Getting a credit card in racist Japan

April 7th, 2010

Japan is a country where racial discrimination is so commonplace that it makes news headlines when people are not racially discriminated against, such as when a Japanese company hires foreigners or a local government body allows foreigners to take the tests for working there. For us white westerners, it works both ways though. But one place where it really hits you (besides trying to find a landlord that will let you live in his apartment) is when it comes to getting a credit card.

I’ve been living in Japan for more than 4½ years now and tried many times to get one, always to be turned down. This especially includes applying for ones from my bank, Shinsei Bank, that I’ve used exclusively for all my time in Japan, and where I now have “platinum” status, meaning that I have many million yen entrusted at their bank, a significant part of which is in risky assests where they make a lot of profit. So they clearly rank me as one of their best customers, and I’m clearly bound to keep significant assets in their bank for the immediate future (so I cannot just “escape”), but still turn me down every time I apply for a credit card. Why is that?

Being turned down for a VISA credit card by my Japanese bank

Being turned down for a VISA credit card by my Japanese bank

When I visited one of Shinsei’s branch offices recently for a completely different, but somewhat time-consuming and complicated issue, I got to talk quite a lot with one of the staff there. As I have “platinum” status, they treat me quite well too, not hurriedly at all. This was one of the branches where a lot of foreigners visit, and she seemed quite used to working with foreigners, although we spoke only in Japanese. So at the end she asked if there was something else I’d like to inquire about, and I asked something along the lines of why do you turn my credit card applications down all the time, despite me being a “platinum” level customer and having millions of yen in your bank?. And surprisingly, she did have a good answer for that, not just the usual appologies.

The reason, it seems, why Shinsei Bank (which is, by the way, founded by a foreigner based on foreign capital) systematically turns down foreigners’ credit card applications is that the company that is contracted to handle credit cards for the bank doesn’t have any support line in English. Since we’d just been having a conversation about quite complicated banking matters in Japanese for half an hour, that reason obviously seemed very silly at that point. Still, that’s why. And since Japan doesn’t have any laws against racial discrimination, systematically turning down anyone with a foreign-sounding name (they don’t actually check your nationality) is just fine here.

Anyhow, at long last I went to Citibank to beg for a credit card there, since I’ve heard they’re more open to foreigners’ business. Considering the bank would have gone bankrupt if it hadn’t been bailed out by the US government, it’s not exactly my primary choice for doing banking, but anyway. And they gave me a credit card within less than a week, with a 1 million yen limit, which I think is very high. And unlike Shinsei Bank where I have the highest available “platinum” status, that was the first time I walked in to a Citibank office. I have no prior history with them at all. And they still gave me a pretty sweet credit card.

Finally got a Japanese credit card.

Finally got a Japanese credit card.

So what is the conclusion from all this? Go to Citibank. It seems Shinsei Bank and Citibank are the two somewhat modern banks in Japan, with Shinsei being about 10 years behind the average Swedish bank instead of the Japanese average of 50 years behind. Citibanks seems just as (comparatively) moderen. Shinsei seemed very foreigner-friendly when I opened an account there, but in the end they certainly do practice discrimination against foreigners, so I must say that I regret my decision – I should have gone with Citibank instead. That is the best advice I can give to anyone non-Japanese who’s getting a bank account and/or credit card in Japan.

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What is the most important right granted to citizens?

March 17th, 2009

I recently read this article in the Japan Times regarding a change in the citizenship law of Canada. While the laws of Canada are of little practical importance to me, I’ve pondered the matter of citizenship somewhat.

First of all, citizenship seems important to Americans. By which I mean USAmericans, but I could imagine that Canadians feel the same since, after all, they look, walk, and talk like Americans. I suppose that if the country you’re born in only has a short history and no common ethnicity, and the common language is the most widely spoken in the world, then citizenship would be a defining characteristic for people of your country.

For most Swedes though, I suspect it’s not that important. Being Swedish, I feel, is more closely associated with speaking Swedish. If you’re born in, say, the US and are a US citizen but live in Sweden and speak near-fluent Swedish, then I most people will probably consider you Swedish. Or if you’re born in some poorer country and have migrated to Sweden, gained citizenship or at least permanent residency and speak good though heavily accented Swedish, I’d still consider you Swedish. You don’t have to eat fermented herring to be Swedish – I sure as hell don’t. I suppose the “Sweden Democrats” would not be as lenient, but the rest of the world’s Swedes are probably more sensible than they are.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I applied for Japanese citizenship good couple of years from now. For the “Japanese” though, me having Japanese citizenship and speaking fluent Japanese, living in Japan and paying the taxes, even eating natto for breakfast, wouldn’t make me “Japanese”. I don’t have a problem with that though. Anyway, it’s clear that being Japanese is very important for the Japanese, but citizenship isn’t an important part of being Japanese – just look for instance at the recent Nobel Prize winner Yoichiro Nambu who was always referred to as “Japanese” in the Japanese media, even though he doesn’t hold Japanese citizenship.


Anyway, back to the article. One thing that hit me was that if citizenship is only automatically bestowed on the first generation of children of Canadians, wouldn’t it be quite easy to manage to not burden your children with any citizenship at all? If two Canadians who were born outside of Canada by Canadian parents had children in a country that doesn’t give citizenship to anyone who happens to be born there, then the kids wouldn’t automatically have any citizenship, right? It would suck not to get a passport (why don’t countries allow people in without a passport anyway? what’s so special about carrying a passport?), but I suppose the possibilities of escaping taxes and bureaucracy would be good.

In the end, I think this citizenship business is taken too seriously. It would make more sense to me if people were citizens of the country in which they live, and it should also be easy for anyone to change citizenship. That would eliminate much of the need for dual/multiple citizenship as well, since you could easily regain your old one if you decided to “move back”.

I’ve read that in order to naturalize as a US citizen you need to answer a couple of questions correctly, and one of them is “What is the most important right granted to US citizens?”, to which the correct answer is “the right to vote”. I have never voted in a political election in my life and I don’t intend to start, so you might correctly infer that that answer sounds pretty stupid to me. I guess the most important right granted to Japanese citizens is that they don’t have to go to the immigration office to renew their “reentry permit” every three years, and the police don’t have the right to demand that they identify themselves without being suspected of a crime.

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家に帰らない男たち – Guys Who Don’t Go Home

June 27th, 2008

Owing perhaps to what seems like a strong strain of introspectiveness, there are a lot of books in Japanese about what it means to be Japanese. They don’t get translated and seldom get any attention outside Japan though. Since I’m interested in both Japanese society and the language this suits me well. Anyway, I thought I’d do my part and write something about one of these books.


It’s called 家に帰らない男たち (Guys Who Don’t Go Home, roughly) by 松井 計 (Kei Matsui). The book is about men who don’t return home after work, many of them having a family that they only see on weekends.

The book has six chapters, each chapter focusing on one particular man and his situation. Following is an outline of the chapters:

  1. A Guy Who Don’t Go Home? A Guy Who Can’t Go Home?
    44 y.o. advertising agency worker
    Started not going home just after getting married and changed jobs, because he had to work late and the commute too long. Got divorced but still maintains the mostly unused house in the suburbs, two-and-a-half hours from his workplace. Sleeps in capsule hotels and likes to go out drinking on weekdays after work. Sees his kids on the weekends but always brings them to his parents home instead of the house they grew up in. The reason why he retains the house is something of a mystery.

  2. A Dreamless Person Chasing Dreams
    22 y.o. guy who does day jobs for dispatch companies
    Came to Tokyo to get “big”, but can’t really define what that means. Won’t return home until he’s “made it” in Tokyo. Says it’s important to be independent and take care of himself but still lets his parents pay the mobile phone bill. Sleeps at net/manga cafes. Seems generally quite stupid to me but the author stresses that he is at least polite.
  3. Going Home Is Scary
    43 y.o. salaryman
    Came from the countryside and made it as a sales guy in Tokyo. Has a home in the suburbs and a family. Gets on the train home every day, but when nearing his station, feels scared and gets on to the backwards-bound train into the city again. Says he doesn’t want to ruin the perfect balance of his home, which he thinks is what would happen if he was there on weekdays, but enjoys spending perfect weekends with his wife and kids. Sleeps at capsule hotels or saunas or, to save money, at the office.
  4. Weekend Marriage
    38 y.o. high-earning IT industry salaryman
    Spends only the weekends in the house with wife and daughter. Used to rent an apartment between the office and the house, but left it after realizing it was more fun to spend the night at saunas where he could chat with others. The weekend marriage is by mutual consent with the wife, whom the author also met and interviewed. Both enjoy this lifestyle, but are prepared to change it once the kid grows up and maybe starts thinking it’s odd.
  5. Has Everything, No Problems
    50 y.o. salaryman-turned-self-employed
    Formerly a salaryman who was stationed all around the country by his company, and even in the Middle East for a few years, but grew tired of that and started his own company with a friend. Lives quite close to the office, but still started to think it’s unnecessary to go home in the evening. Enjoys the communal aspect of staying at saunas. Kid has moved out. Returns home occasionally. Wife doesn’t seem bothered.
  6. A Double Life
    46 y.o. designer
    Grew up in the sticks where everyone was expected to become a factory worker/engineer, but went to Tokyo to go into design instead. Has wife and kids, but shares an apartment with his 21 y.o. hostess girlfriend during the weeks. Wife thinks he is working hard, or at least that’s what he thinks. Loves his family and realizes this can’t go on forever. The girlfriend is also interviewed and she seems to enjoy the situation. The girlfriend is otherwise the female equivalent of the guy from chapter 2.

Matsui frequently makes a point of having interviewed many people as material for this book. I think the men that this book centers around are all quite stereotypical and easily imaginable – but all with some disturbed psychological twist in their heads. I’m not sure if that’s because he incorporates material from other interviewees into these men, thus making them somewhat generic, or because he hasn’t actually interviewed many people at all, but just invented most of it. In any case, it’s an interesting read, not an academic paper.

From my own experience, I have heard Japanese coworkers say things like “the office/train is where I can relax”, claiming their houses (with wive, kids, and parents) are stressful. It’s not uncommon for Japanese office workers to spend all night at the office – it seems to give them credibility and respect among their peers too (despite being completely unproductive the following day). This book sheds some light on why. Saunas’ communal aspect, with people napping in reclining chairs in a common area, is one thing.

The language is quite simple: Not much specialized vocabulary outside of society-related concepts such as 脱サラ (quit working as a salaryman) and プータロー (loser). Grammar is about between JLPT level 2 and level 1. The author uses quite a lot of non-general use kanji, though, as well as kanji for words usually written in hiragana, and there is almost no furigana. Not because the vocabulary requires it, but because he just likes to, I suppose. That’s good for learning a little extra that probably won’t show up on a JLPT exam.

Anyway, this is the first of Matsui’s books that I read but it is unlikely to be the last. If you don’t know who he is, he’s famous for having been homeless, but he then wrote a book about being homeless and now he’s a successful author, writing mostly about typical Japanese social phenomena.

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