世論 What Japan Thinks

We had a visit today from the census representitive for next month’s census. The questions are mostly very simple – age, place of work, size of house (Japan has a target to within 20 years get the average family living space up from the current about 50 square metres to 100 square metres. Hoever, there are very few flats available over 100 square metres, at least not without getting into funny money, and even many houses barely top that in living area), hours worked per month, etc. The one problematic one I saw was there is a nationality box, Japanese or other, with a write-in area. All children from an international marriage are dual nationality until aged 20, so what do they tick? I saw on The Community mailing list the prevailing opinion was to tick both boxes and let them sort it out. One person did phone city hall, and their advice was to select Japanese for the kids, but that just hides the issue. Many international children may have special schooling requirements, especially if they have moved back from overseas.

On a lighter note, there is no box for religion, so we cannot repeat the efforts in New Zealand and the UK where people selected Jedi-ism as they religion. Perhaps instead for country of origin we can write in Endor (but that’s the Ewok land, isn’t it? Ohh ‘eck, I’m no Staar Wars geek!)