Actually even that statement is not truly applicable any longer. Japan's facing a major de-population crisis due to some ridiculously low birth rate, and it's doing everything it can think of to increase the rate, which isn't working. (Of course their govt ministers saying stuff like how women are baby making machines doesn't help!) The govt is incredibly worried about the future with too many old people and too few young people, with many women choosing not to work due to discrimination in pay and promotion and so on.
Sorry Nadia01, but I have to disagree with the bit about the “major de-population crisis”. When I was doing A-level Geography, Japan was one of the case-studies that we did.
I have just looked at the World Bank statistics for the past decade, and they say that the population in Japan has roughly stayed steady at around 127million (+/-1million) for the past 15 years. So, as yet, there is no “de-population”.
The problem is not that the population is decreasing; the problem is make-up of the population. Usually, a country’s population pyramid starts off wide at the bottom (lots of youngsters) and gradually gets narrower as people get older to a point at the top (not so many elderly). Japan was like this in 1950.
Population Pyramids for Japan (source UN):
http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/population-pyramids/images_abs/Japan.png
In 2010, the pyramid for Japan does not follow this pattern until you reach the over 60’s. Between 65 and 35, the population varies between 4 and 5 million for each gender in each age group. And below 35, it gradually decreases down to about 3 million for each gender in the 0-5 age group.
Admittedly, it was about 8 years ago that I finished school, but the population pyramid for 2010 is similar to the 2000 population pyramid we were studying.
So, I agree with you that the aging population is going to cause problems as, if the population continues to change the way they expect, there will be far more older people depending on support, and far less people of working age paying taxes to fund the support.
But that still does not alter the point that I was making. Physically, Japan is a group of mountainous islands where there is a limited amount of space that can actually be utilised for habitation or cultivation. The habitable areas are already densely populated. So, if the population is staying steady (as it has for about 15 years), the Japanese government are hardly going to want an influx of immigrants putting extra pressure on the limited resources. Hence, they are continuing the policy of limiting who can have Japanese citizenship for now.
However, if the population changes in the way that is expected, this approach cannot continue forever. Once the population starts falling, and there are less people of working age to support those that are not economically active (i.e. the old and young), then Japan will have to have a re-think and encourage immigration. And, one way of doing this is relaxing the rules on who can have Japanese citizenship a bit.
So, until we get to that time, I can’t see Japan changing their current policy. But, I still feel that it is wrong to prevent people who are born in Japan or have Japanese ancestry from having dual nationality.
But, this discussion is now getting too far away from the topic of Narumi and Mervin splitting up. So, let’s get back to it!
I am surprised that this Tran/Japanese-citizhenship stuff is still going on. As if it wasn't clear from the start that his J-citizenship simply won't happen.
As “let`s talk” says, under the current rules, Mervin was never going to get citizenship. The point I was trying to make at in my
first message in this topic is that in situations like this, where somebody wants to actively do something to help Japan, there should be some lee-way.
In Japan, you must demonstrate that you read, write and speak Japanese fluently---and that could take far more than 10 years. In the US, you must be able to pass a citizenship test, but the need to speak, read and write English fluently is not required.
As for the citizenship tests, I think that they are a joke. Put it like this, they have been talking about bringing them in for immigrants who want to live here in the UK. And, looking at the questions that are being proposed, I can guarantee that most of the people who were born and bred in the UK would not be able to answer a lot of them!
More important is insisting that the immigrant is able to speak (and, preferably, read and write) the language of the host country. Like, how can you manage to live somewhere if you can't communicate?
Finally, I think “let`s talk” and “Olympia” have summed up most of the issues raised about nationality/citizenship in this thread perfectly in the last 2 posts. So, perhaps this should be the end of this aspect of the discussion, so that we can concentrate on Mervin and Narumi’s futures.
CaroLiza_fan
. Giving up the original citizenship is basically the main if not the only point that stops most of gaijins to apply for J-nationality, besides being treated like gaijin anyway, which in fact can be an advantage sometimes. Take it from someone who knows 
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