Saga City was so "progressive" in its efforts to "actively
inform foreigners about this unique service". I didn't have the heart to point
out to him that it only "solves" the problem for those who are married
to a Japanese national -- that is, legally connected to a Japanese person -- and
that unmarried foreign-born residents are still without the same legal papers that
Japanese are entitled to.
You have my permission to post on your webpage: a. the English translation of my
column, including the copyright notice, b. a link to and/or the
original Japanese version, and c. the contents of this email message. Of course,
if you have no space or desire to post them, I certainly understand.
I simply offer them for the entertainment and possible interest of your readers.
(snip) You can find my writings by putting my name in katakana (ｰNｰﾅｰ羃_ｰﾑ) in the
search field on the homepage's database. Here is the link to that: http://www.saga-s.co.jp/pubs/KijiDB/searchx.html.
Keep up the good work.
Sincerely,
Edward Crandall
Reporter and Columnist
Saga Shimbun Newspaper
<edo@saga-s.co.jp>
The English translation of my column begins below:
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 09:11:24 +0900
From: Arudou Debito <debito@debito.org>
Subject: ｰ^ｰ}ｭﾀｭ�ｭ妙πﾉﾚﾄｭﾂｪu經ｰAｰgｰ･ｪvｶZﾚｾ羇
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ENDS
RESPONSE FROM YOKOHAMA-SHI NISHI-KU WARD OFFICE
----------------------------------------------------
NISHI-KU WARD OFFICE: "As Japan further
internationalizes, the [Juuminhyou] system as it stands may be a big problem for
our country in future."
----------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND: "Tama-chan" is a sealion which (until recently) has
been frequenting an urban riverbed and gaining much fanfare. The Yokohama Nishi-ku
Yakusho (Ward Office) issued him a "juuminhyou" (Residency Certificate)
last February, causing even more fanfare, since other mammals, particularly taxpaying
foreigners, cannot be issued or listed equally on juuminhyou (due to Japan's quirky
laws requiring citizenship for formal residency). We at The Community (http://www.debito.org/TheCommunity/communityissues.html#juuminhyou)
took this issue up at the end of February, dressing up as sealions and holding a
party on a riverbank in Yokohama, asking for resident foreigners to be held in as
high regard as visa-less river-dwellers. We submitted a formal request for the same
to the Yokohama Nishi-ku Ward Office on February 24. And the media took it up from
there--as one of the most successful awareness-raising campaigns I have ever been
involved in.
NEWS: The person in charge, Mr Horie, telephoned me last month with some glum
(but predictable) news. He stated that the registration law has to be changed at
a national, not a local level, so there was nothing they could do to register foreign
residents in their district the same as Japanese residents.
He asked if that was a satisfactory answer. Well, I asked him nicely if he would
consider putting this answer in writing, for posterity's sake. Moreover, if the Ward
Office were to include just a sentence or two of disapproval, say, "we can't
change the system, but nevertheless we believe it deserves to be changed", it
would do a power of good. For after all, one of the mottoes on the back of Mr Horie's
business card says, "We promise to all Yokohama citizens to : 1) Always view
things from your standpoint, and respond with kindness." (tsune ni minasan no
tachiba ni tatte, shinsetsu na taiou o shimasu)
Mr Horie laughed and said it would be taken under consideration.
Anyway, I got a letter from the Yokohama Nishi-ku Ward Office last week.
It says:
(Translation by Arudou Debito)
////////////////////////////////////////////////
To the "Friends of Tama-chan" Group:
Thank you very much for coming all the way to Nishi-ku Yakusho the other day.
As much as we were put off balance by your sealion attire, we felt a great deal of
friendliness with your humorous approach.
Sorry for the delay, but here is our answer to your request:
First, re issuing Tama-chan a "Special Residency Certificate" (tokubetsu
juuminhyou): we did so in hopes of making Tamachan the mascot for our Katabira River
cleaning and beautification project. We want Tama-chan to be seen as our "Nishi-ku
Town Sales Ambassador" (nishi-ku machi no se-rusu taishi), so we made him a
Special Resident. Please understand that this certificate is not one based upon the
"Basic Residency Records Law" (juumin kihon daichou hou).
By the way, this probably goes without saying, but under the current Japanese system,
the Basic Residency Records Law does not apply to people with foreign citizenships.
When you took this up with the mass media, you exposed this fact and made it into
a hot issue.
As Japan further internationalizes, this system as it stands may be a big problem
for our country in future.
Furthermore, the City of Yokohama has abolished the regulation requiring full-time
bureaucrats to be Japanese citizens. The City Assembly has also passed an "opinion
(ikensho) supporting resident non-Japanese the right to vote in local elections",
for submission at the national level.
We at the Nishi-ku Yakusho will, with its "Tama-Chan, Sales Ambassador"
character, continue to strive to make our town a nicer place for anyone to live.
Thanks and regards,
Kimizuka Michinosuke,
Yokohama-shi Nishi-ku Yakusho-chou
March 31, 2003
(Original at:
http://www.debito.org/TheCommunity/tamachanmoreinfo.html#nishiku)
////////////////////////////////////////////////
Letters like this do help things. I have already passed word on to my mass media
lists. I'm sure the local papers will find this newsworthy. And with a citable archive
of support even at an administrative level, it's another block or two paving the
way to a system where fewer absurdities exist.
Arudou Debito in Sapporo
April 7, 2003
ENDS