Category: Law

Tokyo getting more anal about dual nationality

Japan’s ban on dual nationality is less toothless than it used to be, as the government finds creative ways to keep people from maintaining multiple passports. Terrie Lloyd‘s e-mail newsletter this week quotes an unidentified source who says:

It seems that if you are Japanese and you renew your Japanese passport at your local US consulate, when you go to pick it up you are asked to show your green card or other residency documentation which allows you to be in the US. If you cannot produce this documentation, and you wouldn’t be able to if you held a US passport, they won’t hand over your new Japanese passport. Apparently this is how they are now catching dual citizens living abroad.

To avoid this, I could renew my passport in Tokyo, but if I do, I have to show them my juminhyo. That means I have to re-establish residency and live back in Japan for a few months — which of course is difficult to do when one has a career to fulfill.

Note that this particular procedure only affects people living outside Japan. Dealing with Japanese nationals resident in Japan while retaining a foreign passport is still much trickier to visualize, although with the new fingerprinting and photographing systems, anything is possible…

Jenkins book finally available in English

For those of you who have been waiting for it, the story of the famous Vietnam war era deserter to North Korea, Charles Jenkins, is finally out in English. Normally I would explicitly avoid promoting something I was notified about through spam from the publisher, but I think I can safely say that a clear majority of people who would be reading this blog want to read Jenkins’ story.

I’m sure it’s on Amazon etc. but here’s the official book web page at the University of California Press site.

I can’t wait to read this book. I just hope there’s a special edition, in which Jenkins’ impenetrable southern drawl is transcribed phonetically, like an Irvine Welsh novel.

Manila an “anti-birth-control dystopia”

At least, that is how it is described in the words of Carol Lloyd, blogger on women’s issues at Salon.com. Due to the centuries as a Spanish colony, The Philippines is a firmly Catholic country-one in which the Church holds a level of influence rarely seen in the western world. Although the Catholic Church has oddly never managed to have any appreciable effect on the Philippines endemic Southeast Asian liberalism towards homosexuality and gender identity, they have managed to keep abortion illegal in all circumstances but to save the life of the mother. (More information on abortion in SE Asia here.) Although pre-conception birth control remains legal throughout The Philippines, in 2000 conservative Catholic Mayor Jose “Lito” Atienza of Manila issued an executive order removing all contraception from free clinics within the city. Many women in the desperately poor slums of Manila find it impossible to fit contraception in with food and other basic needs into their family budget, which has the eventual effect of a larger and even harder to feed family. This is what has women living in three urban slums to file a lawsuit demanding revocation of the order. From Reuters:

Emma Monzaga, one of the petitioners, said she was getting injections once every three months to prevent her from becoming pregnant, but was told on her third visit to a public clinic that the treatment was no longer available. “I was asked to go somewhere else to get the shots because the city hall has stopped funding the family planning program,” Monzaga said, adding her family could not afford to spend extra for contraceptives. “We used to get it for free. It’s becoming a burden because we have to eat and send our six children to school.” She said she has given up the idea of saving some money from her husband’s 300 pesos ($7) daily wage as a construction worker to pay for the vaccines because of rising cost of basic needs.

Amazingly, it took almost eight years before a local NGO managed to file the lawsuit “because the women feared political reprisals.” Unsurprisingly, there is now a different mayor in charge, and many hope that he will revoke the previous order without the need for the lawsuit to proceed. The Center for Reproductive Rights has a 50 page report, full of testimony, on the issue entitled “Imposing Misery: The Impact of Manila’s Contraception Ban on Women and Families,” which may be downloaded in PDF from their website at the above link. The report claims that the executive order violates the Republic’s 1987 constitution, stating:

The 1987 Philippine Constitution guarantees the
rights to liberty, health, equality, information and education for all citizens,
as well as the right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their
personal religious convictions. These basic principles, reinforced by
several pieces of legislation, create the foundation under national law for a
right to reproductive health, including access to contraception. [p. 9]

The report suggests that “The Manila City government should revoke Executive Order No. 003” as well as various further plans. [p. 11]

While many people look at issues such as these primarily in terms of individual rights and their effect on individuals and families, it is critical to consider the broader picture as well.

The Philippines today has a population of just under 90 million, a staggering number of whom live in poverty. I can attest from my own visit to the country that the cities are clogged with slums, illegal shanty-towns line the rivers and fill public parks, and the ratio of the population with no gainful employment appears to be easily several times that of anyplace else I have ever been. I have even heard that the unemployment rate in Metro Manila may be almost 50%.

Without high quality and aggressive family planning, that 90 million could nearly double in a generation- and the country’s scarce economic resources would be stretched even thinner. Could the unemployment rate rise even above 50%? Will The Philippines be plunged into a Malthusian crisis like Bangladesh or parts of Africa? Lack of birth control is hardly the only factor that has made Manila, and many other third-world regions, into dystopias, but it is one.

The uniqueness of commercial bail bonds

An article in today’s NYT on the uniqueness of the United States commercial bail bond system includes this very interesting tidbit.

Commercial bail bond companies dominate the pretrial release systems of only two nations, the United States and the Philippines.

Although the article does not actually say, I think it is safe to assume that this is a direct result of the fact that the Philippine legal system was constructed during the period of US colonial rule. Those non-American readers who may be unfamiliar with the commercial bail bond system may with to read the explanation in the NYT article to fully appreciate the global oddity of the system. From my brief perusal of some Philippine web pages, it certainly looks like both countries share the institution. For example, look at this page from a Manila metro area attorney’s office:

Paying Bail

 

You can pay the full amount of the bail in Cash. If you are acquitted, you can withdraw the Bail that you posted. You can also buy a surety bind or post your property to pay for your bail.

 

Bail bond is like a check held in reserve: it represents the person’s promise that he or she will appear in court when required to. The bail bond is purchased by payment of a  non-refundable premium (usually about 15% – 35% of the face amount of the bond).

 

A bail bond may sound like a good deal, but buying a surety bond may cost more in the long run. This is so because you have to renew the surety bond upon its expiration otherwise, upon motion of the prosecution, a warrant of arrest will be issued for failure to renew the surety bond. If the full amount of the bail is paid, it will be refunded (less a small administrative fee) when the case is over and all required appearances have been made. On the other hand, the 15%-35 premium is nonrefundable. In addition, the bond seller may require “collateral.” This means that the person who pays for the bail bond must also give the bond seller a financial interest in some of the person’s valuable property. The bond seller can cash in on this interest if the suspect fails to appear in court.

 The curious may also want to see the amounts of bail set for various crimes under Republic of the Philippines law.

One foreigner’s perspective on American and Japanese immigration security procedures

Jade OC, a long time reader and commenter of MFT, has graciously posted a detailed comparison of his experiences passing through both US and Japanese airline security and immigration checkpoints as a comment on an earlier blog post on the subject. As I suspect that many of our readers look only at the actual posts and not the comments, I thought I would promote this one to the front page.

As promised, here is my short report on the fingerprinting-immigration process in the US and Japan from the POV of a non-citizen of either (though a resident of Japan).

First big complaint. I never wanted to go to the US at all, at least not the first time. But you cannot bloody transit in the US – there’s no such thing as a transit lounge. Everyone who enters a US airport from outside the country, even if, like me, you are just taking a flight to Canada in about 90 minutes, needs to go through Immigration and Customs. This is seriously Fucked Up.

Continue reading One foreigner’s perspective on American and Japanese immigration security procedures

I Am The Bar Exam (And So Can You!)

As I head out the door for a winter holiday in southern China (which will be blogged in due course), I am happy to announce to the world that I passed the New York and New Jersey bar exams in July 2007. I spent a lot of time reading about other people’s study methods on the internet, and now, in the interests of propagating science, I will now share my methods. Continue reading I Am The Bar Exam (And So Can You!)

A bit more on KMT remnant in SE Asia

I was pretty surprised and fascinated by a BBC mention last week of KMT soldiers who had fled to Southeast Asia instead of Taiwan, and turned to banditry and drug trafficking instead of soldiery. In an excellent coincidence, the Taipei Times ran an article on Saturday’s issue on just this subject.

Descendants of KMT soldiers living in limbo

ON THE MARGINS: The offspring of former KMT soldiers who fled China are finding that while they are welcome to study in Taiwan, they may not be able to reside here
By Loa Iok-sin
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Nov 03, 2007, Page 2 “Stateless” descendants of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) troops stationed in northern Myanmar and Thailand yesterday pleaded with the government to naturalize them.

Tens of thousands of KMT troops retreated across the Chinese border and stationed themselves in northern Myanmar and Thailand following the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Nationalist forces by the Communists in the Chinese Civil War.

As the push to retake China never took place, many of the soldiers and their families were stranded in the region.

Since these people entered Myanmar and Thailand illegally, they are not recognized by the two countries. Their descendants have thus been denied citizenship, although many of them were born and raised in these countries.

Some of these stateless people faced a new challenge after coming to Taiwan to attend college.

Chen Chai-yi (陳彩怡), from northern Myanmar, told her story during a press conference held at the legislature yesterday.

“I passed the college entrance exam held by Taiwan’s Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission [OCAC] and was accepted by a university in Taiwan in 2003,” Chen said.

However, since she had no citizenship from either country, Chen purchased a forged Burmese passport to travel with, she said.

It was only once Chen arrived in the country that she discovered she would be required to prove her status before receiving Taiwanese citizenship.

“I wasn’t aware of this and the OCAC didn’t tell me when I took the exam [in Myanmar],” Chen said.

“I cannot return to Myanmar because I will be imprisoned for life for holding a forged passport, but my stay in Taiwan will also become illegal once I graduate from college,” Chen said. “I’m basically stuck.”

Liu Hsiao-hua (劉小華), chief executive of the Thai-Myanmar Region Chinese Offspring Refugee Service Association, estimated that more than 1,000 students from the region are in a similar situation.

Lee Lin-feng (李臨鳳), an Immigration Bureau official, said that there are difficulties involved in granting these people citizenship.

“What has blocked these people from obtaining Taiwanese citizenship is that neither they nor the Ministry of National Defense have any proof that they are descendants of former soldiers,” Lee said. “Even when some had proof, they were unable to submit a certificate renouncing their original nationality.”

Lee said she would seek a solution at the next Ministry of the Interior meeting, “considering the special circumstances.”

I’m rather surprised that these former KMT soldiers and their descendants have remained stateless for so long. It is hardly expected that Burma or Thailand would have granted them citizenship. Although both countries do have communities of Chinese citizens, they would hardly have put escaping soldiers and criminals in the same category as immigrant merchants. The article does explain that “these people [do not] have any proof that they are descendants of former soldiers,” but I have yet to see any reason for why the KMT remnant in SE Asia never rejoined their main force on Taiwan, once it was clear that they were well established there, and the threat of invasion from the mainland began to recede.

The article mentions the Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission [OCAC] (see their official English language website here,) which handles documentation and residency for overseas Chinese citizens (Overseas Compatriot.) While in a strict technical sense, Republic Of China citizenship theoretically extends to all of China, as the ROC is constitutionally the government of China, but as the ROC itself has shrunk to include what may someday be called merely the Republic Of Taiwan, ROC citizenship today more or less means Taiwanese citizenship, and in practice excludes any citizen of the People’s Republic of China.

While I do not have time at the moment to examine it in detail, the OCAC provides rules on Overseas Compatriot status, as well as rules for applying to study in Taiwan through the OCAC, using the process referred to in the above article.

Another mention of the KMT remnant turned criminal in SE Asia comes from a surprising source- the subject of the new Denzel Washington film American Gangster, the famous real-life New York based drug dealer Frank Lucas. The following text is from an interview article in New York Magazine:

Lucas soon located his main overseas connection, an English-speaking, Rolls-Royce-driving Chinese gentleman who went by the sobriquet 007. “I called him 007 because he was a fucking Chinese James Bond.” Double-oh Seven took Lucas upcountry, to the Golden Triangle, the heavily jungled, poppy-growing area where Thailand, Burma, and Laos come together.

“It wasn’t too bad, getting up there,” says Lucas. “We was in trucks, in boats. I might have been on every damn river in the Golden Triangle. When we got up there, you couldn’t believe it. They’ve got fields the size of Tucson, Arizona, with nothing but poppy seeds in them. There’s caves in the mountains so big you could set this building in them, which is where they do the processing . . . I’d sit there, watch these Chinese paramilitary guys come out of the mist on the green hills. When they saw me, they stopped dead. They’d never seen a black man before.”

Likely dealing with remnants of Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated Kuomintang army, Lucas purchased 132 kilos that first trip. At $4,200 per unit, compared with the $50,000 that Mafia dealers charged Stateside competitors, it would turn out to be an unbelievable bonanza. But the journey was not without problems.

“Right off, guys were stepping on little green snakes, dying on the spot. Then guess what happened? Banditos! Those motherfuckers came right out of the trees. Trying to steal our shit. The guys I was with — 007’s guys — all of them was Bruce Lees. Those sonofabitches were good. They fought like hell.

“I was stuck under a log firing my piece. Guys were dropping. You see a lot of dead shit in there, man, like a month and a half of nightmares. I think I ate a damn dog. I was in bad shape, crazy with fever. Then people were talking about tigers. I figured, that does it. I’m gonna be ripped up by a tiger in this damn jungle. What a fucking epitaph . . . But we got back alive. Lost half my dope, but I was still alive.”

(Via the Fighting 44s blog, pointed out by my friend Jon Lung.)

Tangential end-note: searching for “military remnant” on Google produced an article on the remnant of the Galactic Empire in Star Wars, following the end of Return of the Jedi.

Japanese measures in former colonies

Just about everyone reading this blog is mostly likely familiar with the traditional Japanese measure of floorspace known as the tsubo (written as 坪, equal to 3.305785 m2 in standard measures), often translated as something like “tatami mats,” and many readers will know that it is also used in Taiwan and Korea, where it is respectively pronounced ping and pyeong (평). I had always assumed that this unit, like many other archaic units of measure which one will encounter from time to time, such as the shaku (尺), was based on the classical Chinese imperial weights and measures, but in fact-at least according to the Wikipedia Japan article-the tsubo is a unit of measure indigenous to Japan, and its use in Taiwan and Korea is exclusively due to influence of the colonial period.

While I can confirm from my time in Taiwan, and in particular my week long period of apartment-hunting, that the ping is still the standard unit of housing area used in real estate advertisements and transactions, the Wikipedia article (Japanese and Chinese versions both) state that Taiwanese law has mandated a metric standard since occupation by the Republic of China government after the war.

Interestingly, although there seems to have been little interest in eliminating this colonial unit of area in relatively Japan-friendly Taiwan,  the government of South Korea is apparently still trying. Like Taiwan, the pyeong (keep in mind that all three terms, tsubo, ping, and pyeong are merely different pronunciations of the same term due to linguistic and historical peculiarities of the nature of words shared between the three languages) has remained in common use by the real estate market, despite the passage of a 1961 law proclaiming public use of the metric system. South Korea has reportedly passed a new law, which came into effect July 1 of this year, which will impose fines for the use of pyeong instead of square meters. I would be very curious to know if any readers have some more information on the history and present state of the use of this measure in Korea or other places, as well as confirmation that it has not, in fact, ever been used in China. Incidentally, I imagine that North Korea has had outstanding success in replacing Japanese measures with the metric system.

Some people are just dicks in any country

I am generally quite careful not to post anything work related on here, but this particular quote from an internal corporate employee survey I’m translating was just too choice, and utterly anonymous and unidentifiable.

I am opposed to foreigners in the front office. Since it is difficult to convey minor nuances of Japanese within the company it must be even more difficult for customers to understand when conversing with them. I have received two whole claims about this.  (One claim said they could not understand what they were saying, and the other said, a foreigner huh? A Japanese would be better.)

For contrast, here is an excerpt from a customer survey from some rich asshole country club in the US that was forwarded to me a few weeks ago.

I am personally upset about the use of the Mexican labor on the golf
course. I understand you have contracted, and it is the contractors
who are responsible for hiring, but the club is responsible for hiring
the contractor. We get letters about “responsibility” and “right and
wrong,” well, I think the club management had better look at itself.
If all these workers are legal, then I will apologize, but I very much
doubt they are legal. This is a very poor example of judgment and
sends the wrong message. I know I am not the only one that thinks like
this, and if my concerns are unfounded, then the club should issue an
explanation and correct the image.

It’s well worth remembering that there is a certain extent of xenophobia in any country, and I believe that suffering from it firsthand when traveling or living abroad-such as the minor (or major in some unfortunate cases) annoyances that many of us have experiences in places like Japan-is actually a rather good learning experience, which can make one more sensitive to despicable attitudes back home that one may have overlooked before.

Link clearage time

As often happens, I have a pile of interesting pieces that I meant to save, which have just been sitting in my open tabs, so time for a brief roundup.

  • Howard French of the New York Times has an article on how Tibetans protest Chinese commodification and colonization of their culture through nonviolent protest, such as lack of participation in PRC-sponsored festivals that are claimed by the Chinese MC to be “[their] very own Khampa Festiva,” and observance of the exiled Dalai Lama’s recent ban on the wearing of endangered animal skins.
  • Asahi reports that an announcer on North Korean state television may actually be a Japanese citizen abducted in 1988. I am unclear from the article whether he is announcing in that amusingly over the top militaristic enunciation that DPRK television announcers seem to be trained in.
  • The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has rescheduled the launch of their Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE) for September 13, 10:35 JST, the largest Lunar exploration mission since Apollo. Although it is unfortunately not a manned mission, having three satellites in orbit around the moon bodes well for the future, as far as I’m concerned.
  • A recent survey (admittedly sponsored by Taiwanese interests) shows that Taiwanese are “model immigrants” to the USA. This follows on the heals of Taiwan’s entry to the shortlist of countries being considered for 2008 expansion of the USA visa waiver program based on such factors, determined by US government studies, extremely low rates of visa rejection and visa overstaying, which may bolster chances for Taiwanese (ROC) citizens to gain visa-free temporary entry into the US, much as they were recently given visa-free entry rights to Japan in September of 2005. 
  • In related news, Japan is expected to amend their traffic regulations to accept Taiwanese drivers licenses as valid in Japan, starting on September 19. This will add Taiwan to the short list of countries whose licenses are considered valid in Japan-a list which notably does NOT include the United States.
  • The NYT had a very interesting article (unfortunately it’s already entered the subscriber-only sections, so most readers may not have access) on July 31 on the past and future of language in East Timor. The gist of it is that Portuguese, formerly the official language of the country when it was a Portuguese colony but which was later banned by Indonesia after they annexed it in 1975, is now once more the official language of courts, schools and government. Although Tetum, the most common language, and Indonesian, the language of their larger neighbor which was also official in East Timor during the period of Indonesian rule, are both vastly more widely recognized than Portuguese, but Tetum is considered unsuitable for government business and modern education due to a lack of a sophisticated technical vocabulary, and Indonesian likewise considered unsuitable due to the general resentment of decolonization. Portuguese, despite itself being a former colonial language, is apparently fondly regarded by the older generation, and has also left a serious impact on the vocabulary of native languages, and presumably also left behind a large body of legal texts and other literature dating back to the period of Portuguese rule.

    I find this an interesting case for comparison with Taiwan, where the Japanese language forced upon the Taiwanese population during their 50-year span of colonization by Japan was also looked back with some degree of sentimentality-along with Japanese rule itself-following the island’s  subsequent “colonization” by the Chinese Nationalist government of the Republic of China. Although Japanese has never become an official language of ROC/Taiwan and has also never regained widespread usage, based on this article it does seem to occupy a psychic space similar to that of Portuguese in East Timor.

  • Very cool article, also originally from the NYT, but reposted on the Taipei Times website (thankfully avoiding the NYT’s lame archival process) on the prevalence of foreign languages and translation in the New York City public school system. Here’s the meat of the article:

    Forty-two percent of the parents of children in the school system, the country’s largest, are not native English speakers, and communicating with them about their children’s education is an immense challenge.

    That is especially the case at a time when the system is offering ever-increasing school choices, but is also requiring students to go through a complex admissions process for high school and certain programs.

    So, prodded by advocates for immigrants, schools chancellor Joel Klein created a unit three years ago to translate a never-ending flow of school documents, like news releases, report cards and parent surveys, into the eight languages most commonly spoken in New York, after English: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Bengali, Arabic, Urdu, Korean and Haitian Creole.

    It has since expanded to an office with 40 employees and a US$4.5 million budget, and is the largest of its kind in any school system in the US, said Kleber Palma, the unit’s director. In one respect, the office even surpasses the translation division at UN headquarters, which translates most documents into only five official languages other than English: Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.

  • ESWN brings us more news on Harry Potter in China. University and Secondary Students Were The Main Forces in Citizen Translations of Harry Potter Book 7.
  • The NYT has also posted publisher’s summaries and a few brief excerpts of eight fake Harry Potter sequels published in China. They do have Harry Potter and the Big Funnel (better known as Harry Potter and The Filler of Big), but seem to have missed Harry Potter and Beaker and Burn. Amusingly, just before this was published I was contacted by a prominent American monthly magazine (who shall remain nameless), asking me for assistance in obtaining copies of the same Harry Potter books for a similar translation feature. I put in about three hours of effort before the NYT published this feature, and the magazine canceled their plans. But don’t worry, they’re still paying me for my time, and even sent me some entirely unrelated Japan-related research work.