>Recently while visiting Japan, I tried to get a eSIM card...
>... Days and days of problems, hours on the phone. ...
>... I truly thought I was going to go insane. I didn't leave the hotel for 12 hours
All this just because you just had to try to use a US-spec iPhone 14 Pro instead of getting a phone with a real SIM slot. eSim isn't really a thing in Japan yet, or anywhere outside the US, so support is iffy. Dual-SIM phones, OTOH, are normal and common in Asia. You could have saved a ton of time by just buying a 30-day SIM card at the airport like everyone else. The first time I went to Japan, I just bought a SoftBank SIM card at 7Eleven, popped it into my phone, followed the procedure in the instructions, and within an hour I was set.
For people with iPhone 14 Pro phones from the US, the solution is really simple: just use international roaming. If you can afford the top-spec iPhone, you can afford roaming charges.
>The problems were mostly that I had a middle name, which Japanese people apparently never have
No, they don't. Middle names don't exist in Japan, just like names written in Kanji aren't recognized in the US. Foreigners get around it by concatenating the first and middle names, or dropping the middle name altogether.
>like removes the space between your first and middle name when you put both of them into the first name field.
Why would you put a space into a single name field? Japanese names don't have spaces in the middle; they're single words (one each for first and last name).
>For example, I eventually worked out that I must have a credit card which includes...
Or you can just buy a SIM card at the airport with cash or a credit card (paid by scanning so your name doesn't matter).
All this just because you just had to try to use a US-spec iPhone 14 Pro instead of getting a phone with a real SIM slot. eSim isn't really a thing in Japan yet, or anywhere outside the US, so support is iffy. Dual-SIM phones, OTOH, are normal and common in Asia. You could have saved a ton of time by just buying a 30-day SIM card at the airport like everyone else. The first time I went to Japan, I just bought a SoftBank SIM card at 7Eleven, popped it into my phone, followed the procedure in the instructions, and within an hour I was set.
For people with iPhone 14 Pro phones from the US, the solution is really simple: just use international roaming. If you can afford the top-spec iPhone, you can afford roaming charges.
>The problems were mostly that I had a middle name, which Japanese people apparently never have
No, they don't. Middle names don't exist in Japan, just like names written in Kanji aren't recognized in the US. Foreigners get around it by concatenating the first and middle names, or dropping the middle name altogether.
>like removes the space between your first and middle name when you put both of them into the first name field.
Why would you put a space into a single name field? Japanese names don't have spaces in the middle; they're single words (one each for first and last name).
>For example, I eventually worked out that I must have a credit card which includes...
Or you can just buy a SIM card at the airport with cash or a credit card (paid by scanning so your name doesn't matter).