(Become a "Kunibengodan" Legal Team Plaintiff or Supporter
in our upcoming lawsuit against the Japanese National Government!)
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 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 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 6000 page views and 2000 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 in 1997 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 very frequently) on my NEW BLOG (with RSS, so you can sign up for updates in real time).
Now, with well over 2500 essays,
articles, publications, and
reference materials floating around this domain name, this site has two categories:
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:
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:
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:
If you are looking for
information about our NEW LAWSUIT against the National Government of Japan for
negligence under
International Treaty, click
here to see our goals and organization.
If you would like to be kept appraised in real time of my reports and other related media, go to my NEW BLOG and sign up under RSS. Back issues of my regular newsletter here too.
If you just want plain old links, I've got
some perennially obsolescing URLs to some media sites etc. on my Links Page. Sorry,
nothing ribald.
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!)
.
. . . . .
NONFICTION BOOK
"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:
HOW
TO ORDER
DOMESTIC
You have three options:
(1)
The English site of Akashi Shoten Inc. at http://www.akashi.co.jp
Or contact Wakako Ogawa, Editor, Akashi
Shoten
Email:
wogawa@akashi.co.jp Phone (in Japan): 03-5818-1177, FAX: 03-5818-1179
The book will arrive C.O.D. (chaku barai) to your mailing address,
meaning you pay cash to the delivery person for the book plus postage.
(2)
Via internet bookseller Amazon.co.jp (Japan site has a mirror site in English).
(The book is not available at Amazon.com, sorry)
(3)
Any Japanese bookstore, especially those which sell
English-language books (like Kinokuniya, Maruzen, etc.)
All they need is the ISBN.
(which
is, 4-7503-2005-6)
Spotted on the shelves at Tower Records Shibuya 7F, Maruzen Osaka, and
Kinokuniya Sapporo.
Recommend choice (2) for credit card users, and choice (3) for urban
shoppers. Either option saves you postage.
INTERNATIONAL
You have two options:
(1)
Order via internet bookseller Amazon.co.jp (this Japan site has a mirror site in English).
(The book is not available at Amazon.com or any other international
Amazon outlet, sorry.)
(2)
Order directly from me via Paypal (with a Paypal account or a credit card).
Orders of more than five books, or if you are an overseas academic
institution ordering this as a class textbook, please contact Wakako Ogawa, Editor, Akashi Shoten via: wogawa@akashi.co.jp
Click here to place a Paypal order
ENGLISH
VERSION: 432 pages, 3500 yen ISBN: 4-7503-2005-6
JAPANESE VERSION: 272 pages, 2500 yen, ISBN:
4-7503-9011-9 C0036
|
Show
how
internationally-minded some of your neighbors are! Get yourself a
GENUINE "JAPANESE
ONLY"
T-SHIRT
taken from a genuine exclusionary
business sign!
|
NOTE:
This offer is completely
independent of my book "JAPANESE
ONLY" (Akashi Shoten 2006), but it is a
good way to raise awareness of the issue. Most people would rather
pretend these
signs don't exist. Too bad. They
do. Keep the issue alive in the public eye
in the best of satirical traditions by wearing your heart on your
sleeve, and the sign on your chest! |
TO ORDER A T-SHIRT:
http://www.debito.org/
tshirts.html
|
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
Portions of the site designed by Chad
Edwards,
Imtiaz
Chaudhry, and Rudolf
Ammann. Thanks!
Apologies to readers used to snazzier, higher-tech websites. This the
best I can do.
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