So title pretty much says it. About 5 years ago I came in a verbal confrontation with my sister and it ended in a bit of a physical scruffle, nothing too serious. However my sis pressed charges and I was found guilty, prior to that I had been taking with a DUI. Now all of that is 5 years ago and more. Due to all of this I went to therapy and rehab. I have been straight ever since. I did spend 24 days in jail, but never had anything to do with drugs or anything.
I just can’t see the possibilities of the border control in Japan being forgiving in my situation?
My dream is really Japan, I read hiragana and would say I am N4 level. I really feel like I want something more for my life, and past 15 years I’d say Japan has been my source of inspiration.
I talked to the embassy about this, wrote them a full document of details about my situation. But finding out that even though the Japanese embassy in Norway grant med permission to a Visa, border control might not.
It’s quite risky just leaving with bunch of suitcases, make arrangement just to be told 180° back please.
Is there something you know I could do that would increase my chances drastically?
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This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**I saved up money to live there for a year, But i have a criminal record**
So title pretty much says it. About 5 years ago I came in a verbal confrontation with my sister and it ended in a bit of a physical scruffle, nothing too serious. However my sis pressed charges and I was found guilty, prior to that I had been taking with a DUI. Now all of that is 5 years ago and more. Due to all of this I went to therapy and rehab. I have been straight ever since. I did spend 24 days in jail, but never had anything to do with drugs or anything.
I just can’t see the possibilities of the border control in Japan being forgiving in my situation?
My dream is really Japan, I read hiragana and would say I am N4 level. I really feel like I want something more for my life, and past 15 years I’d say Japan has been my source of inspiration.
I talked to the embassy about this, wrote them a full document of details about my situation. But finding out that even though the Japanese embassy in Norway grant med permission to a Visa, border control might not.
It’s quite risky just leaving with bunch of suitcases, make arrangement just to be told 180° back please.
Is there something you know I could do that would increase my chances drastically?
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Generally speaking if you’ve been issued a certificate of eligibility and a visa you’re probably good. Yes the ultimate test is during your landing inspection, but if your record was going to be a problem it would have been a problem before the certificate of eligibility was issued.
Whether your record means you’re barred from entering Japan depends on the conviction and what the sentence would be like in Japan. If its a sentence that carries a year or more imprisonment (or the crime is related to drugs or human trafficking) then you can’t come to Japan. But it doesn’t sound like that’s the case for you.
If you’re really worried about it, reach out to a local lawyer to investigate the process for having your criminal record expunged. Its a different process nearly everywhere, and not everywhere even allows you to do it in the first place. But its worth looking into.
For reference, a friend of mine did two years for breaking & entering in Canada, which ended up being the best thing to happen to him. When he got out he went back to school, got a college diploma, decided he wanted to go to Japan, got a legal pardon (which is what it’s called where I’m from), and then did an internship for 6 months at an automobile company near Nagoya.
A couple of things I’d like to point out:
First things first, it sounds like you’re putting the cart before the horse.
When it comes to moving to Japan, the process is to secure a visa *before* you come, so you need to have a language school or a job lined up before you arrive. It’s not quite what you’re asking about, but your comment about leaving with a bunch of suitcases seems to imply that your plan was to go there and try and sort things out. If that’s the case, then for reasons completely separate than what you’re currently concerned about, your dream would be dead in the water, you can’t get a job visa while on a tourist visa.
So, before you worry about whether you’d be let in at the border, sort out your job situation first.
Apply for a job, start *that* process, and then you’ll start the process to apply for a visa within your home country. If *that* process goes smoothly, you’re probably good to go. If you get a visa at that point, it means you’re eligible to live and work and there’s no problem.
Also, as an aside, the JLPT is reading/comprehension test. N4 doesn’t mean, “fairly okay”, it means you’ve passed a test with a specific grammar/vocabulary/and kanji curriculum. N4 is about 300 kanji, so if you don’t know those 300 kanji, and hiragana, and katakana (which you don’t mention), you might not be as close to N4 as you think. If you can flip to the last chapter of Minna no Nihongo Shokyu 2 Honsatsu, and read/understand everything in its entirety, then yes, you’re probably close to N4.
I’m not trying to come down super hard, but I’ve seen a lot of people overestimated which JLPT they could hypothetically pass (“I’ve never taken the test, but I would say I’m around N3 level” by people who would struggle with N4 is a pretty common offender).