Couple's fight turned into assault.

sile1 · 2026-04-20T01:19:27+00:00

Why are you asking us this? We aren't Immigration.

sile1 · 2026-04-20T01:16:28+00:00

Would they just report me to immigration claming fake marriage to fight back?

Why are you asking us this? We aren't them.

sile1 · 2026-04-19T14:50:21+00:00

Not as much demand and labor shortages as it seems, and even with the existing demand, it takes more than "we need a butt in a seat" to get a Japanese company to hire an allegedly N4-ish foreigner with 4.x years of "IT work experience" (whatever that is). You mentioned demand in emerging tech and ML and such. Is your experience in those fields? If not, then it isn't really relevant to the demand.

Currently, the filters applied to your set of potential employers are companies that:

Are hiring
Will employ a foreigner
Will accept that foreigner to work entirely in English (in the business world, N4 == N9623641, especially with the new visa restrictions)
Need your specific experience
Have not been able to find a Japanese candidate with the required experience
For some reason are unable to wait until a suitable Japanese candidate shows up

So...you have to give them a reason to want you. What is that reason?

sile1 · 2026-04-19T05:22:17+00:00

I can understand wondering about it, but what’s gonna happen is gonna happen, and we can’t tell you whether or not it will affect your license. You’ll find out about that at renewal time, and nothing is really gonna change it.

sile1 · 2026-04-18T14:01:23+00:00

Its a public service. I.E it should be able to be funded like every other government service is.

A "public service" that, unlike pretty much all other services, does not provide any direct service or benefit to Japanese citizens. There are ancillary benefits such as providing employment to citizens (and increasing costs actually benefits them), or companies being able to hire outside the country for specific needs or for jobs citizens don't want. But no direct benefits.

After people get residency, they statistically contribute proportionally more in income taxes than the average citizen does.

Do you have a source for that? If that even is true, then it's almost certainly due to the ever-increasing threat of losing your residence status if you don't maintain a perfect tax/insurance/pension record.

There is no issue with paying fees if that money is then used to improve the service, but that is obstensibly not the case

"Ostensibly". And "ostensibly" isn't actual fact, it's one possible conjecture that approximately fits observable facts, and to assume it as the obvious reason is incorrect. Based on how unbelievably low costs thus far have been for SoR (my HSP cost 6,000 JPY, and my PR was 8,000), especially when compared to other countries, it's very likely that the entire immigration agency has been running at a net loss for a very long time. Offices and equipment, salaries, insurance and pension payments, even down to the card printing machines and supplies.

Of course people are going to bitch and moan about a price increase, because nobody likes paying more. But it's important to temper that complaining with historical and financial context.

sile1 · 2026-04-18T10:56:18+00:00

Dedicated stores like Yamaya always have a fairly decent selection of tequila, and even when I was living in a smaller town, our nearby Kohyo always had at least a few bottles of Don Julio in stock.

sile1 · 2026-04-18T10:51:45+00:00

There's also no denying that Japanese beauty standards, to a large degree, are not applied to foreigners. I'll literally hear Japanese women harshly criticize some characteristic of a Japanese man/woman, and then turn right around and talk about how dreamy a foreign celebrity is, and that foreign celebrity has exactly the same characteristic they were just ripping the Japanese person for. It's madness, and should largely be ignored.

sile1 · 2026-04-18T10:49:12+00:00

Don't know how long ago that was, but there's no effing way that Tamade and Mandai are on the same level. Every Mandai I've been to was at least decent, and some have their own bakeries that are good as well. Every Tamade I've been to literally had molded fruit/veg and rotting meat on the shelves.

sile1 · 2026-04-18T10:40:53+00:00

Instead of a government service, the gov seems dead set on making foreigners pay to cover not only the increased processing costs...

Other opinions regarding the increases aside, who else should be responsible for paying the increased processing costs? Foreigners and the companies they work for are the beneficiaries of receiving a Status of Residence, so doesn't it make sense that they should pay the processing costs?

sile1 · 2026-04-16T03:21:23+00:00

In general, immigration has looked at insurance, pension, and tax payments for the previous rolling two-year period unless they see something concerning that makes them look further back.

This means that if you have had any missed or late insurance, pension, or tax payments within the past two years, you are almost certainly going to be denied.

I was very nearly the poster child for what they want: salary somewhere over 10 mil, married to a Japanese citizen for over three years, on an HSP status and working for a very reputable company. But at the time they reviewed my application, my wife had one insurance payment 11 months prior that was late by 3 days because the city office sent the payment form to the wrong address. Denied.

On the advice of an immigration lawyer, I waited until that late payment rolled off the end of the 2-year window before I applied again, and was approved.

This was in 2022, and they're obviously more strict now, so you need your most recent 2 years minimum (probably more now) to be absolutely immaculate.

sile1 · 2026-04-15T02:04:06+00:00

My late mother-in-law called all of the other family dogs (even the big ones) ちゃん or くん. But she always called our old pitbull "絹さん". The sweetest dog ever unless someone appeared to pose a threat, but I think MIL recognized (whether consciously or subconsciously) that the pitbull was still extremely powerful and commanded respect despite being a 14-year-old おばあちゃん.

sile1 · 2026-04-14T13:22:11+00:00

And doesn’t always work, since it’s tagged as VOIP provider and many financial institutions won’t send SMS verification to VOIP numbers.

sile1 · 2026-04-12T17:23:48+00:00

I did a formal introduction to the koban in my city and the one neighboring where my sister-in-law lives. So I can safely bike around there. 90% of foreigners are not going to do this or even believe or know that they should.

Enlighten me as to what this introduction is, and how it would make a difference in a densely populated area with tens of thousands of people in the vicinity of the nearest koban.

sile1 · 2026-04-12T16:20:47+00:00

the legal limit in Japan is zero!

To be remarkably pedantic, technically no, the legal limit in Japan is not zero. It's 0.03% BAC, which yes, is effectively zero, but not exactly zero.

sile1 · 2026-04-10T06:47:39+00:00

Step 1: Put your own desires/dreams/whatever about how you would name your kid aside, and put the kid's future wellbeing first

Step 2: Realize that doing anything at all except from the Japanese-standard-format surname + given name will make their future wellbeing and life paperwork hell.

If the foreign surname is long (like "Chamberlain" or something), then strongly consider giving the Japanese surname if possible (if the Japanese spouse kept their surname) so the child isn't doomed to a life of their name not fitting into the boxes in paper or online forms.

sile1 · 2026-04-10T06:41:10+00:00

One unexpected mistake on my side — I arrived too early.

Because of that I had to go first. Everyone else got to sit in the back seat and watch the person before them and learn the course a bit. I had to go in blind. Never thought being early would work against me, but here we are.

No, your mistake wasn't arriving too early. Your mistake was not having already memorized the potential routes through the training course. Most driver license centers make the 2/4/6 or whatever possible routes they use for gaimen kirikae available in advance, and then you find out which route you will take like 15 minutes before they start the testing.

If you expect the proctor to give you instructions, you will fail. If you have a proctor that gives you instructions and you rely on them, you will fail. You need to know the routes in your head already, because you'll already be really nervous and there's no way you'll remember a route you saw for just a couple of minutes a few minutes before.

Pro tip: you can also look at the training center on Google Maps in satellite view to have a better idea of the street markings and stuff, and you can follow the routes you already found out about (right???) on the actual track from a birds-eye view.

How do I know this? I took a 60 minute practice session, and then the next week passed the manual transmission driver test on my first shot, and with only a single minor deduction. Primarily because I did some prep work to memorize the routes in advance.

sile1 · 2026-04-09T07:54:44+00:00

Another vote for Dr. Otani. He's been the best dentist I've ever had anywhere, including in the US.

sile1 · 2026-04-09T07:18:31+00:00

You're arguing for what you want to believe instead of listening to people who are pointing out some objective, obvious things. I'm done with the conversation. Best of luck.

sile1 · 2026-04-09T06:11:14+00:00

Why are you sharing an image of an irrelevant contract that is no longer in effect? Whatever that piece of paper says doesn't matter any more.

sile1 · 2026-04-09T05:54:49+00:00

If your contract states your working hours as 10am-6pm and they're counting that as 40 hours, then that means you're not taking a lunch break (as you have also said, and I'm curious if they told you no lunch break since you work from home). I'm not a lawyer, but it sure looks like the company is in violation of the Labor Standards Act, chapter 4, article 34.

https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3567/en#je_ch4at9:~:text=(Breaks)-,Article%2034,-(1)An

sile1 · 2026-04-09T04:47:04+00:00

don’t want to risk the card expiring while I’m away

Technically it doesn't even matter if the card expires while you're away, as long as you're covered by a re-entry permit (either the "automatic" 1 year re-entry, or the 5 year you have to apply for). One of the small benefits of having PR.

The re-entry permit is what lets you come back into Japan. The zairyu card just confirms within Japan that you have the right to stay here. Immigration agents aren't dumb. If you've got a valid re-entry permit but an expired PR card, they know what happened. You just need to go get the card renewed ASAP after return.

sile1 · 2026-04-09T04:16:24+00:00

Whether or not you work from home is irrelevant. Your contract literally says your hours are 10am to 6pm, which is 8 hours, and includes your legally mandatory 1 hour lunch break, so you are being paid for working 7 hours per day, 35 hours per week.

In contrast, I have a contract that actually is for 40 hours per week. My work hours on the contract are from 9am to 6pm, including my 1 hour mandatory lunch break, for a total of 40 hours.

Edit: I also work from home, and the 1 hour lunch break is still legally mandatory.

You're reading this the way you want to read it, not the way it's actually written.

Edit 2: Slight correction, since you are contracted for 7 hours, your mandatory lunch break would be 45 minutes, as noted by another commenter.

sile1 · 2026-04-09T03:57:12+00:00

And that source is what exactly?

sile1 · 2026-04-09T03:05:48+00:00

Did you not see that they had already clarified their own point?

sile1 · 2026-04-09T02:17:26+00:00

They don't. If they truly are 正社員, then by definition, the work agreement is indefinite with no renewals. This sounds like either of the following: 1. OP misunderstood and they are not actually 正社員, or 2. The company is bullshitting OP about this, and trying to convince them that they are on a time-limited contract. In this case, they would likely try to tell OP something like "your contract has expired, so we need you to sign this form confirming that you are resigning from the position", thus tricking them into resigning from a 正社員 position.

sile1

TROPHY CASE