Lovely day at immigration...

My visa expires tomorrow so I went to immigration to put in the renewal. I got the business/investor visa last year so that's what I was going to renew. I have to provide a lot of paperwork: application, business plan, company brochure, business registration papers, tax forms, and proof of investment. In the end I made a binder which held all of these items. It should make it really easy for them to find and read everything.

Anyway, I walk in and the guy at the counter is just starting at me. He's not saying "hello" or "next" or nodding or anything. He just keeps staring. Finally I walk up to him and tell him that I'm here to renew my visa.

He opens the binder and starts rifling through everything. He doesn't understand any of it. I take him to the first page which is an index of all of the information. He tells me that the binder is too big and he's not sure if he can accept it. I tell him that the immigration required all of this information from me so I'm not sure what to tell him.

He pulls out a book and starts reading and slowly starts to understand that I'm right. But by this point he's pissed off. I have my assistant talk to him on the phone to explain everything to him. She stars talking to me and says that he sounds really angry about everything, talking to her rudely. He then takes my binder to different people in the office and is laughing about it right in front of me. At that point I pretty much wanted to kill him.

I told him that last year they wanted copies of my receipts showing my investment in Japan. I brought everything to them. They said that's what they wanted. I'm trying to make him understand that he obviously doesn't understand the process.

He takes the binder and sits down without saying anything else. I call him back to the counter and tell him that I need to write an address label so they can mail the results to me. He gives me the label and goes back to his desk. I stand at the counter holding the label while he just sits there. I'm obviously not just going to leave the paper on the table and walk out. I get his attention and he comes and gets it from me.

Now my entire future in Japan depends on this idiotic asshole approving my application. Wonderful.

I'm already starting to ask around if there's an appeal process if I get denied...

 

Oh man. "Help me a foreign-Oni in front of my desk" fear all over again eh? I can only complain about your situation. Wish you best of luck!

 

but why should they deny you? you're already here for a while and did the same as last year and may be before.

that all sounds really shitty. sorry dude

 

Bad luck dude. It seems ALL immigration offices are full of these kinds of people, all over the world. The job must attract them.

 

Oh man, you poor bastard ! Looks like you got a right shit hole! People who work in the government run facilities (especially immigration) are generally arse holes. I've had my fair share of problems with these arrogant shits. That's not to say there aren't any nice staff working in these places. It's just a shame that the shits out number them.

Good luck to you mate.! If you have trouble feel free to ask me and the missus to help you out. Also threaten to take the matter to the US consulate as long as there is no reason for them to refuse your visa.

Yakumo

 

Must be a Kyushu thing. I've had nothing but fantastic experiences at the new Immigration (except getting there, now that they consolidated all of Kantou into one office). And mind you, this place is balls packed from open to close. There's always a 30-40 minute wait. I've been 3 times this year alone (apply, re-entry application, then get my stickers again when I lost my passport). Anyways, you're renewing. It will be a lot harder to get denied if you're renewing the same status. May I ask what the minimum investment requirement is for that type of visa?

I hate to say it, but if you had to take your assistant to translate that's not going to help. The more of a Japanese ninja you are the better off you're going to be across the board. I've probably pissed off a few people but I've never let anyone take advantage of me from a language standpoint. The only time anyone laughed at me was a combini when I complained b/c the gacha-gacha toy I just bought had two right legs. Yeah, I was a grown man complaining about a 100 yen toy, but it took me 1000 yen to get that one -- the last one in the set.

 

:lol: man I wish I could have seen that :lol:

 

Gacha-gacha? What's that?

 

Seconded.

 

great story GP:lol:

 

Reading this makes me think I got off lightly with my 4 hour visit to the Tokyo office for an extension. Having said that, for previous job I had to sample te delights that is the Indian Visa Office here in London, man they know how to pack people into a room there!

 

Well last year they were really cool about everything. And when I went down before they were cool as well. It was just his one guy.

Last year I submitted my application and a few days later they called me and said they needed to see my receipts for everyting so I brought it all down. That's for a full year, mind you. So this year I brought it with me when I applied. It just pissed me off that the guy obviously didn't know what he was doing. In the beginning he said that he just needed the application which is 3 pages long. He didn't know anyting about the other stuff.

They say that the investment is the most important thing. You have to have 5,000,000 yen and I have receipts for 13,000,000 yen. I pay about 5,000,000 yen a year to the post office alone. If I get denied I'm going to call the post office manager and apologize that he won't be getting $50,000 from me next year and he can call and thank the guy at the immigration office.

 

Welcome to reality. This isn't unique to Japan either... it's government officials just about everywhere. Did I tell you it took us 9 months to get my wife's green card after she was admitted? Dipshits didn't know where to send it. We had to tell one of the immigration officials how to spell Honolulu. I spent a total of about 5-6 hours on the phone 3 times. Each time, it was a different hoop to jump through. Worlds most powerful country run by the must inept people it can find.

5 mil, huh? Well, looks like I'll not have any visa issues if my wife fucks off.

 

I want to be one of those assholes.....but I'd approve you no problem.

 

Just ask to see his "Rejected" stamp and stamp his forehead.

 

Welcome to Beauracracy!

Home of the Assholes since 1565AD.

 

On the bright side: He is most likely not the person that will even be reviewing your visa application. The guys at the front desk never make big decisions. This is basically a universal law that has been in place since the invention of the front desk.

 

I feel for you, I really do. My wife and i had been together for 3 years when we finally decided to head back to the UK after a stint teaching in the PR of China. She had been and gone to the UK many times over the previous 3 years as we would return there for holidays during the summer.

So all appeared quite normal - just pop down to the British Embassy in Guang Zhou and get a visa.....If only it had been so easy....

Apparently whilst making a polite enquiry I had a 'clentched fist' on the counter and this appeared to upset someone. So much so that when, after lunch, my wife went up to (finally) be interviewed by their staff, the guy (c___t) behind the counter commented that I was the guy "causing trouble earlier" and refused her visa. In a not-so-roundabout way.

As a direct result we lost about £1000+ in airplane tickets to the UK and my wife spent the next 8 months at my folks place in Italy and back home with her family in Slovakia.

All because of an (alleged) 'clentched fist' on the counter. I'm not joking.

Just to rub salt in the wound, at the time of the interview Slovakia (my wifes country of origin) was due to join the European Union. So....in 8 months she wouldn't need a visa to enter the UK anyway. We literally just waited for her country to join the EU....

We deal with a lot of visas at the family business (a private college in inner London) and the conclusion is unanimous - people in immigration haven't got a clue -their rules and guidelines are scandalous/non-existant (delete as appropriate).

You may as well be playing the national lottery (as they do with green cards to the USA). There is very little method to their madness and most of the people are embittered souls whose job has probably got the better of them. (you have to sympathise to some extent because their job isn't exactly easy....but - that doesn't excuse their atrocious behaviour - and it never will).

There are also many, many tales of corruption in these places: My mother interviewed the boss of the Italian embassy in Beijing who casually remarked that they were going to "refuse all those visas.." (stacked in a pile nearby) because they couldn't be bothered with the paperwork.

Or...the Australian Embassy in Beijing. One of our students went to apply and got refused. They then met a 'contact' at the embassy a little while later (probably through an agent) et voila' - once they paid a certain sum (around $1000 USD) the visa was granted.

I can only wish you good luck in all of this. Appealing gets you nowhere though as the ball is always firmly in their court and to get 'them' to apologise or even admit an error is about as likely as the Pope breakdancing to help the homeless. Play them at their own game....it's the only way.

Again, Good Luck.

 

Well all of the staff has changed since last time. I think during the last year they hit the 2-year cycle period where they transfer everyone around in the office building. I'm guessing this guy didn't like his assignment.

I've heard other horror stories from Japanese people. A British friend of mine was getting married to a Japanese lady and she needed a visa for the UK and she had to answer questions about why she wanted to live in the UK from the Japanese immigration office. It was like they were skeptical that she'd really want to leave.

Another friend of mine is technically Chinese (of course living in Japan her whole life) so she had to fly to Tokyo on her own dime and meet with immigration officials there just to be able to leave the country with her passport which was Chinese. Some old git was assigned to help her and he said that she can't get anything because she's Chinese. She finally had to go to a Chinese civil rights group in Japan to protest and she got whatever it was she needed.

She did all of this to go to Bali with her friend, and since China and Indonesia don't have reciprocal visa agreements she had to pay money just to get the visa to enter, which was pretty expensive if I can remember correctly. Her friend didn't have to pay anything because she has a Japanese passport.

After that she decided to get her Japanese citizenship which, of course, costs a lot of money. On top of that she had to write an essay saying why she wanted to be a Japanese citizen. It's utterly humiliating. She's in her 40s, has lived in Japan her whole life, has never even been to China, and she's writing an essasy about why she wants to be Japanese.

 

Someone fed you a line. Immigration office is for people coming into Japan. Not leaving, no matter how you slice it.

Why didn't she just get a re-entry permit?