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My Banking Card, Part II Monday January 29
So, the Internet Banking Card of Death (tm) finally came in the mail. When it did, I had to go to the website, enter a bunch of hieroglypic looking symbols in strange patterns from the back of this card, register with my full name (which took me four times to figure out they required my middle name), password (which had to have a symbol in it, but apparently "!" doesn't count as a symbol), and a password to unlock your account in the case that you accidentally lock it out by entering the wrong symboled password too many times.
I mean, once I logged in, I guess I sort of understood what the fuss was about: since Japan has that ultra-convenient transfer-between-accounts bit, if you could hack someone's Internet banking account, you could transfer all of their money out. Of course, the bank would know where it went to, but I'm sure there's a way around it (i.e. transfer it to a bogus account, then take it all out in cash immediately afterward).
In totally unrelated news, I had a nabe party over the weekend; I'd call it a mild success. Pictures to follow later in the week.
Japan: God's Experiment in Rubber Stamp Societies Saturday January 20
The following story is actually true. I haven't bothered changing the names, and there are no innocent parties. You probably wouldn't remember the name anyway, because it's so long and ridiculous. There have been so many bank mergers in Japan, but everyone is too proud to give up their name. Thus, my bank is:
Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Bank. UFJ is actually a renamed conglomerate of other banks; but it was bought out by Tokyo-Mitsubishi, which is really just the merger of Tokyo and Mitsubishi banks. Sometimes I hate Japan.
Anyway.
A week before leaving to return to the United States last December, I decided it would be useful to be able to have access to the yen in my Japanese bank account in the United States, in dollars. Probably the most fool-proof method would have been to go to the bank, buy dollars, and take them home with me on the airplane. This method also requires having said cash prior to departure. Which I did not.
Payday is the last day of the month, naturally. By that time, I'd have already been in the United States for over a week, so I was in a jam.
However, one thing that Japan does that is insanely convenient is the ability to transfer funds between bank accounts at any bank in the country, to any other account, via any ATM. Brilliant, except for the $3 fee they charge along with it. I'll let that one go for now.
A company called Lloyd's came along, realizing the need for many foreigners in Japan to get their yen out of the country, as soon as possible. Excess yen in Japan can lead to, for example, excessive stays (who wants one more hour?) at karaoke, riding in taxis that are slower than walking, and paying $7 for fresh strawberries.
The key to saving money in Japan is to not have much to spend in the first place.
Thus, I use Lloyd's to instantly transfer excess payroll money from my Japanese account to my American one, at a small commission fee and exchange rate hit. This transfer, on the Japanese side, is the exact same as transferring money from one Japanese account to another. That's the service; Lloyd's takes care of all of the international wiring garbage. And it's fast (within 12 hours, usually).
Now, I had heard a rumor that one can transfer money between Japanese accounts (and thus, internationally, with my Lloyd's service account) using Internet banking. Yes, for as behind as Japan is on its Internet services, it at least has Internet banking.
I went online to set up Internet banking.
Obstacle number one: the address on my account had not been updated since I moved to Japan. This is my fault, and I accept that I should have had that taken care of. I sat on the phone for 27 minutes, changing my address. Mind you, this is Japan. Service is so excellent that they would never, ever make you wait on hold. All 27 minutes were spent talking to a real, live person.
It's not as if there was any confusion about what I wanted to do, or my new address. Rather, the script that the representative had to read, the excessive polite language, and all of the confirming of my new address require twenty-seven f'n minutes. Are you serious? How is this possible?
Japan is a rubber stamp society.
No, it is the rubber stamp society. And they are relentlessly obsessed with confirming everything. I am living in a society full of obsessive-compulsives who haven't taken their Luvox.
So, I changed my address, and then I started the process for applying for Internet banking. This process didn't take so long, because the representative had all of my information available.
"How will I log in and get started after applying?" I asked.
"We will send you an Internet Direct Banking Card in the mail," she politely responded.
This is the Internet. The whole point is to avoid the postal service? You have already confirmed my identity earlier in the call. Why don't you just e-mail it to me? Whatever. Fine.
"I will be leaving the country in one week for the United States for about two weeks. Is it possible to receive it before that time? Namely, next Friday?"
"It usually takes about 10 days, so you will probably not receive it before leaving," she informs me.
Well, great. There goes the whole idea. But, well, at least now I've applied. As a temporary solution, I gave my girlfriend my ATM card and told her that I'd e-mail her with my PIN number if push came to shove and I ran out of money Stateside (which thanks to my benevolent father did not happen).
When I returned to Japan in early January, there was a stack of mail. One item was from the post office, requesting that I pick up a package that needed to be signed for. It had been delivered the day after I left Japan.
I called up the post office to schedule redelivery (all right, this is an unassailably cool part of Japanese bureacracy, because it actually works), but they told me that they only hold packages for one week before sending them back. They had already sent my Internet banking card back on New Year's Eve.
I called the bank again, and they said that they would automatically resend it to me once more, free of charge. Cool, I'll wait. Also, I was back in Japan, so it wasn't really an issue anymore.
Fast forward two weeks, to when I receive the following notice in the mail today:
"We received your card returned to us in the mail. For security reasons, we have destroyed it. You will need to call us again to have another card issued. Please keep in mind that if you do not call within one month, we will cancel your Internet banking contract, and you will have to set it up again."
Is this for real?
Someone pinch me.
Even a US cell phone carrier couldn't be so ridiculous.
Shinkansen Saturday January 13
So, in December, I'm in the room with my manager and the president of my company, and at the end of my presentation, the president says I should go to our Osaka office and work with them on my project. I kept my game face on, but I really did want to go to Osaka, so it was a nice surprise.
It became a big week at work this week. First week back on the job after vacation, first week in a new position, and first business trip. First time really back on the bullet train this time in Japan.
Since I don't really talk about work on this blog, I'll instead leave you with a short video that I took on the train that attempts to give you an impression of just how damn fast that thing goes.
Touching base Tuesday January 2
I haven't written for awhile; I blame the hubbub of trying to tie loose ends at work before leaving Tokyo for two weeks. Once home, I had a whirlwind tour of the state of Illinois that prevented me from getting good time in front of a PC for over a week.
Right now, I'm staying in the apartment that I stayed in when I was last in Champaign: Sara's apartment on Busey and Illinois that I helped her move into in August 2005. I had all of my things at Foellinger, but sleeping at the Auditorium occasionally bordered on downright creepy (sleeping in large, dark, and old buildings alone), so I opted for Sara's couch. Tonight I'll sleep on that couch again. It's nice to see that that hasn't changed. Champaign, in general, is much as I left it. I will miss seeing a few people, but overall, I have done well.
I made quite a big deal out of "seeing people" this holiday season while in town. I received a lot of kind e-mails from former colleagues, professors, and friends letting me know when I could reach them, and I went as far as to make a daily trip schedule.
The result is that I haven't had a single moment to myself until right now. Tomorrow I will go to Chicago, see Monika, Todd, Eric, and Kate, and finally Nate again at the airport, and then I will be back to Japan. I told relatively few Japan stories this time around while I have been home, and the longer I am here, the less I mention Japan at all. I am usually asked how long I plan on staying there, in which cases it receives some light treatment.
This trip home isn't about "visiting from Japan" at all. It's about touching base, and reconnecting with a former way of life. I threw out a lot of "things" to live overseas, but it's important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Over the last ten years, I've made many mistakes, learned many lessons, and aggregated many experiences to develop as an adolescent into a young adult. Japan represents a very new direction in my career, my life, and my networks, but it does not mean that I can, or should, ignore what I have built up until that time.
Rather, this trip home was very important because it has allowed me to compare the self that I am becoming now with the self that I was sixteen months ago (or longer). In a phrase, I needed to touch base with my old self and old life (although I do not find it to be too far deviant from the current, excepting geography and free time), and that "touch base" enables me to channel (or redirect, if necessary) my energies to be in line with my long-term life goals and value system. Needless to say, continous, relative short-term exposure to a new value system can have a profound effect on what one believes is important, and that must be checked now and again to protect from unnatural deviation.
This is not to say that I do not change the course of my life frequently. I have done this many times before, but the true continuity comes from the self, which has arrived as a result of the layered experiences, both before and after moving to Japan.
As I said above, I have found for the most part that I am still on-par. I am more direct and dominant in conversations than I think I used to be; I found myself slightly less patient. These will be points to watch for, and work on, in 2007.
