MOJ Site for Immigration Procedures
If you have to renew your visa or get a re-entry permit, you might find the Immigration Procedures Handbook from the Immigration Bureau of Japan useful. Also, the list of necessary documents will help you know what you need to bring in order to apply for various permits and extensions.
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New and Improved Tsukuba City Hall
The City is building a new City Hall near Kenkyu Gakuen Station. It is scheduled to open in May of 2010. The new building will amalgamate all of the city hall departments, so it will no longer be necessary to go to completely different parts of the city to deal with separate issues. However, the City is planning to continue to offer minimal service centers at several locations throughout the city.
Tsukuba Service Center -- Tsukuba Health Center (1st Floor)
Oho Service Center -- Oho Branch Office (1st Floor)
Toyosato Service Center -- Toyosato Health Center (1st Floor)
Sakura Service Center -- Sakura Folk Museum
Yatabe Service Center -- Shimin Hall Yatabe (1st Floor Lobby)
Kukizaki Service Center -- Kukizaki Health Center (1st Floor Office)
The current plan is that some of the present Branch Office buildings will be demolished (Tsukuba, Sakura, Yatabe, Kukizaki) and others will be turned into storage facilities or used for other purposes.
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New Immigration Procedures
The Ministry of Justice has decided that all foreigners (including permanent residents) entering Japan must be fingerprinted and photographed. The Ministry's excuse for this is a long list of terrorist acts, none of which happened in Japan.
See the peppy video: Landing Examination Procedures for Japan are Changing!
Personally, I don't like the idea of being treated as a criminal just because I am foreign. If they want to implement draconian measures like this, they should apply to everyone entering Japan, not just foreigners. If they could get the Japanese public to agree to this kind of treatment, then I wouldn't be as upset about it.
More information on Debito Arudou's site.
(Thanks to Melissa N. for the information.)
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New Rules for Lost and Found Items
The law covering lost items changed this Monday (December 10). Here is an overview of the new rules (as I understand from watching the news).
1. Items that are not returned to their owners will be (1) given to the person who found them, (2) sold, or (3) destroyed after three months. (This used to be six months.) The choice of which action will be taken depends on the item. For example, items that involve personal data (mobile phones, computers, USB sticks, credit cards, etc.) will be destroyed.
2. Certain items will only be kept for two weeks and then sold. Items in this category include umbrellas, clothing, and bicycles. Exceptions to this rule are brand-name umbrellas, top-of-the-line bicycles, and clothing that has a person's name on it. The decision about whether to apply the two-week rule or not will be left up to the individual police officers.
3. Animals used to be kept by police departments for one or two weeks and then sent to the pound (where there are destroyed if the owner cannot be found within a certain amount of time). It is now possible to skip the police department and send the animal directly to the pound. However, in this case, the length of time the animal stays alive is shortened.
Also, the police will make it possible to search for lost items via the internet. Here is the website for searching for lost items in Ibaraki. The search function is also available on the mobile site of the Ibaraki Police.
If you are in a store or a train station and you find something that seems like a lost item, please hand it to an employee of the store or station. If you find something on the road or in a park, please hand it in to the police.
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No Age Restrictions on Job Ads
The Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare recently made it illegal to put age restrictions on jobs. I am relieved to learn this, as it always bothered me to see age limits such as "under 35" on job descriptions in Japan. I can't prove that there is a direct connection, but it seems like specifying that you want a younger employee means that you can justify keeping the salary low, and that makes it easier to keep salaries low for women in contract positions. Anyway, I think this new law is a good step towards making hiring practices more fair. I'm not sure whether it is still okay to specify whether you want a male or a female employee, as I have also seen a lot of ads like that here. Hopefully that will be outlawed soon too, if it hasn't already been.
Information in Japanese about the new law
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