Are many of my fellow gaijin bloggers criminals?
I read a report today of a Chinese student who got deported from Japan for gold-farming in an online game, that is, collecting in-game items and selling them off for cash, making at least 6 million yen in the process, and possibly up to 150 million. According to the terms of not just the student visa, but most other types of visas, only if you apply for “Permission to engage in an activity other than that permitted by the status of residence previously granted” can you work for up to 28 hours per week on a side job. Now, many of my fellow bloggers have AdSense, JList or other affiliate programs on their sites that must be making them a wee bit on the side, and some of the harder-working bloggers are perhaps putting more than 4 hours a day into their blogs. One might even argue that being a JList affiliate classes you as engaging in a prohibited “visual-transmitting-type adult entertainment business”.
So, if you are getting the click-throughs rolling in, my advice to you would be to either spend your profits locally or get your cash paid into a foreign bank! Except that would still be potentially illegal so I couldn’t condone such activity, and other suitable CYA wording.
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Greg said,
November 28, 2006 @ 15:43
I have been an exchange students in Japan in two different universities.
Actually, I think it is possible to work as a student if you get a student working permit, which requires your university supervisor’s authorization (for instance, many students would teach languages or make translation works in Japan). This permit allows to work up to 20 hours a week.
However, in most jobs I did, I was never ask to fill any form or contract, and I guess I was not declared.
What strikes me in the case of this student, is that he was denounced by his bank worker to the police. More than visa issues, there seem to be some xenophobia background in this case. If the guy was Japanese, I guess that the bank guy would have asked him before calling the police.
Besides, I am not sure that the visa is the only issue, was his business legal, and how did he sell? I suppose that he did not declare his activity, which made it illegal, unless he would have been using online auctions, which in this case has nothing to do with the visa.
Another funny thing about visas… I have a working permit in Japan, ‘as specialist in Humanities and International Services’…. (category E). There are various categories of visas in Japan (too many), supposed to fit your job or function, but in fact, I know many people including me who got hired in Japan with a E visa, while our jobs have nothing to do with what it stands for.
Greg said,
November 28, 2006 @ 15:54
sorry, I wrote 20 but it is indeed 28 hours as you wrote.
It seems that college students are permitted to work up to 28 hours a week while occasional students and research students, up to 14 hours a week.
But in many cases, I saw universities refusing to support some students who wanted to apply for a working permit.
Ken Y-N said,
November 28, 2006 @ 23:43
Greg, good points, and I did think about raising the issue about him being Chinese, but I thought perhaps I would have been racist to assume the Japanese were racist to him?
I also wonder if there are details that the Mainichi post missed out. Was he skipping school to play the MMPOG? Not attending lessons is a major no-no regardless of what you do instead.
Greg said,
November 29, 2006 @ 11:56
I posted the Japanese article on my Mixi to see what would be Japanese people reactions.
Apparently, we all agree on the fact that various elements were missing in the article.
Well, with all the money that this Wang guy could make, I’m sure he won’t have troubles to find another university elsewhere that would take him.
Greg said,
November 29, 2006 @ 12:28
According to Goo News, Wang was almost never attending classes.
「王容疑者は２００４年、熊本市と桂林市の交換留学生として来日。留学直後からほとんど登校していなかったとみられる。」
Goo News http://news.goo.ne.jp/article/kyodo/nation/20061122a4720.html
Greg said,
November 30, 2006 @ 00:42
According to Goo News, Wang was almost never attending classes.
「王容疑者は２００４年、熊本市と桂林市の交換留学生として来日。留学直後からほとんど登校していなかったとみられる。」
Goo News http://news.goo.ne.jp/article/kyodo/nation/20061122a4720.html
I also found many racist comments on other blogs posting on this story, but in this case, I am afraid to say that hate towards foreigners or so called “coloured people” is not a Japanese monopoly.
Thinking more about this case, my conclusion is that they probably deported him using the visa argument, just because it would be troublesome to sew him for some other reason. The police chose the most efficient (and cheap) way to deport him as soon as they could.