From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: fj.misc
Subject: Re: Real Name Declaration (Was: How to survive in Japan)
Date: 15 Sep 92 22:09:13 GMT
Distribution: fj
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

ishikawa@ds5200.personal-media.co.jp (Chiaki Ishikawa) writes:

>Hi Dave,

I think you mean me (there are two 'Dave's here now :-)

>>You see what I find very curious is why such a big thing is made of
>>having to change your name, but no mention is made of how people
>>born in Japan of non-Japanese parents are not able to hold dual
>>nationality. 

>Correct me if I am wrong, but I think U.S.A. is in the minority in
>that the country gives a baby born in U.S.A. automatic nationality (or
>was it citizenship). I believe there are more countries in the world
>who don't have this practice especially in the Old World (including
>Japan). It looks to me that U.S.A. and some countries in the New World
>wanted to have as much as population as possible by giving favorable
>treatment to babies born even on an airplane flying over the U.S. air
>space!

There was a long thread on dual nationality a while back in s.c.j.
and many/most countries where let people born there become citizens.
Japan is one of them so there is no problem with anybody born here
gaining Japanese citizenship. The thread didn't discuss Koreans
explicitly I haven't heard of any reason why this isn't so for them
as well. 

According to the same thread, it is *NOT* possible to be a Japanese
national *and* be a national of another country as well: that is a
'dual national'. This used to be the case in the U.S. but it has now
changed. For example, somebody born in the U.S. of British parents
can hold both U.S. and U.K. passports: when they enter the U.S. use
their U.S. passport: when they enter U.K. they use their U.K.
passport. (Note: this doesn't necessarily apply to people who were
born in other countries and become U.S. citizens later.)

While somebody born in Japan of U.K. parents can hold "temporary"
Japanese and U.K. citizenship, when they come of age (21, I think)
they must chose one or the other as Japan doesn't permit dual
nationality. 

Thus as far as I know, people born here of Korean parents can become
Japanese nationals but they must give up their Korean nationality as
Japan doesn't permit dual nationality. Korea isn't being singled out
for special mistreatment this is so for *any* country. 

>But, again, we need some authoritative comment. Anyone?

The above isn't authoritative, but quite a few people have confirmed
it in s.c.j. that it is so for U.S.<->Japan and U.K.<->Japan
nationalities. And I believe somebody confirmed it for Korea<->Japan
as well. 

Along similar lines there was an article in yesterday's Daily
Yomiuri about how a woman was having troubles getting married as her
parents wanted the husband to take their family name as she was an
only child.  But the husband didn't want to have to do that as he
had established himself at a company under the name given him by his
parents. The solution offered was to legally change his name to get
married but to continue to use his orginal name at work as an alias. 

Likewise, I myself wouldn't have any problems with having one name
on my passport and use another one in daily life. But what *would*
definitely give me problems would be losing the nationality of
my parents!

Thus to repeat my original query (and I sure wish we had some Korean
nationals replying), I'm curious as to why the change of name (only
some marks on a piece of paper) is considered so important while the
fact of losing Korean nationality isn't mentioned (a real problem, I
would think). 

Dave

--
Dave McLane  davidg@aegis.or.jp
You're free to copy/quote/translate as long as credit is given. 
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087