hello kitty bank
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
I needed a new bank account, because the Japanese banking system is .. unique. For one thing, the account I have with a struggling smallish bank doesn't allow me to send money home to Canada. And I need to do that, because I'm paying for our life insurance and our storage unit on the Canadian bank account. Also, we've had trouble sending money from my little bank to the account we had to set up for Ken so that we could transfer money to his school. By "having difficulty" I mean there is no root for us to send money from my bank to Ken's bank. Also, of course, it was "impossible" for me to simply pay Ken's tuition from my own account. So because my son's school does business with a certain megabank, I'm now doing so as well.
I'll miss my little bank, but I've seen some disturbing signs that it might fail again, as it did in the early aughts, so I'm a bit relieved.
Anyway, I had to do today's banking in Japanese which was a challenge. I used a translation service on my phone to read some of the lengthy/crazy bits of the application form. The "English" that that app produced was gibberish unless you'd spent a lifetime in the industry and also were used to having to dig for metaphors and synonyms in this country. E.g. I had to work out that the form was talking about "foreign politically exposed persons" at one point. The "English" I got from my phone didn't even mention "persons"! All's well that ends well, and now I have a bankbook branded with the Hello Kitty design and the words, "HELLO KITTY: Hello! Lovely to meet you! I'm Kitty. I've invited all my best friends to come over and play. Of course, you can come too! Are you free right now?" I'll get a similarly designed cash card. And a separate debit card. I went with Hello Kitty on the one card so I could tell the two cards apart. Why are the cash and debit cards separate in the first place? No idea.
My employers needed me on a call at 10:15, and despite walking in the bank just minutes after 09:00 I didn't make the call. Also, I emerged from the bank to find a warning on my bicycle because I was parked "too close to the station" which was a block away.