Miles from Home

Reflections on Life as a Half-Japanese Person Navigating Culture, Identity, and Bureaucracy

Introduction: Being a Half-Japanese in Japan

It’s been about three months since I moved back to Japan and started living the everyday routine here. I thought I’d share some reflections, not from the perspective of a foreigner in Japan (there’s already plenty of that online), but as someone who is half-Japanese.

The “foreigner in Japan” narrative is well-trodden, and honestly, sometimes it feels a bit oversimplified. (Side note: if you’re abroad in Japan, stop calling yourself gaijin. It’s not cute, it’s literally insulting. Gaikokujin works better, and it helps me not get called it. Words do matter.)

Being half-japanese sits in this weird, niche in-between space, and navigating it is a unique experience that doesn’t get talked about enough online. Probably because if you’re not half, you probably don’t see it.

What Does “Half” Mean in Japan?

In Japan, the term hāfu (ハーフ) usually refers to someone with one Japanese parent and one non-Japanese parent. It’s a loaded word. Hāfu celebrities and TV personalities are often praised for their looks, but the term can also carry undertones of “you’ll never be fully one of us.” Us being Japanese, just in case that wasn’t obvious.

There’s this quiet but constant sense of being asked to prove where you belong, and it shows up in ways both subtle and absurd.

Day-to-Day Reality of Being Half-Japanese

On the surface, blending in seems easy enough. I look Japanese “enough” that tourists think I’m a local and stop me for directions. But to Japanese people, I look “foreign” enough to get the head tilt, the curious stare, or the inevitable question: “So where are you really from?”

When I meet new people, they’re often shocked to learn that I was born in Yokosuka and didn’t speak English as a first language—even when I’m speaking to them in perfect Japanese. If I didn’t look the way I do, no one would even question me being raised here.

It’s an odd kind of whiplash. In the US, I was “the Japanese one.” Back in Japan, I’m “the foreign one.” This in-between-ness follows me everywhere, and it makes simple things, like filing out forms or introducing myself, slightly more complicated than they should be.

Surviving Bureaucracy: City Hall Adventures

Take City Hall, for example. When I initially moved to Yokosuka, before eventually relocating to Kobe, I had to reregister my address. The City Hall staff weren’t entirely sure what to do with me. I’d been gone for nine years, and since I hold both American and Japanese citizenship, the question was: log me as a foreigner, or as Japanese?

Half the staff argued for the foreign resident system. The other half insisted I belonged in the Japanese system, since I’m on a koseki, the family registry that literally proves Japanese nationality. (You’d think the system itself would have done the talking, but apparently not.)

I stood there with both passports in my bag, watching the debate escalate, at one point I think it even reached the mayor. Forty-five minutes later, a staff member finally cut through the absurdity:

If she has a koseki, and we log her as a foreigner, we’re literally stripping the rights of a Japanese citizen. Aren’t we here to serve Japanese citizens?”

Thanks to him, I was finally filed correctly. My dual identity had survived bureaucracy—just barely. It wasn’t hostile, just awkward—and a little funny that my being half-Japanese almost erased the fact that I am, legally and culturally, fully Japanese and have been for nearly 30 years.

Reflections on Identity as a Half-Japanese Person

The challenges aren’t always overt; it’s rarely about outright exclusion. More often, it’s the micro-moments of identity friction. Whether it’s people complimenting my Japanese even though it’s my native language, or assuming I prefer Western food over traditional Japanese cuisine, being half-Japanese means constantly being read by others, often before I even open my mouth.

At the same time, there’s a gift in it. I have two cultural toolkits to pull from. I get to slip between worlds, to notice things that might feel invisible to someone fully on one side or the other. That duality can be tiring, but it’s also empowering. It forces me to define my own sense of belonging instead of letting someone else define it for me. It was definitely hard to get to this conclusion and I’ve had my ups and downs because of it, but in the end, I don’t mind this title as much as I did years ago.

Closing: Being Half, Fully Me

Being half-Japanese in Japan is a paradox: both belong and not belonging, blending in and standing out. It’s not always easy but it’s uniquely mine. If you’re half and reading this, especially if you’re navigating Japan, just know that your story doesn’t have to fit neatly into Japanese expectations.

After all, half doesn’t mean less. It means more than one.