You've been in Japan too long when, on a visit home, it takes you three tries to write a check. It's funny but true. Japan is a very cash-based society, and there are no such things as using personal checks to pay for goods. On payday, employees at many Japanese companies in Japan get a fat envelope of 10,000 yen notes as their monthly salary, which would be unthinkable in the U.S. A couple of years ago we bought some land in order to expand the J-List facilities, and I remember going to the owner's house to pay them for the land in cash, which was certainly an interesting experience. As a result of this lack of personal checks, foreigners who live in Japan for a long time completely forget how to write them and have to re-learn it every time they go home. When you need to pay for something in Japan, you usually do a direct transfer to their bank account, called furikomi in Japanese. It's inconvenient and the bank fees are high (around $6 to send $200 for some hard drives I bought recently), but that's the system that's used most commonly in Japan.
12 comments:
Aren't credit/debit cards gaining popularity in Japan also? I know most places I've been to in Tokyo accept them. When visit Japan I'm usually using a 60%/40% ratio in credit vs cash in the metropolitan areas. But in the rural areas I had to use all cash because no one accepts anything but that there.
I've heard that nihonjin pay their utility bills at the local convenience store. Is this true for you?
Yes, there are credit cards, although there are also a bunch of wonky non-standard payment systems trying to get market share. Some stupid thing called e-money, and something else that's a prepaid card that you wave at the cash register to use. Nice, but all lacking critical mass so far. Timo, yes, you can also pay at convenience stores. Still, you do it in cash though, to the register and they mark it as paid. That is really convenient...
I find it interesting that the US still uses cheques, I haven't seen one over here in over well over 20 years.
Really? Yes, they're quite common, although they'll evolve no doubt. I love the Visa Check Card for convenience. Are you in the UK?
Cheques are slow disappearing from retail places in the UK. There are signs up in a (large) local supermarket that they are going to stop accepting cheques this month and I think that's one of the last shops to do so.
When I worked in retail about 4-5 years ago, I had maybe 5 cheques in the 2 years I worked there.
Forgot to mention where I am, silly me.
Residing in Sweden.
Ah, you Swedes are always on the cutting edge. I've got a good friend from Sweden and he made some mulled wine (I forgot the name of it, no doubt something Ikea-ish) when I was at his house in New York near Christmas. I guess it makes sense that they disappear, it's such an analog thing to take a piece of paper, deliver it to a bank, wait several days for it to clear, etc.
Indeed, I can actually go weeks without having to touch cash, wonderful feeling.
As for the mulled wine it's called Glögg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gl%C3%B6gg
Cheers!
Yes, that's it. I wonder if the English word "grog" (meaning any kind of liquor) comes from this. Have you seen Star Trek First Contact? I love the joke the human woman makes about the Borg. "Sounds Swedish."
There was general laughter when I saw it in the movietheatre when that scene came along.
As for Grog, in swedish it refers to any sort of mixed drink that has no specific recipe, I can't say what the etymology is for the english version sadly.
Words can be amusing, this came up in speech class the other day: 彼のカレー when another student was to write down what he had heard, he wrote it as: カレーの彼
It's those small things that make a difference no? :)
Yes, that's a tricky one. Also, Curry is からい which is often changed to かれー as slang. Thus you have a double joke there.
There was a song called 私の私の彼は左効き (My boyfriend is left handed), which incidentally was the inspiration for the song My Boyfriend is a Pilot from Macross (the things you learn decades later). A curry company made a commercial with the (first) song, changing it to "My curry is..."
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