The thing is due to how the whole 戸籍 thing works, this is true for Japanese couples too.
In the same way you have to 入籍 when you marry, you have to separate 戸籍 when you divorce. And your child can only belong to one 戸籍, so legally they are fully under the custody of one parent only.
Of course, on the real world people usually make agreements that have the child meet the other parent on a given schedule and stuff like that, but it’s not like legally that parent has much power over the child anyway.
That’s also why you have children whose surname change in Japan. In case their parents were married under say the husband’s surname and when they divorce the ex-wife chooses to revert to her maiden name and keeps the custody of the child, the child’s surname must be reverted too. Because they are in their mother’s 戸籍 and one 戸籍 must have the same surname.
This was very surprising to me when I first understood the whole picture.
“Wow, you have to change your name because your parent’s divorce? That’s wild.”
All in all yes, I also find it very archaic. It’s discussed indeed but for now I don’t see any strong political movement towards changing that.
I thought the whole point of all of this (the whole “couples must share names” concept) was to keep families having the same name as each other. But you’re saying your children have a different name from both you and your wife?
I was watching an anime last night that translated オラついてる as “f-boy” and was wondering if this was just translators taking liberties or if the concept really is analogous. I think the context gives the translation a little more validity as the boy invited the girl to his dorm room “forcefully” (強引に) and he was acting “arrogant” (横柄) towards her. But even with the context, it feels like the cultural differences between those that use オラオラ and what I consider to be “f-boy” attitude are quite large. Am I missing more cultural context here or was this just translators trying to make the English more colloquial? This translation seems official as it was part of the Crunchyroll subtitles, which is part of the reason it caught me off guard.
That is indeed an archaic system. But it really explains a lot about scenes in anime that I’ve seen where children are forced away from either parent. Legally speaking they can do that, if only one parent has the legal guardianship.
I would say that the name change for kids due to divorce also happens in Sweden, but the underlying legal foundation is completely different. Regardless of your name, you can’t take away guardianship from a parent - unless there are reasons for doing so and that’s then decided by a court order (mother or child being abused being a main reason, so they might even go into protection services or similar, but even without going anonymous a court can deem one parent unfit to have custody, think substance abuse, mental disease or similar).
The most common thing is to set up altering weeks the kids live with you in Sweden, as that allows the kids to have sound relationships with both their parents, even if they don’t live together anymore. That sounds different from allowing the other parent to “meet the child” from time to time on a schedule, which is just a terrible way to treat both parent and child I feel. They need both their parents regardless of if they love each other or want to live together.
This is interesting to me, as I know three people who married in Japan and took their Japanese spouse’s last name, but taking the name and registering are those two different things? Because how would your name change if you couldn’t be registered under that name to begin with?
No, they always take one of our names, it just depends on where they are at the time.
It’s weird. Legally, in Japan their last name is my wife’s maiden name, but in the US they take my last name.
Further, my youngest is currently in the process of renewing her Japanese passport, and despite having both valid, unexpired passports, has to show birth of a US citizen abroad documentation.
I’m pretty studious about not asking too many questions because both countries apparently prefer multi-nationals didn’t actually exist.
It’s complicated.
I think one country or the other officially doesn’t really recognize dual citizenship after a certain age (18? 20? 21?), but doesn’t actually enforce anything. At least as long as we aren’t actually at war with each other.
One amusing aspect of all of this is when people call me 土井さん in Japan. I enjoy it almost as much as Mr. Rex.
Maiden name usually refers to the name prior to changing the name by marriage. Are you just saying your wife didn’t change her name? That would mean your situation doesn’t really sound that surprising to me given what else has been said.
She took my name in the US, but is still registered under her father’s name in Japan. There is a record of her marrying me in the 戸籍, I’m pretty sure, but it’s sorta parenthetical. I’ve not actually seen the the documents (I take care of US paperwork, she takes care of Japan).
I don’t think it’s that unusual, but it’s enough to keep me confused most of the time.
Edit: She’s also the only surviving sibling, which is one reason she chose to keep the Doi name in Japan.
Edit 2: we also had the 披露宴 in Japan prior to our legal wedding in the US. I thought US bureaucracy was reasonable until I tried to figure out all the paperwork and process to bring her over on a fiancée visa with her parents in tow on tourist visas. Trying to figure out the paperwork even as a native English speaker was near impossible. Because I was relocating back to the US with a household goods shipment at the same time, US border patrol / customs apparently thought I was trying to get away with something. Stressful trip - 入籍 and passports for the kids was trivial in comparison.
I see. My wife had to go out of her way to change her name, and so it would have remained as is if she hadn’t done that paperwork. So from Japan’s perspective, it’s not that the kids have her maiden name, they just have the name on record.
Yeah, there was a series of articles in my city’s newspaper last month about Japan’s child guardianship laws for divorced parents - law is, one parent gets the kids, other parent gets nothing. There’s a not-inconsiderable number of cases of Australians married to a Japanese spouse in Australia who arrive home from work one day to discover that their spouse has abducted the kids and taken them back to Japan, never to be seen again. Japanese government won’t do anything because that’s Japanese law. It’s lead to some cases where it becomes a race between the two parents as to who can abduct the kids first to avoid losing them forever.
When I hire people for the US Government I have to ask them: if they are a US Citizen; if they are a citizen of any other country; and if both of those answers are yes, if they would be willing, if it became necessary, to give up their non-US citizenship. We don’t actually make them do it before being hired, only to agree they would if they were ever asked to. I have never heard of anyone being asked to, but I suppose it’s possible.
Like, I could imagine that being a high-level US government official with say, official Chinese citizenship could be… politically problematic from a public perception standpoint.
Here in Australia we had a fun little crisis a couple of years back when it was discovered that a number of members of federal parliament still held citizenship in other countries despite giving it up being a basic requirement for even the pre-selection process for being elected that they relinquish any other ties. Several MPs and senators had to step down, some by-elections needed to be run, and some senate ballot papers needed to be re-counted.
Is it common to have pets in Japan? What is it like to have a pet (I’m thinking about dogs but will gladly hear about other pets too) in Japan?
When I’ve visited Japan, I barely saw any dogs being walked, at least not compared to the amount of people there is. In Finland I see people with dogs many times every time I’m outside, but in Japan I saw the same amount of dogs in two weeks than I see at home on my morning commute.
I was thinking, is this because of smaller apartments and denser cities, which mean less appropriate space to walk your dog. Some places had signs saying, dogs must be kept in strollers. Yet dogs and other animals seem to freguently appear on different Japanese learning platforms, which gives you the idea that they are common.
What about other pets? There seemed to be a lot of cats wandering the streets in Japan. Is it more common to have small indoor pets, like fish, a hamster or a cat? Is it common to let your cat out on it’s own?
As an aside, I am in Japan and have a cat. As you might have been able to guess.
My neighbor has a dog.
EDIT: I will say that finding an apartment that would allow us to have a cat, while meeting our other requirements, was a massive undertaking. And they only allow us to have 1.
Easter is a very alien concept in Japan and while educated people might be aware it exists they will still give you confused looks if you ask them what they are doing for Easter.
Best case scenario you will be told “Sorry, I’m not Christian”
If you go to very westernized places such as Universal Studios Japan or something like that they might have some Easter decoration but that’s it.
I also think the timing is pretty bad. Between the beginning of the school/work year and the impending Golden Week, Japanese are to busy in April to do any extra event or such. (I also mean commercially)
To be fair, there are Christians in Japan and they gather at churches and whatnot. And from a brief googling, it does seem like those kinds of places do stuff, like Easter egg hunts.
But it seemed like the question was asked as if it was with the idea that all Japanese might know something about Easter, and yeah, that’s not really the case. Other than that it exists.
Nope, that’s not it. I’m very aware Christian celebrations are not big in Japan. But I simply wondered what celebrations there might be, and presumably then by Christians. Though, there could have been people eating candy or anything really, just because that’s fun and for kids. that sort of thinking went into the question.
Easter is not that noticeable in Sweden as it’s family a event really. And people get time off. no churchgoing unless you’re really religious. I’ve never met anyone doing that sort of thing. But, the candy for kids is something that’s hard to not notice, much like with American Halloween. Easter is much bigger with candy here.
I didn’t think about Golden week being so close by, but it just makes more sense that people would not bother to include something else with a public holiday drawing close.
(after all, we don’t get a full week off, but just a couple of extra days here, still enough to travel to see far away relatives and that sort of thing)
Well, if we are going to dive deep into that, from what I understand European countries’ Easter traditions date from before Christianity itself, right? That’s also why the rabbit, eggs and all sorts of glaringly non-Christian (dare I say, Pagan?) imagery in Easter, I believe.
If we forget Christianity and go for Easter in its broadest possible meaning, as the Spring-Festival, I think one could say Japanese have the biggest Easter of them all, no?
I mean, they liked it so much they decided having their whole new year at Easter (Spring-Festival). Even after adopting the western calendar they still have the school/work year starting with Spring, they plant the tree that blossoms with Spring pretty much everywhere they can, etc.
But yes, if you use the word イースター／復活祭 currently, Japanese people will understand it as referring to a very specific Christian tradition.
