Update your gaijin card after renewing your visa!!

[GomiGirl]

[amdg]

Sheeet! Sorry to hear about that Gomi. Yeah, the advice I always get from behind the counter whenever I renew my visa is that I should update my gaijin card within two weeks.

Seriously though, do these policemen think they've done a good nights work by pulling someone off the street and harassing them?

[GomiGirl]

I should add though that they dropped me back to Kabukicho.. I asked them if they wanted to stop by the bar for a drink as we were having an event tonight but they sadly declined!! (I know I am incorrigible!!)

[IkemenTommy]

way to go!

[Taro Toporific]

[quote="GomiGirl"]....hadn’]


Naughty, naughty!
Was this your first ID stop in well over a decade in Japan? Most get stopped for such heinous crimes as Bicycling-While-Gaijin. However, have other FGs been pulled over because increased random checks?

[Phoenix_stu]

Well fortunately, I have never been stopped in the 4years that I have been here(knocking on wood).

Sorry to hear that GG. Good thing I just went to renew my gaijin card the day before yesterday. My gaijin card and pasport were valid however, I had not updated the gaijin card. It was 4months past due. oops.

Well at least you had a good day of it.

[Mulboyne]

When living in Japan, I never updated my Gaijin Card. That wasn't a deliberate strategy, I just didn't know it was necessary. On finally going to renew the card at the ward office, the woman at the desk just stared at me in disbelief. As well as the visa renewals, my company had changed its name so there was quite a backlog of data missing. Things worked out well enough: she wrote out all the gomen nasai forms for me and I just signed them. It took about 15 minutes which seemed like a far better way of doing it than hiking over to the ward office every time so I didn't bother going back. Somehow, it never occurred to me that my card was often showing information that my visa had expired. If I ever need another one, then I'll be sure to update it.

[ttjereth]

I just updated mine 2 months late after renewing my visa and found that I had never had a job listed on mine since I moved to Tokyo. When I first moved down here and got the card I was still looking for work, and I have switched jobs 4 times since then and never bothered to have the card updated.

The guy at my ward office was really cool about it and just told me that having it done within 2 weeks of any changes is the norm.

I've been stopped while the job info was incorrect (non-existant really) but since the visa date was okay never had any problems.

[omae mona]

A pretty subtle point is that you're supposed to update the card after a passport renewal too. One of the registered items is your passport number, so technically that's supposed to change too. Last time my passport expired, I didn't bother to transfer my visas to my new passport (opting instead to carry my expired passport while travelling). I didn't want to spend half a day at immigration and figured I would wait until my next visa renewal. This is allowed, but skipping the visit to immigration was the reason nobody there could warn me to update the card.

The funny thing is that the next time I updated the gaijin card, the ward office folks themselves failed to notice my passport number was out of date, so they didn't change that part. The next change I made after that, the ward office folks caught the mistake. They didn't yell at me since it was obvious they had failed to do the update themselves last time I had visited.

[FG Lurker]

I was caught driving on an expired license and the cops couldn't quite figure out what to do with me. In the end they just marked the back of my license and told me to renew it the next day! They then proceeded to let me drive myself home...

I have also left my gaijin card as being non-updated after moves, job changes, and passport renewals. The ward office has never bothered me about it. Once they made me sign a "gomennasai" letter but other times nothing at all. No rhyme or reason... Beats me!

[Mike Oxlong]

However, as gomichild suggested, I should have asked them how the search for Lindsay Hawkers killer was going seeing as they were randomly stopping people on the street. Maybe next time!!

The cops sure caught the killer of that Nagoya girl damn fast! Sad story, made sadder by the fact that they clearly take crime against the locals more seriously.

[ttjereth]

I was caught driving on an expired license and the cops couldn't quite figure out what to do with me. In the end they just marked the back of my license and told me to renew it the next day! They then proceeded to let me drive myself home...

I have also left my gaijin card as being non-updated after moves, job changes, and passport renewals. The ward office has never bothered me about it. Once they made me sign a "gomennasai" letter but other times nothing at all. No rhyme or reason... Beats me!

What's the "gomennasai letter"? I've never had to sign or fill out anything when I get my card updated, late or not.

Is it actually an apology letter?

[Blah Pete]

What's the "gomennasai letter"? I've never had to sign or fill out anything when I get my card updated, late or not.

Is it actually an apology letter?

About 12 years ago I forgot to renew my Gaikokujin Torokusyou and they handed me a blank piece of paper and told me to write the reason why I let it lapse.
I renewed my visa this month and when I went to get the Gaijin card updated the guy at the counter said my passport number didn't match up. When I renewed my passport two years ago I didn't get the card updated.

[FG Lurker]

What's the "gomennasai letter"? I've never had to sign or fill out anything when I get my card updated, late or not.

Is it actually an apology letter?

It's a form addressed to the Minister of Justice. They ask you to write the reason you were late to do _________ and sign your name for it. Just saying that you were very busy with work and unable to get to the ward office is fine.

[Mulboyne]

It's a form addressed to the Minister of Justice. They ask you to write the reason you were late to do _________ and sign your name for it. Just saying that you were very busy with work and unable to get to the ward office is fine.

I had seven to sign. The woman at the ward office asked me what my excuse would be. I suggested "I didn't know" but she screwed up her face and recommended "I was busy" since not knowing carried a hint that someone failed to tell me. At that point I realized she was out to help so I just let her get on with it and signed on the dotted line.

The other occasion requiring a gomennasai was at Narita when I went to pick someone up without taking my passport. I didn't have my gaijin card with me since it hadn't been issued and the document explaining that was in my passport. It caused a bit more concern but I had my meishi with me with a name matching my credit cards which helped. It turns out that Narita frequently has foreigners turning up to meet people without carrying any ID. Most of them are tourists who have kept their passports at the hotel. Since they usually have their room key, it tends to get sorted out fairly quickly.

[Greji]

What's the "gomennasai letter"? I've never had to sign or fill out anything when I get my card updated, late or not.

Is it actually an apology letter?

Every government agency in Japan, to include personnel offices for government employees, have some kind of a general "gomen nasai" form. It covers and absolves all sins for missing deadlines, whether it is for employee actions, changing over health insurance, missing tax deadlines, or in Waga FG's case, not up-dating our gaijin toroku.

Getting one from any agency (other than the police) is like getting the Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card in Monopoly. Whatever sin you have purportrated against Japan and the Emperor is about to be commuted faster than you can say "Scooter Libby".

I hesitate to mention the ones that are used by the police because they will try to get you to make an "I'm sorry" statement at any given time. Sometimes after telling you that it is only a routine matter of paperwork and a Japanese courtesy, they will hold it up in court, point to you and call it by a new name, "confesssion".

[ttjereth]

It's a form addressed to the Minister of Justice. They ask you to write the reason you were late to do _________ and sign your name for it. Just saying that you were very busy with work and unable to get to the ward office is fine.

Never had to fill one of those out and I've been late several times with my gaijin card, I miss the initial deadline for my first health insurance and nenkin payments almost habitually every year too.

I wonder if they aren't just filling them out "on my behalf"

We get a lot of stuff delivered by takkyubin here and the yamato delivery guy signs my name for me all the time, just shows up, hands me the package and takes off

[ttjereth]

Every government agency in Japan, to include personnel offices for government employees, have some kind of a general "gomen nasai" form. It covers and absolves all sins for missing deadlines, whether it is for employee actions, changing over health insurance, missing tax deadlines, or in Waga FG's case, not up-dating our gaijin toroku.

Getting one from any agency (other than the police) is like getting the Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card in Monopoly. Whatever sin you have purportrated against Japan and the Emperor is about to be commuted faster than you can say "Scooter Libby".

I hesitate to mention the ones that are used by the police because they will try to get you to make an "I'm sorry" statement at any given time. Sometimes after telling you that it is only a routine matter of paperwork and a Japanese courtesy, they will hold it up in court, point to you and call it by a new name, "confesssion".

Like I mentioned above, I've not seen one yet. I worked in a city office for three years out in the boondocks and never saw one there either, although they had me interpreting most of the face to face stuff with foreigners who came to the office but didn't speak Japanese. Just lucky I guess? I wonder if filling one of those out has any effect on permanent residence applications and such?

As for the police, I generally try to avoid any type of paper work with them. I was involved in an incident on a train a few years ago where a Japanese guy attacked the conductor and I grabbed him from behind an held him until we got to the next station and the police came, and I ended up in the police station for 8 hours that day, with more several more visits to fill out reports and crap

[Behan]

What an experience, tthereth! That must have been scary.

My boring two cents...

I think there is one of those gomennasai forms if you don't return an international driver's license after it expires.

The last time I was stopped for a gaijinin card/passport check was at the shopping area upstairs at Narita Airport. I had both documents but the cops went on to ask me all sorts of questions about work, where I lived, etc.
I have a permanent visa so couldn't I just be unemployed and live in a cardboard box in a park anyway?
I thought the cops were a bit dumb because most of the people in that shopping area, I am guessing, are people departing Japan and waiting for their flights.
If you were an undocumented illegal immigrant would you hang around at Narita Airport? I'd get out out of there really fast if I were.

[ttjereth]

What an experience, tthereth! That must have been scary.

The time at the police station worried me more than the psycho on the train. They had me there so long I was worried I had done something wrong and started recalling all kinds of horror stories I had heard about how harming someone in self defense wasn't legal here and wondering how that would apply to grabbing someone to stop them from attacking someone else, etc.

The last time I was stopped for a gaijinin card/passport check was at the shopping area upstairs at Narita Airport. I had both documents but the cops went on to ask me all sorts of questions about work, where I lived, etc.
I have a permanent visa so couldn't I just be unemployed and live in a cardboard box in a park anyway?
I thought the cops were a bit dumb because most of the people in that shopping area, I am guessing, are people departing Japan and waiting for their flights.
If you were an undocumented illegal immigrant would you hang around at Narita Airport? I'd get out out of there really fast if I were.

I've not been stopped at narita yet, although I have seen other people getting their cards checked there. Always seemed rather silly to me, since I would imagine a decent proportion of the foreigners there don't actually have a card if they are just in for a visit or business or whatever and their passports would have theoretically been checked already if they were disembarking.

I always have some "kind" Japanese explain to me I am in the wrong line when I line up in the Japanese only line though.

[Iraira]

I got stopped by two "undercover cops" after getting my VISA renewed last year. They claimed that they were doing random stops in the name of preventing terrorism. I was on my way to get the gaijin card updated, anyway. The guy flipped a badge real quick, as if he'd seen too many 1970s spaghetti cop flicks. I showed them my gaijin card and then said that had I been a real terrorist that they'd both be dead now, and walked away. Sufficie it to say, I doubt that they were real cops.
I used to get stopped on my bicycle a lot, as I had no light. Cops were cool as I'd always tell them I just had a date and turned the conversation into stuff about chicks. Shit, cops on bikes at 2am are lonely motherfuckers, even willing to run BS with a gaijin for 20 minutes.

[sublight]

When I got a new gaijin card last year, they discovered that I needed to update my wife's name on it. She's listed as the 'householder' and since we'd gotten married (we were just living together when I got the first card) she'd changed her last name to mine. That was one I'd never thought of.

GomiGirl, if you want the cops to join you for a drink, invite them to 2-chome. A buddy of mine runs a gay bar there, and he gets an amazing number of cops who drop by to drink, gossip and 'just play along' when he grabs their asses and deep kisses them.

[Greji]

When I got a new gaijin card last year, they discovered that I needed to update my wife's name on it. She's listed as the 'householder' and since we'd gotten married (we were just living together when I got the first card) she'd changed her last name to mine. That was one I'd never thought of.

Wait a minute. Am I missing something here? Are you saying that the spouse's name must appear on the gaiji toroku?

I are confused!

[FG Lurker]

Wait a minute. Am I missing something here? Are you saying that the spouse's name must appear on the gaiji toroku?

His wife wears the pants at their place, so she's the "head of household".

One day if sublight gives up the skirt-wearing he can become the head of household and then his wife's name won't be on his gaijin card anymore.

[halfnip]

Wait a minute. Am I missing something here? Are you saying that the spouse's name must appear on the gaiji toroku?

I are confused!

My wife's name is on mine. After we got married, she changed her name to reflect my surname. It probably also has something to do with her supporting my visa as well, but I'm not sure about that one.

[Greji]

[quote="halfnip"]My wife's name is on mine. After we got married, she changed her name to reflect my surname. It probably also has something to do with her supporting my visa as well, but I'm not sure about that one. ]

Damn, I must be getting Bokke in my young age, or something, although it's been a considerable time since I had a spouse sponsored visa, I can never remember my wife's name appearing on my registration, even when we had the booklet instead of the card.

The only thing I can ever remember having and also having to update was the address, which most be updated with in some many weeks of a change (non-perm residences also have to update employment with in so long after a change).

But I'll be damned if I can ever remember the old lady's name on me card. Let me know if this is new or something.

[ttjereth]

Damn, I must be getting Bokke in my young age, or something, although it's been a considerable time since I had a spouse sponsored visa, I can never remember my wife's name appearing on my registration, even when we had the booklet instead of the card.

The only thing I can ever remember having and also having to update was the address, which most be updated with in some many weeks of a change (non-perm residences also have to update employment with in so long after a change).

But I'll be damned if I can ever remember the old lady's name on me card. Let me know if this is new or something.

I'm on a spouse visa now and my wife's name isn't on mine either. It can differ depending on who's listed as head of household (I am on a spouse visa because my wife is a Japanese national, but I am the breadwinner according to all documentation, taxes etc. as well as, unfortunately, my checkbook).

I also think what gets listed on them tends to differ quite a bit from location to location. I know there are some minor differences in my current card and the ones I had when I lived in the boondocks.

[halfnip]

I'm on a spouse visa now and my wife's name isn't on mine either. It can differ depending on who's listed as head of household (I am on a spouse visa because my wife is a Japanese national, but I am the breadwinner according to all documentation, taxes etc. as well as, unfortunately, my checkbook).

I also think what gets listed on them tends to differ quite a bit from location to location. I know there are some minor differences in my current card and the ones I had when I lived in the boondocks.

I am in the exact same boat. Although she is listed on my card... We didn't go in to ask for her to be added, yet when I went in there with my Visa papers, they added her on it. Dunno what the details on it are, but it must have been done due to the marriage, visa. Has you wife changed her name to your surname on her koseki and registered under your name when submitting the nyuseki after you got married? It's not a big deal, but I am just trying to figure out why she's listed on my card..

[Blah Pete]

[sublight]