FYI, Much Happiness is Choked Up

“Do you want go back to America?” she asked, barely stifling a laugh.

“I want to go to the graveyard,” I replied, wringing sweat from my aching hands.

 

        Yesterday I got my very own bank account! Now I feel like I really exist. Getting a bank account in Japan is a must if you want to get a job and GET PAID. There is no checking system here. Come payday, you don’t get a paycheck from your company. WHAAAAA???

How do you get paid?

How do you pay bills?

Wazzup, Nippon?

All that stuff here is electronic. Automatic deposit, money transfers, etc. It's like The Future here! People still carry little books around that shows their current balance based on deposit and withdrawals and transactions and stuff, but instead of hand-writing the numbers, there is a slot in the bank machines for your book. You put your book in, do your transaction, and take your book back. The machine prints everything on the page for you. Oh, people in Japan still use cash just as much as Americans, just no checks. And if you want to open an account, you might want to learn the language first.

Exhibit A:

I walked into the bank about ten minutes before closing time. The weathered security guard glared directly into my very soul. Yumi and Mom were there, which is good because Mom used to work for a bank. There was some initial trouble when she explained to the teller why we were there. Turns out if you want to get a decent account, you have to have lived in Japan for at least six months. I got here a week ago. So to make sure that I wasn’t going to be the next Drug-Dealing Kingpin Yakuza Boss, they gave me the form for The Most Restricted Bank Account Ever Conceived by Man or God. I can't even get a payday deposit for my future job without my future company paying a large future fee. But that's fine- I'll take what I can get :D

The paperwork was a multi-page form all in Japanese… and I had to be the one to fill it out!!! Gulp. Fortunately, Yumi was able to sit next to me and point and explain and translate. Unfortunately, when I finally filled out the entire form (after much sweating and gnashing of teeth) I was told that I’d filled it out WRONG! In the space that asks for first and last name, I hadn’t put my middle name, as was listed on my foreigner ID card.

(See, Japan doesn’t have middle names, so there are no spaces for them in the paperwork.)

So I tried again. I made another mistake and was told that I had to put my last name first. I got another form and made another mistake. Then another.

It was long after closing time now, and the I was in the process of adding my final stamp to the form. In Japan, there’s a lot of paperwork that you sign with your personal stamp, or inkan. When you go to the bank, for example, you need to carry it with you. If you accept a package delivery at your front door, you use your little inkan stamp. It's a small piece of wood, like a thick pencil a few inches long that comes with a little ink pad and carrying case. 

So with a very cramped hand, I put my final mark on the paperwork. The bank-teller’s head dropped with a grimace. The stamp was not complete- it was missing a little ink in the top corner. I had to start over again. Yumi had been shaking with silent laughter for the last half-hour and finally had to move away from me.

Eventually I drilled a hole in the ink-pad with my little stamp, got it right (after being told that my European 0’s, 1’s, and 7’s were unacceptable but they would let that slide this one time) and I was ready to leave, as was the entire staff. I staggered over to Mom.

“Do you want go back to America?” she asked, barely stifling a laugh.

“I want to go to the graveyard,” I replied, wringing sweat from my aching hands. She then told me that it happens that way at banks all the time...

...with the very elderly.

For all its value in precision, you would think that Japan would pay someone to double-check English spelling, grammar, idioms, etc, when selling products with English on them. We went to the baby store today and I saw this gem of a little girl's shirt:



Pardon me, little girl. Would you happen to be carrying a delicious...OH! Well, it says right there!



 There are some more great things I saw Japan pitching to babies, like this snack especially formulated for your toddler:

                                          Mmmmm...Crispy!!!

You’ve heard of Mickey Mouse? Well apparently he’s a knock-off of this guy:

Miki was there first- says so right there on the package. So it must be true. That Walt Disney, wadda thief!

                              No, It's completely different see cause like this one is made up of a big circle and a couple of small ones for the ears and then just a couple more for the- HEYWAITJUSTAGALLDURNMINUTE!

And in honor of the upcoming October festivities, Japan would like to wish everyone a:

I’ve been finding some of the adjustments here a tad difficult, as expected. So the family came through again and surprised me with this little piece of heaven:

It translates to Peanuts Cream! It’s a little carton of refrigeratable food of THE GODS!!!

(Peanut Butter is an American product for Americans in America, I’ve come to find out.)

 But they gave me a little peanuts cream sandwich- I wish I had a picture of the whole thing but I ate this rarity so fast I couldn’t see straight. Two pieces of white bread, crust removed, then sealed all around the edges to make like a Wonder Bread sort of pita pocket filled with Peanuts “OH-MA-FRICKIN-GOSHNESS” Cream.

I recommend it a little bit.

After much lightning and wind and rain, the storm of the past couple days has passed.

Dang. I liked the rain.

But I hear it’s supposed to rain again tomorrow...

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