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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anyway, for those of us who are from a civilized part of the world, it’s actually a very simple task! You will need to prepare five things: Your valid driver’s license from your home country, a certified translation of your driver’s license, a photo, money, and a passport that shows (through the universally accepted cryptographically secure method of embarkation/disembarkation stamps) that you’ve lived in your home country for at least three months since acquiring your driver’s license. Let’s go through these in detail.

1. Valid driver’s license
From your home country. I don’t know what happens if your driver’s license is from a country other than that of which you are a citizen. It’ll probably be trouble.

2. Certified translation of your driver’s license
You can get this at your country’s embassy in Japan. For Swedes, this translation service is available on Monday mornings, and costs 2,400 yen. They translate your driver’s license and give you a paper certifying the authenticity of the translation.

3. Driver’s license-sized photo 30×24 mm. Photo booths in Japan have an option for this size called “driver’s license”, or something. Interestingly, this photo is used for your application only, i.e. not on the driver’s license itself, so it doesn’t matter if you look like a dork in it (you don’t look like a dork anyway, do you?). They’ll take the photo for the actual driver’s license for you at the driver’s license office.

4. Money
It costs 4,500 yen. No so bad… You trade the money in for the equivalent in stamps at a place in the license office that sells stamps, as is common in Japanese bureaucracy.

5. Passport
You need a passport that shows you’ve been living (or at least being) in your home country (which we’re assuming is also the country that issued your driver’s license) for at least three months since the date when you acquired your driver’s license. If you haven’t been living there for three months, you can’t switch to a Japanese driver’s license. This is presumably to ensure that people don’t just run off to some other country where it’s cheaper and easier to get a driver’s license.

If you can show you’ve been living in your home country for at least one year since acquiring your driver’s license, you’ll be exempt from the one-year newbie period (which means mostly that you have to have silly stickers at the front and back of the car while you’re driving).

The procedure
Go to one of the driver’s license offices. There are three Driving License Testing and Issuing Centers in Tokyo, in Shinagawa-ku, Koto-ku, and Fuchu-shi. You can find the addresses, as well as some sparse information, on this page. For other prefectures, you’ll have to google it yourself. I went to the one in Fuchu, which can be reached by bus 91 from Chofu (Keio line), or by bus from Tama-reien station (also Keio) or Koganei station (on the Chuo line). The bus stop is called, revealingly, Shikenjo Seimon (試験場正門). They have lunch breaks so get there early.

Find the counter for changing a foreign driver’s license to a Japanese driver’s license. Look for the word 切り替え/切替 kirikae. It’s probably close, or the same as, the counter for international driver’s licenses. But you don’t want one of those. In the Fuchu office, it counter number 31 on the 3rd floor. Once there, present all your prepared materials at the counter. They will then take some time to examine your papers and make sure you’ve lived in your home country for the required amount of time since acquiring your driver’s license, etc.

Actually, from there they were very helpful and provided quite clear instructions on what to do (in Japanese). You’ll have to go buy a stamp, as mentioned above, and take an eye-test, which takes about 30 seconds and you’ll invariably pass it, take a photo for the actual driver’s license, and then input two 4-digit pin codes into a machine (smeg knows what they’re for). That whole procedure took about 5 minutes.

All of this took about one hour to complete. One of the few non-unpleasant encounters I’ve had with Japanese bureaucracy. Then you’re done, but I had to wait one and a half hour for the actual driver’s license card, which you can pick up at an adjacent office. So two and a half hours in total, from arriving at the office until having the license in my hand. Sweet.

If you haven’t heard of Mixi that means you aren’t Japanese or Japanophile. To put it generalized and bluntly: Mixi is the only social networking site in Japan. Japan is the second largest economy in the world (★pause for reflection★). The reason it’s so popular is basically the same as why Microsoft products are: they were there first, and everyone else uses them, and the basic functionality is actually good.

Mixi, technically, is stone age. Although recently they’ve introduced video upload etc that we have become accustomed with on the modern web, the basic technology is just server-side perl scripts outputting broken html with a table-based design. In other words: it’s web 1.0, although they have a pastel color, but it’s the wrong hue, and pastel color alone doesn’t make web 2.0 – you need rounded corners and rss too.

But as a consumer-oriented product, Mixi is really state of the art. It’s actually statier than the statiest art. I started using the predecessors to nowadays’ social networking sites in junior high school, back in Sweden. That was like 10 years ago now I guess. (Heh, when I think back, that was about the time I got my first mobile phone. Was that only ten years ago?!) . Even though they used about the same technology then as Mixi does now, the culture and usage patterns are completely different. They were about kids doing their best to make their pages look as hideous as possible (like today’s Myspace) and presenting themselves as generally emo and cool. And guys (both young and very old) trying to pick up young girls, of course. But Mixi is not like that.

Oh well, there’s that too. But Mixi is much more woven into the fabric of Japanese society. It’s like an ad-sponsored public service page (fortunately, and strangely, the mobile version doesn’t have ads). And fortunately, you can’t design your own page, and there are no widgets etc, so it’s actually possible to browse around people’s profiles and community pages. Really nice, although I bet it’s more because the Mixi people haven’t figured out how to implement it technically than a conscious decision.

I joined Mixi when I realized my Japanese language skillz had gotten good enough for me to actually understand pretty much all of the communication taking place there. And the reason I keep using it is still mostly to practice reading Japanese; every day on the train I read some new, interesting tidbits from the parts of Japanese society that concern me. Like what’s happening in my town, what’s happening along the train lines I use, what events are going on at my favorite bars and clubs, or if there’s a Swedish-speaking off-kai soon (off-kai: オフ会, people who talk online meet up in real life), etc. I give it three thumbs up!

Anyway, now for the real anecdote here, and the reason I figured I’d write this blog post at all: In their reception they had this wall with all kinds of catchy words and phrases written on it in the style of a tag cloud. Very, very web 2.0 hip I must say… If anything proves that you’re falling behind current developments in the world of the web, it’s that you’re trying to mimic a Google office, I’d say. (I’d like my office to look classical and sophisticated, and there’s always music in the air.)

Now, you can notice that, just beside “web 3.0“, they’ve included the word “self-fertilization“. I don’t suppose I’m the only one who kinda gets a bit suspicious because of that. And I find the graphical proximity to “web 3.0″ especially intriguing. I don’t suppose it’s a statement of theirs? Nah, it’s probably one of those engrish.com kinda moments, you know, when Japanese people confuse R and L, or use Google Translate to translate business emails. Anyways, it’s funny.