Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

With only 2000 yen in my pocket (and to my name), a frighteningly bare fridge interior, an almost empty tank of petrol in my car, a mounting mobile phone bill and a depressing bare spot next to my TV where a Nintendo Gamecube wants to be, anyone would be forgiven for thinking that I needed money very very quickly.

So it’s a Good Thing that I have just been paid, really.

Imagine my state of mouth-foaming euphoria when I went to use the cash machine (to see if I could, or whether it would just laugh at me) to get a balance enquiry and instead of displaying the laughable 0 yen balance I expected, the balance was over 300′000 yen.

Cash Machines in Japan are extremely confusing. The strangest of their attributes to foreigners is that they arent switched on 24 hours a day, and some are even turned off for whole weekends. Why this is the //, I have no idea. I was told that its to avoid situations where there would be no clerk around to help a customer, but I think its just another example of “the Japanese way” that you have to suck up and accept.

Japanese ATMs look fantastically complicated. This is because they are. It is not possible for a foreigner to understand all the functions that a Japanese ATM offers - even trying to do so will make you go insane. There are slots on some of them that I cannot even begin to imagine the purpose of. Japanese people probably watch me sheepishly take money out of the ATM and laugh quietly to themselves, “haha, he has no idea about the magic slot that gives you free money and a handjob, let alone the one that transforms this whole building into a space shuttle”.

Unless you read Kanji, the first time you use a Japanese ATM is an exercise in trial and error. The fear of accidentally wiping out all your funds (somehow. Im sure there is a function for that) is distorted into panic as the shuffles and innocuous grunts of the massive queue forming behind you start to make you feel slightly anxious. You tap merrily away at the screen, being careful not to pause for too long, otherwise you might inadvertently guilt-coax a Japanese person into trying to help you, which would probably end in tears and mutual strangulation. You think to yourself “Ah, that’s the symbol for ‘go out’. I definitely know that one. I don’t know what the 20 symbols before it are though - but Im assuming this means ‘withdrawal’”. Press. Card is returned to you. No money comes out. Put card back in. Repeat ad infinitum with other options, which you notice all have the same symbol.

By the time you come out of your hypnotic state of concentration and actually get your money, all the shops are closed, everyone has gone home and the shutter on the ATM booth has come down, locking you in until Monday morning.

So, since the world of consumerism has just opened up its doors to me, Im going to be getting a few desperately needed things for my house over the next week or so. I need a stereo, as my paper-thin laptop speakers are an insult to the convention of sound as we know it. I need some form of entertainment, so this will either be a big ball of string, or the said Nintendo Gamecube. Also, if I am feeling extremely impulsive, I will buy a couch. The feeling of tatami-on-arse has lost its appeal.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 20th, 2002 at 1:28 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.