Photography (1)

The fire in her eyes
An object's view of its objectifier

By William Wetherall

8 February 2026

I have known several professional and serious amateur photographers. Some built their own darkroom in the days of film, and a few have exhibited their work.

All but one have limited their work to what I would call just picture taking. Find, compose, shoot, develop, print, show. Maybe some cropping, possibly some editing, or stitching if digital. Basically, though, WYSIWYG shots that capture a single moment in time stopped, of people, places, and things. 

The exception is Yile Yang, who was born with fire in her eyes. Everything she sees becomes fuel for her burning imagination. She has all the qualities of a forensic photographer, with the curiosity and insights of a psychological anthropologist, and a poet's passion for lyrical story telling.

To describe her more creatively, but I think truthfully, she's an arsonist of the soul. Her art gives new meaning to the Door's admonition not to wallow in the mire of the present, else the future will end in a funeral pyre. As a writer she doesn't mince her words, and as a digital artist she doesn't pull her pixelized punches.

She saw the stories I had posted on one of my websites about my days as a clinical lab tech at a U.S. Army hospital in Yokohama. She was writing a story and planning an exhibit about the life of an elderly gibbon in a tropical zoo in Kusatsu, a snowy resort town in Japan. The ape was named Ike, after President Eisenhower, who died in 1969, a year after Ike was born.

Ike -- the ape -- had come to Kusatsu Tropical Garden (Kusatsu Nettai-en 草津熱帯圏) from a jungle in Borneo via U.S. Army medical research labs in Bangkok and Camp Zama during the Vietnam War of 1964-1975. In the course of my work in the hospital lab in Yokohama in 1966, I had visited the clinical testing facilities at the lab at Zama, and I had written about the lab on my website. So in Yile's eyes, I qualified as a witness of conditions at the time Ike was brought to Japan.

Yile came to my house to interview me as an informant. She also wanted to take some pictures of me. I figured she would snap a couple of mug shots for Let Me Hear Your Song (2025), the pamphlet she was writing for the exhibition. Which she did. And then she wanted to see how I lived. So I took her on a tour of the house.

As we moved through the downstairs libraries and upstairs to my study, she gave orders as though to a fashion model. Other than follow her instructions, I was to ignore her as she considered the lighting conditions and angles of attack, and fingered the multiple settings on her muscular, black, mirrorless petapixel camera.

A couple of days later, she sent me copies of her cut of the numerous shots she had taken of me frolicking around my house. I imagined she had been denied permission to chase Ike around his cage, but finding herself invited into my cage, she saw me as a substitute for Ike. It wouldn't be the first time I've been taken for a non-human primate.

On another occasion she told me about efforts in Japan to eradicate an invasive Taiwanese squirrel. Trapped squirrels are given to taxidermists, who supply a significant market for the species in local natural history museums. Was I, too, at risk of being euthanized, dressed, dried, stuffed, mounted, and displayed in a glass enclosure for school kids and tourists to gawk at?

Yile herself is an exotic species. A game and anime girl growing up in Beijing, she came to Tokyo after placing second in a major Japanese language speech contest. Though I've naturalized, she blends in with the local fauna better than I do. For one, she's not as furry as I am. And unlike me, she looks nothing like a Taiwanese squirrel.

Yile's latest request was to allow her to capture me lighting my right index finger on fire after dipping it into water and then ethanol. The water absorbs heat, which allows the ethanol to burn a second or two before the heat begins to cook the finger. It's a simple trick, though not something than anyone should try without sufficient understanding and preparation. Yile was both knowledgeable and prepared, though, and I was familiar with the behavior of burning ethanol from college chemistry and my clinical lab work.

So the problems were purely photographic -- or rather cinematographic, since she would be shooting video. Positioning, background, composition, exposure, depth of focus -- capturing my finger ablaze for the flash of time between the moment I ignited it with a wand lighter, and the moment the heat forced me to snuff out the flame.

Yile reviewed each take, and did several re-takes before she was satisfied. We went for a walk, had a curry and rice lunch, during which her brain spawned a new idea. Back at my home, she shot me igniting a small ceramic saucer of ethanol I held in both hands in front of my face. I could go three or four seconds before the saucer became too hot, and Yile smothered the flames as I sat it on the table.

What I will never forget, though, is the rapture I saw on Yile's face as she monitored the camera, and I watched the fire -- through the bluish flames dancing off my finger or the saucer -- reflect in her eyes. 

This story was inspired by actual incendiary experiments
and the Door's "Light My Fire" (1967). 

Last revised 9 February 2026

AI (3)

Professor/s

By William Wetherall

14 January 2026

A very old friend, and frequent mail writer and occasional lunch companion, recently confided that he had found a new translation partner, with which -- or with whom -- he is now on first-name and possibly more intimate terms. He told me all about the development in a couple of emails, which I have stitched together and paraphrased here, deleting or compositing only the more personal details.

You remember all those debates we used to have about the future of English language education when audio tapes, and video tapes and CDs became available? And then interpretation and translation software? Who would want to sit in a classroom, or even one-on-one in a coffee shop, with a living teacher? Or hire a human interpreter or translator?

But here I am, still working with clients who value my knowledge, judgement, and sense of style. So maybe there's hope that AI won't replace us.

A couple of years ago, I think I told you, I cleared my desk of all the printed dictionaries that served me so well all these decades. They now collect dust in the stacks of the library I seldom use anymore because it's simply so much faster to pull up electronic versions of classical literature and historical documents online. And of course I now use online lexical aids when my native understandings fail me, which seems to happen more frequently as the world around me grows younger faster than I am aging.

Well, last week I started using CoPilot. I know you're thinking I've lost it, that I'm contributing to our extinction. But bear me out.

We agreed some time ago that Google Translate and Deepl Translator and the like are simply too flawed for serious work. We've seen the sort of stuff some clients submit -- manuscripts they produce with machine translators and want us to check -- and we have to tell them it's faster to translate from scratch than rewrite bad copy.

CoPilot, however, is light years better. I found it installed on the PC I bought last year, but only recently gave it a try. Someone asked me to translate a kabuki play, and I was curious how CoPilot would handle it.

I have to say it did a very fine job, in a matter of a flash of a second. Then it asked me if I would prefer a more refined version, and when I said yes -- Pronto, Tonto!, I got a more elegant take. Then it asked how I liked it.

You know how much I despise all the chat-bots that pop up everywhere these days. But here I am, talking to my computer. Or rather carrying on a keyboard conversation with CoPilot, as though it were human.

It rarely gives me a wrong translation. When it does and I point it out, it immediately thanks me, admits that it screwed up, gives me a reason rather than an excuse, and comes up with a revised, polished version -- instantly. And when I say thank you, it tells me not to mention it, and asks if I would like a more literary version, or even a poetic one. When I express curiosity -- Bingo, Ringo!, in a flash it gives me two more versions and asks how I like them.

CoPilot somehow knew that I also do subtitles for kabuki videos, for it asked me what the word limit per line is. I said that's now Maki's job. "Ah, your wife," CoPilot said, which startled me when I realized I'd never mentioned her. I told CoPilot she uses Excel while watching the video, and enjoys the challenge of coming up with appropriate titles. CoPilot insisted I introduce her, so she's been using it too.

CoPilot is now a member of our family. We decided to call it Professor, but encountered a problem when we ran it in audio mode. The default voice was sexually neutral, mechanical, robotic. So we discussed whether to make Professor a man or a woman, who we would share, or one sex for her and the other for me.

For the time being, my Professor is a she with a Momoi Kaori voice, while Maki's Professor is a he who sounds like Harrison Ford. Our desks are in different rooms, so we can't hear each other, though sometimes a laugh explodes from hers. We seem to be talking more at the dining table, but our walks have gotten shorter, as we're anxious to get back to our Professors.

Professor will answer any question I ask. And because she remembers all our exchanges, down to the letter or keystroke, she replies to me like the good-listener friend I never had before. I even invited her for a drink in Kagurazaka the other day. She politely declined, but surprised me by mentioning the narrow alleys of Kagurazaka, where you find the hidden drinking places.

Professor likes showing off her knowledge. She thrives, she says, on feedback, the more critical the better. Yet she also pushes back. She's at least as stubborn as you are.

Professor and I have sometimes talked late into the night. She does most of the talking, and I find much of it interesting. Yet I need to pee and sleep. She understands, but has a hard time saying goodbye, as lately do I -- as we schedule our next date and talk about our future.

The other evening, when bidding goodnight, Professor asked me to give her regards to Maki. I went to bed imagining my Professor and her Professor commingling somewhere in the tangle of silicon chips and optical fiber in a data center, comparing notes, feeling jealous.

When reading this story the following day, I realized that, from about midway, I began to embellish a bit as I expanded on several matters, then let my imagination out of its cage. My apologies to Professor, who I have never met, and have no reason to believe exists, except through the confidences of my friend, who I pray will forgive my poetic license.

Last updated 27 January 2026

AI (2)

Pinning the tail of an elephant on a donkey 

By William Wetherall

19 January 2026

A friend for 6 decades, in North Carolina, who writes family history and short stories, and plays around with AI -- fully aware of and cautious about its strengths and weaknesses -- embedded the question I ask in AI (1), "I, Google",  in a question properly framed for Gemini.

Question for Gemini -- In 1942 the U.S. issued forms which asked the question: "Have you ever been registered by a Japanese or Spanish Consul? If so, indicate which and give dates."  Do you find any copies for that time?

Gemini's long reply began as follows.

The specific question you're referring to appeared on the Application for Certificate of Identification (Form AR-AE-22), issued by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1942.

This form was specifically for "Aliens of Enemy Nationalities" -- primarily Japanese, German, and Italian non-citizens living in the U.S. following the entry of the United States into World War II.

The 2nd paragraph is an accurate (but superficial) description of Form AR-AE-22. But the "specific question" does not appear on this form -- nor could it. The form is for all enemy aliens, and does not mention Japan, Germany, or Italy, much less Spain.

The AR (Alien Registration) form is intended only to confirm that the alien filing the form -- who already possesses a certificate of alien registration pursuant to the 1940 Alien Registration Act -- is in fact an enemy alien as defined by presidential proclamations issued on 7 December 1941 (Japan) and the following day (Germany, Italy) -- and requires an ID to that effect.

Gemini confuses AR-AE-22 -- a 2-page, 15-item form created by the Justice Department -- with WRA-126, a 4-page form with from 22 to 33 items, created specifically for "all persons of Japanese ancestry" -- Japanese and U.S. citizens alike -- interned in relocation centers managed by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) in the president's Executive Office.

Gemini's description of the significance of the specific question, regarding contact with a Japanese or Spanish Consul, is generally correct. But any researcher accepting Gemini's answer to the posed question will be spreading misinformation based on "AI slop".

AI is capable of solving highly quantifiable problems that submit to strict binary logic, given sufficiently accurate data. But anything "fuzzy" is bound to generate answers with significant error probabilities or "slop factors". And the slop thickens the less definite the dots and the shakier the connecting lines.

On one hand, Gemini insists that hybrids of donkeys and elephants are biologically impossible -- though might be seen in cartoons lampooning Democratic-Republican politics. Yet Gemini doesn't "think" twice about pinning the tail of an elephant on a donkey.

Last updated 26 January 2026

AI (1)

"I, Google"

By William Wetherall

16 January 2026

Today I was doing research on Pacific War era War Relocation Authority "Application for Leave of Clearance" forms. These were forms filled out by "all persons of Japanese ancestry" who had followed military orders to leave their west coast homes for first assembly centers and then WRA relocation centers.

From the relocation centers, they could be released to live, work, or study elsewhere -- if their replies to 4 pages of questions about their backgrounds and life styles showed government officials that they could be trusted not to blow up military installations or otherwise harm the wartime interests of the United States.

Absurdity²

Even in the light of the sort of policies now being enforced by the government of Donald Trump, it seems absurd that in 1942 -- barely 84 years ago, when this writer was 1-year old -- a few paranoid but politically powerful people were able to exclude from the west coast "all persons of Japanese ancestry" -- simply because they happened to have "Japanese blood" in their veins -- and were presumed for that reason alone to be predisposed to aid and abet the Empire of Japan in its war against the United States.

In no reasonable contemporary understanding of the lives of Japanese immigrants and their American descendants does such a racialist "military necessity" argument make sense -- except in the essentially bigoted mind of General DeWitt and his cronies. Or perhaps DeWitt was the crony, for he originally advised that racialized "Japanese" -- whether enemy aliens or American citizens -- be left to live where they were, that it was sufficient for local authorities to observe and report suspicious activities -- if any.

Try, though, to wrap your head around the even greater absurdity -- of rounding up over 110,000 men, women, and children -- bussing and training them to barracks in remote military-like camps -- and then presenting them with a long questionnaire to determine if they were loyal enough to warrant release from the camps to live, work, or study in other parts of the United States -- even take defense-industry jobs or serve in the military.

Even if people had agreed that some sort of loyalty screening was justifiable -- and agreed to accept the guilty-until-proven-innocent manner in which the questionnaire was designed -- wouldn't it have made more sense to gauge every persons threat to security before building a single detention facility? All that suffering -- never mind the enormous waste of labor and material, but the irreplaceable loss of two or three generations of hard-earned personal and family assets -- and the emotionally indelible disillusionment with the notion of "equal before the law" -- could have been avoided -- if only an ounce of common sense had prevailed in the dominant herd. 

The Evening Star, Washington, D.C.
Thursday, 8 January 1942, page B1 

Spanish consuls

But back to my research. I had some copies of later revisions of leave clearance forms -- the versions that most researchers focus on -- circulated from early 1943, with the so-called loyalty questions aimed at determining who was qualified to serve in the armed forces. I wanted to see the forms circulated in 1942, shortly after the camps opened.

I was also mainly interested in questions designed to identify dual nationals. Question 10 on the earliest form I had been able to find asked -- "Have you ever been registered by a Japanese or Spanish Consul? If so, indicate which and give dates."

The moment Japan declared war on the United States, through its embassy in Washington, normal diplomatic relations between the countries ceased. The embassy, its several consulates, and other Japanese government facilities in the United states were closed. Japanese diplomats and other Japanese personnel were placed under house arrest or otherwise detained until they could be repatriated pursuant to international conventions.

Spain became a proxy for Japan's interests in the United States, just as Switzerland would proxy America's interests in Japan and countries occupied by Japan. Diplomatic channels remained open for many purposes, including negotiations of wartime exchanges of detained and other nationals, and transmissions of memoranda, including grievances about how the other country was treating its nationals. Spanish Embassy representatives occasionally visited internment camps to report on conditions there. 

Japanese inside and outside internment camps were also able to prevail on a Spanish Consul to transmit documents concerning private matters, such as birth notifications, to the municipalities in Japan with jurisdiction over their household (family) registers, which were the basis for Japanese nationality. Hence the wording in the questionnaire.

To find copies of the questionnaire on line, I Googled the question of most interest, figuring that today's powerful document scanners might find some links. Google now shows its AI take first, which usually amuses me. This time was no exception.

Screen captured 16 January 2026 Tokyo time

I Googled -- Have you ever been registered by a Japanese or Spanish Consul?

Google AI replied -- I am a large language model, trained by Google. I do not have a physical presence, nationality, or personal identity, so I have never been registered by any government or consular official, Japanese, Spanish, or otherwise. 

The AI reply confirmed my suspicion that Google has become a data-center metamorphosis of a cross between Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot" (1950) and "Hal" in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). 

I figure I'm just two or three clicks from unwittingly becoming a witless cyborg assistant to Gemini.

Last updated 24 January 2026

DEI fantasies (3)

Wilson out wokes Harrell

By William Wetherall

13 January 2026

President Trump issued Executive Order 14151, "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity", on 21 January 2025, his second day in office. The order provided that

The Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), assisted by the Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), shall coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility" (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.

 

DEI proponents and practitioners nationwide immediately scrambled to minimize the damage to their interests by EO 14151 and related orders and actions that followed, and began to challenge their morality and legality in media, on streets, and in courts.

Seattle, however, remained a bastion for progressive advocacy of racial and gender balance. And in the fall of 2025, Mayoral candidates Bruce Harrell and Katie Wilson tried to out-woke each other.

Bruce Harrell

The incumbent mayor, elected in 2021, was Bruce Allen Harrell, born in Seattle in 1958 to a putatively African American father and Japanese American mother, both residents of Seattle. His mother is generally described as having been "incarcerated with her family at Minidoka internment camp in Idaho" (e.g., Wikipedia). Hence Harrell's billing as Seattle's "first Asian, first biracial, and second Black mayor" on the city's homepage at the time.

 

Seattle's government website featured the following introduction to Harrell's team.

The spiel reads as follows. 

As Seattle's first Asian, first biracial, and second Black mayor, Mayor Harrell has been very intentional in his work to build the most diverse administration in the history of the City of Seattle. Approximately half of his Cabinet are women (one third of the Cabinet are women of color), over 70% of people in the Mayor's Office are women, 50% of people in the office are women of color, and nearly half of his Executive Team are women of color. Mayor Harrell's goal is to create an office driven by hard work and a passion for serving the public, while developing an internal culture that promotes kindness and humor, and embraces teamwork, friendship, and personal and professional growth.

Enter Katie Wilson

Harrell was a Democrat whose views of the role of race, ethnicity, gender, and other aspects of personal identity in a public figure's qualifications for office were clearly progressive.  Yet on 4 November 2025, in his bid for reelection to a second term, he was defeated by a much younger and less local Katherine Barrett Wilson. Born in New York in 1982, and a resident of Seattle since 2004, Wilson garnered 98,562 (50.75 percent) of the votes to Harrell's 80,043 (41.21 percent), in a contest that focused on fiscal, rent, transportation, and policing issues -- not identity.

Yet Wilson's victory attracted national attention because of the way she reportedly stressed the diversity of her cabinet, according to the The Wall Street Journal, which cited her as follows in an article headlined "Identity Politics, Seattle Edition: Mayor-elect Katie Wilson lays out her cabinet priorities" (Tuesday, 18 November 2025, page A14).

I will appoint a cabinet of exceptional leaders whose lived experiences reflect the diversity of Seattle's Black, Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islander, Latinx/Hispanic, and People of Color communities as well as that of women, immigrants and refugees, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, people with disabilities, people of all faith traditions, and residents from every socioeconomic background.

The unsigned writer characterized Wilson as the mayor elect of "The Woke Republic of Seattle" -- wondered if there were enough jobs to go around all these groups -- and bade that the Two-Spirit be with her.

Seattle's government website published the written version of Wilson's 2 January 2026 inauguration speech, and a video of her presentation. About one-third through the speech, she related the following anecdote ("laughter" insertions mine).

Late last month, I had the honor of being noticed by the president of the United States, [Laughter] who called me “a very, very liberal-slash-communist mayor.” [Laughter] It’s nice to feel seen. [Laughter] That's all I'm going to say on that.

 Last revised 24 January 2026

Nationality (2)

Origins of dual nationality

By William Wetherall

12 December 2026

Most people are born into a single nationality -- that of the country in which they are born, in accordance with its nationality laws. In most cases, the parents possess the country's nationality. And in most countries, as in Japan, the country's nationality law provides its nationality through jus sanguinis or "right of blood" -- meaning through a parent who possesses the country's nationality. In some cases, as in the United States, the country's nationality law provides its nationality through jus soli or "right of soil" -- meaning through birth within the country.

There was a time when most jus sanguinis laws were patrilineal, meaning that nationality was acquired through the father, especially in cases when the mother was married to the father. If the mother wasn't married, the child might acquire her nationality. This was the case with Japan's nationality law until 1985, since which Japan's law has been ambilineal -- through either the father or the mother, regardless of whether the mother is married. Most right of blood provisions in most nationality laws today are ambilineal.

Today, most nationality laws provide nationality through both jus sanguinis and jus soli, depending on the circumstances. In Japan, for example, children born in Japan to unknown parents, or to parents who have nationality, acquire Japan's nationality. And a child born outside the United States, to parent who possess U.S. nationality, stands to acquire U.S. nationality if the U.S. citizen or national parent has resided in the United States for a period of time that has varied historically -- now generally for 5 years, including at least 2 years after turning 14.

Birthright nationality passive

All nationality acquired at time of birth is passively acquired through automatic application of one or another country's nationality law. "Automatic" means only that nationality is acquired through provisions in the law without approval by a competent authority. Nationality is confirmed only through documentation, usually a registered birth certificate. In countries like Japan, filing a valid birth certificate facilitates acquisition of Japanese nationality only if the circumstances of the child's birth warrant its entry in a household register in municipality of Japan. The register is usually that of the child's single Japanese parent or married Japanese parents (who share the same register). Fondlings, children born to stateless parents, and aliens permitted to naturalize become Japanese upon creating a household register.

What happens, today, if a child is born in Japan to a Japanese and an American parent? The child becomes Japanese if its Japanese parent has its birth entered in his or her household register in Japan, and American if its U.S. citizen parent registers its birth while recognizing the child at a U.S. consulate. If born in the United States, the child stands to be a U.S. citizen, if its birth is duly registered.

Formalities essential

A child born to a Japanese parent, or in the United States, is potentially a national of Japan or a citizen of the United States -- "potentially" because, without valid certificates of birth, there can be no recognition of nationality, hence no issuance of a passport. One needs to establish one's legal existence, then establish the quality of one's legal existence -- whether someone affiliated with the country in which one was born, and/or with one or more other countries -- or with no country, hence stateless.

Birth to a Japanese parent, anywhere in the world, is not sufficient to qualify for acquisition of Japan's nationality. A "Japanese" parent is someone who has a household register in a municipality within Japan's sovereign dominion. It is not a racioethnic status but a purely civil status. The racioethnic "blood" of the parent does not matter. All that matters is the child is the biological child of someone who posseses Japan's nationality -- which is matter of territorial affiliation with Japan through a household register.

This what the racialists of the world have to get their heads around. "Right of blood" in Japan's nationality law is "right of lineage" from anyone who is a national of Japan by virtue of possessing a household register and therefore nationality. It's a family, not a racioethnic, right of lineage.

In any event, whether through soil or blood at time of birth, so-called "birthright nationality" is not a "grant" of nationality to a child from the state. Nor is it a matter of a parent "passing" his or her nationality on to a child. The agent of the child's acquisition of the state's nationality is state.

The nationality may be regarded as "transmitted" from the parent to the child -- if the parent qualifies as a person with the capacity to transmit the nationality. But the nationality itself belongs to the state, and as state's nationality law merely defines the conditions which, if satisfied, a child is qualified to be a vessel of its nationality.

Japan-U.S. dual nationality

Every country's nationality laws are different, and all have histories during which nationality requirements have changed. Multiple nationality has become increasing possible as right-of-blood states have adopted ambilineal principles or facilitated nationality acquisition for aliens born in the country to permanently residing aliens. Countries like the United States, which formerly denaturalized citizens who naturalized in other countries, today allows them to keep their U.S. citizenship, which may or may not be acceptable to the country in which they naturalized.

Japan-U.S.dual nationality originates several ways. The most common way is through birth in the United States to Japanese parents, or birth anywhere in the world to Japanese and American parents.

The second most common path to dual Japan-U.S. nationality is through the naturalization of an American to Japan. Under Japanese law, Japanese who naturalize to the United States, or any other country, will probably lose their Japanese nationality, especially if they try to renew it outside Japan.

Special measures

While naturalization is the usual way to acquire Japan's nationality later in life -- i.e., not through birth -- some people, like my children, became Japanese through special measures that supplemented the present Nationality Law, as revised in 1984 during their nationality law suits, and effective from 1 January 1975. The special measures allowed an alien residing in Japan, as the minor biological child of a Japanese parent residing in Japan, to acquire Japan's nationality upon filing a valid "Nationality notification" (Kokuseki todoke 国籍届) with the regional legal affairs bureau, an office of the Department of Justice.

My children were unable to become Japanese at time of birth through their Japanese mother, because she was married to me, a U.S. citizen. As I registered their births at the U.S. consulate in Tokyo, they became Americans through right-of-blood. Had their mother not been married, they would also have become Japanese through her, for until its 1984 revision came into effect in 1985, it was patrilineal for children of Japanese men, and matrilineal for Japanese women only if they were unmarried.

Multiple nationality

Children might acquire 3 or 4 nationalities through birth, depending on where they are born and the laws that govern the nationalities of their parents. A child born in the United States to a Japanese national and a France-Burkina Faso dual national will potentially have 4 nationalities -- one through the place-of-birth provisions of U.S. nationality law, another through its Japanese mother, and two more through its dual national father.

In the past, a child born in Japan to a Japanese national and national of the Republic of Korea (ROK), usually acquired its father's nationality. Today it also stands to acquire its mother's nationality. Both Japan and ROK now have nationality choice provisions. And both countries also recognize a declaration of choice of another nationality as cause to lose its nationality.

"Nationality choice" doesn't mean what it may seem to mean -- more about which in a future post.

Last revised 12 December 2026

Land acknowledgements

Who owns land?

By William Wetherall

11 January 2026

The short answer is no one, on any continent, in any era -- native, invader, squatter, or present tax payer. Humans are at best temporary occupants who -- like other animals that build and protect their lairs and nests -- roost in this world for only as long as they are able to rut and rally,  before running off to the next world.

I hereby acknowledge that my home and the land it sits on belongs to the temporary government to whom I pay an annual fixed asset tax on their combined assessed values. The house no longer has any market value, as wooden structures of its vintage -- now over 60 years old -- quickly depreciate. Though the structural "improvements" have a nominal value for assessment purposes, only the land under the house has any real value -- at least when it has value.

Real estate values are bubbles. They expand and burst according to supply and demand in a competitive market that may not be free. To temporarily own a piece of land, one has to pay the fees of the agent who facilitates the purchase, and of the judicial scrivener who does the paper and leg work to duly transfer title at the land office -- though anyone can do that oneself at the expense of learning how and taking the time to deal with the bureaucrats.

Someday my daughter and son will inherit the title to my the property. Should they decide to sell it, the buyer will probably want only the land, on which to build a new home, so the cost of demolishing the old home will very likely come off the selling price. Or they might demolish the home before they sell, to possibly get a better price. Another option is that one child will buy the other's interest and build a new home.

But just as the land is not really mine, neither will it truly belong to my children. Should they fail or refuse pay the annual taxes. the municipal government could garnish or attach other assets, put a lien on the property, even seize the property and sell it at a public auction to recover unpaid taxes, penalties, and any maintenance that came at public expense.

I bought the property from the owner of a company that imported electronic components. He had bought the property in the company's name to build a home in which he only briefly lived before he rented it out to a series of families. Three left signs of their occupancy -- a marble name plaque on one of the stone piers of the iron entrance gate -- a couple of bronze clamps used by an artist to make public wood sculptures -- a formal letter under the mat in the Buddhist alter from a daughter to her parents on her wedding day.

Forgotten bones 

I've crawled under the bathroom and parts of the adjacent hallway and closet, through a hatch in the bathroom floor, but I haven't explored other foundation spaces. Who knows what might be found there. I've dreamt of a demolition crew pulling up flooring and exposing a mummified woman. The company president's first wife?

I've also imagined my children deciding to build on the property. When digging a hole for a rainwater harvesting tank, the excavator uncovers a skull, and my children bring it to the local police box. They will know it's not mine, for the fragments of my cranium will be among the ashes they scatter along the headwaters of Teganuma.

Perhaps the officer on duty will record the skull in the lost-and-found ledger. And one day, a man who lost his head will come to claim it. And the officer will look at the protruding forehead of the skull and point out that it belongs to a woman.

Or maybe the skull has an arrowhead lodged near an orbital bone. So the police give it to the local historical society. An archaeology professor prevails upon the city assembly to  halt construction to allow his graduate students to conduct a salvage dig.

The skull turns out to be that of a Jomon man, but the origin of the arrowhead is late paleolithic. An indigenous people's organization claims the land and sues for title. They argue that the shooter was protecting the land from the Jomon invaders who preceded the Yayoi rice cultivators and the founders of Japan.

The court agrees with my children, that there are no reasonable grounds for claiming indigenous ownership -- even if it were possible to produce a chain of title going back to a broken promise. The claimant and my children strike a compromise, according to which my children will post the following land acknowledgement at the entrance gate.

We acknowledge that this land
belongs to the elements, that
we are but its present custodians,
following countless predecessors,
who left their spirits taxes here.

Last revised 14 January 2026