{"id":1217,"date":"2005-09-27T17:55:05","date_gmt":"2005-09-27T08:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2005-10-08T12:37:38","modified_gmt":"2005-10-08T03:37:38","slug":"records-of-three-years-of-bank-dealing-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/09\/27\/records-of-three-years-of-bank-dealing-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Records of three years of bank dealing in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Dave, <strong>3 days after Landing<\/strong>, attempting to convey to a befuddled bank clerk that the damn ATM outside refuses to take his US card (conversation transcribed to English for clarity purposes): <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;<em>Me<\/em>&#8230; <em>money<\/em>&#8230; <em>want<\/em>&#8230; <em>money<\/em>&#8230; <em>please<\/em>&#8230;&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Ten months and <strong>twenty full pages of Japanese phrasebook later<\/strong>: trying to open a bank account in order to cash my first paycheck. After literally half-a-dozen fruitless attempts, I find <em>one<\/em> bank (<acronym title=\"Mizuho\">\u307f\u305a\u307b<\/acronym>, if you must know) that doesn&#8217;t mind the fact that I have: 1) no relatives born within 50 miles of the branch, 2) not been living a few decades on the island, 3) no <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hanko_%28stamp%29\">inkan<\/a> emblazoned with my kanji name and 4) a suspiciously pale skin color, compared to the local shade in fashion. I am not about to ask if they have multilingual staff on the premises. <\/p>\n<p>In Japan, whenever a foreigner steps into a business asking for service, it is customary for staff to hastily draw straws. Failing that, they seek the one employee who has foreign country&#8217;s experience (usually a one-week honeymoon in Thailand). Failing that, they send the youngest trainee with instructions to commit seppuku if things get out of hand.<\/p>\n<p> Two hours, many outdated Japanese-English dictionaries and one slightly rattled employee later, I have a Japanese bank account. It only took us 40 minutes to figure how to spell my name in katakana. It will only take me a few more months to figure out how to <strong>withdraw<\/strong> money from it.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Three years later<\/strong>: &#8220;Hi, I just lost my cash card in Paris, need to change my two-year out-of-date address, make a bank transfer (without my card) and, oh yea, gimme 50,000 yens in cash, by the way that&#8217;s a lovely necklace you got here. kthanx.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Somehow even ended up with her personal phone number on the back of my checkbook.<\/p>\n<p>This language thing is becoming way too easy, high time to leave the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Dave, 3 days after Landing, attempting to convey to a befuddled bank clerk that the damn ATM outside refuses to take his US card (conversation transcribed to English for clarity purposes): &#8220;Me&#8230; money&#8230; want&#8230; money&#8230; please&#8230;&#8221; Ten months and twenty full pages of Japanese phrasebook later: trying to open a bank account in order [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,14,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan","category-life","category-25"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}