My name is Peter and I live in Seattle. I have a J-gf that I met here about 2 1/2 years ago while she was completing an advanced degree. She has since graduated and moved back to Tokyo. We have been in a long distance relationship for over a year now, but are discussing marriage now. (A few days ago I indicated that I was planning a trip to Tokyo in the next month or two to propose. Thanks for the suggestions on where to do it).
We get along great and I've visited her a few times and met her family. They seem very, very nice and open to the idea that her daughter is dating a gaijin. That's one of the main reasons I am moving forward with this relationship because I was convinced that if I'm "accepted" by her family that the rest should be fairly smooth sailing.
The plan was for us to get married and then she moves to Seattle for a few years. She wants me to consider living in Japan for a few years as well. I thought that was fair and thus have started looking into the possibility of taking a job in Tokyo for the company I currently work for in Seattle.
After reading Shinigami's post about how fucked it really is to be a gaijin in Japan, I suddenly felt all clammy. Is it really that horrible? And we are most certainly going to have kids, but if being a "hafu" is more horrible in Japan than it would be in the US then I'm pretty sure kids will be timed accordingly.
That being said, I'm hoping that one of you FGs that's gone through the immigration bullshit to get your J-wife sorted out, is there an archive that talks about the exact steps one needs to go through? Just surfing on the web and trying to figure this out has been daunting at best.
She seems to think that getting married in Japan would speed the process up more than if we went through the fiance' visa route through the US Immigration. What's the process like post 9-11? Sorry if this has been asked 90784875 times before here, too?
