Adopting a Japanese child by a non-citizen Nikkei outside of Japan?

[WestCoastCanadianGirl]

Is this even possible, and what are my chances of being allowed to adopt a Japanese national? This potential adoption process wouldn't start until some time later next year, at the very earliest. I will be married to a UK national (non Nikkei) and if we were granted an adoption, we would be taking the child to England to live.

The reason why I am asking is that my husband and I may not be able to have children of our own and I thought that perhaps we could adopt a Japanese child to raise as our own, and as such I thought I'd take a look at what the process would look like to make this happen.

Half of the child's adoptive family would be of Japanese ancestry, as I am a third generation Nikkei, who was born and raised in Canada. My father's maternal grandfather was an officer in the Japanese Imperial Navy. His parents and my Mother's father were born and raised in Japan while my Bachan was born in Canada to Japanese immigrants. After WW2, both of my parents' families chose to remain in Canada rather than return to Japan.

I would hope that the fact that I am Nikkei would be beneficial to our case?

Thoughts? Comments?

Thank you!

[Rube]

Basically they don't want foriegners adopting childen.


from a news piece

“I have been receiving many strange emails, from mostly U.S., and was asked, ‘I want girl, less than 6 months old, healthy child,’ Tazuru Ogaway, director of the Japanese adoption agency Across Japan, told FoxNews.com. “I honestly tell you such a kind of emails makes Japanese people very uncomfortable, because for us, sound like someone who are looking for ‘what I want’ from our terrible disaster.”

Plus the law here says that you have to spent at least 6 months with a child here in Japan before an adoption can be granted.

If you really want to adopt how about a child from a place like India where you'd really be saving a life, tons of unwanted children around the world who need parents more than here. My sister was adopted from India, would hate to think what would have happened to her if we didn't take her.

[WestCoastCanadianGirl]

Ah, thanks for that information... I can understand where they're coming from, but was just kind of idly thinking about the whole thing during my drive into work tonight.

I did also think that perhaps because I am ethnically Japanese. they might be more inclined to consider my application for adoption, eventhough I've only ever been in Japan for 3½ days, back in April of 1987.

[Rube]

I'm sure that would be in your favor if you lived here, but Japan isn't haiti, they aren't keen on people adopting children to leave the country. And it's a shame really because there are children who are in the care of the state till they are adults here but that's how they do things.

[lorgnette]

Japan is one nation whereby often when the parents divorced, the child/children stay with the Japanese parent with the foreign parent without visitation rights.

Japan has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world and this step minimizes the issue.

Korean children had an open adoption policy in the last three decades when Korean families shun adoptions in favour for bloodlines. Around 5 years ago they restrict international adoptions to favor local/domestic adoptions due to low fertility.

Have you considered adopting a Japanese child from South Korea?

[larabell]

I agree that it's relatively difficult to adopt Japanese children with the intention of removing them from Japan but I doubt it has anything to do with the fertility rate. It's only recently that the Japanese population has been in decline but the Japanese have always had a sense of Japanese racial "superiority" and removing a child from Japan would be seen as stripping them of their cultural heritage.

These days, of course, with the falling (and aging) population, it's bound to be even more difficult to convince the authorities that it's in anyone's best interest to remove a Japanese child from Japan. But I'd be very surprised if the same thing wasn't the case for American children being adopted with the intention of relocating the child to another country. Same underlying reasoning, I would suspect...

[Rube]

I don't know if it's really "superoirity" or more of a sense of uniqueness and respect for their own culture, but of course lots of people with lots of feelings so it runs the gambet. Most of the Japanese I know actually have an inferiority complex, but of course they aren't the ones making the laws. Finally got organ donations, so maybe in a few more decades.

[larabell]

Originally Posted by Rube

I don't know if it's really "superoirity" or more of a sense of uniqueness and respect for their own culture...

Yeah... that's a better way of putting it and closer to what I intended to say.

I'm pretty sure that most citizens of India, when faced with the prospect of an orphan Indian child being given the chance to grow up in the US would look on that as a "step-up" for the child compared to what they would be looking forward to remaining in India. For a Japanese faced with the same prospect (ie: a Japanese child being given the "chance" to grow up in the States) it's probably viewed by most as a "step-down". Maybe it's not "superiority", per-se, but it's certainly a combination of pride in their own culture and the future outlook for their own economy.

Which, of course, leads to an interesting question for the original poster. Why a Japanese child, given that there's probably not a huge difference in outcome for that child whether they're raised in Japan or raised in the West. Why not a child from a culture where there's likely no hope for a future in the child's native country. Isn't it more about optimizing the equation for the child -- rather than satisfying a personal fetish for the Japanese culture? (I'm not saying that was the motivation... I'm just asking the question: "why Japanese in particular?", given that Japan still seems to have a reasonably bright future.)

[WestCoastCanadianGirl]

This OP was just my thinking aloud. I was just trying to get an indication of the likelihood of being able to adopt from Japan, in the event that Husband and I cannot have children of our own, and if we were fortunate enough to be prospective adoptive parents, what the process might be like.

My first thoughts for adoption went to Japan for the simple reason that if we were permitted this international adoption, the child would at least have something in common with his/her adoptive Mother, even if she isn't originally from Japan (I consider myself to be 100% ethnically pure Japanese). I would hope that this would give the child a sense of belonging of sorts, given that he/she would likely be growing up in England with some European and Canadian influences added in. We would make sure that the child learned to be able to speak, read and write Japanese in addition to educating them in the English language and affording plenty of opportunity to learn French and German as well (Husband's degree is in French and German).

I had never considered adopting a Japanese child from South Korea because of the historic mutual dislike that exists between the two countries. I also admit that I am a little biased towards Japan in this regard and if I was going to adopt a Japanese child, I would prefer that he/she be from Japan.

I can completely understand the protectionist attitudes in Japan as far as racial homogeneity is concerned (and it must piss off the purists over there to know that >95% of the Nikkei in Canada who have married since the end of WW2 have married non-Japanese... on November 3rd, 2012 I will join both of my brothers and ALL of my married cousins in being part of that statistic) and I can also appreciate that they'd be more apt to turn Husband and I down in favour of a domestic couple.

Hopefully Husband and I will be able to have children on our own so that our potential Japanese child can stay in Japan and make a different couple happy.

[Rube]

Originally Posted by WestCoastCanadianGirl

I had never considered adopting a Japanese child from South Korea because of the historic mutual dislike that exists between the two countries. I also admit that I am a little biased towards Japan in this regard and if I was going to adopt a Japanese child, I would prefer that he/she be from Japan.

let's be clear, you're not bias towards Japan, you're racist towards Koreans. Personally I really just feel sorry for people who bring up history to defend their racist views on the world. Like it's not your fault because there is historically a lot of racism to begin with.

Girl you're not even really Japanese, you're Canadian. It's not like Nikkei are really considered the same as Japanese here, you're more like that cousin in South Carolina that people don't talk about much.