Money!!!
Pay Day. After not working for over two and a half months this day couldn’t have come any sooner. My translator arrived 5 minutes early and apologized for being late as usual. Knowing there was nothing to do, I asked him to take me to my bank so I could check my balance and withdraw some money. I wasn’t sure how much money I would be getting because I didn’t know how much they were taking out for health insurance, pension plans, and school lunches.
The atm is at my train station so Naoki waited in the car while I waited outside the vestibule. After sweating off 2 gallons of Pocari Sweat (a delicious. Flavorless version of Gatorade) I was able to enter the ATM after the woman had finished. So it’s not just in America where women take hours at an ATM. It must be a global issue. Would it really be so bad to have a male ATM and a female ATM? Guys take about 1 minute to withdraw the necessary funds. Woman take about 20 minutes to check their balance, deposit four checks (separately), buy stamps, transfer money from checking to savings, and another 5 minutes to put all the junk back in their purse.
Anyways, So I finally entered but was dumbfounded when I realized there weren’t any English instructions like the atms at the post office. I had already put my card in, and in fear of sending my entire pay check to some farm worker in Thailand, I opted not to press any buttons. I just waited for the system to time out and spit my card back.
I got in the car and told Naoki that it didn’t have English. He then turned off his car which was running the entire time, got out of the car, then we waiting in line again. After another woman completed her gazillion financial tasks we were able to enter. Naoki told me what all the buttons meant and when we pressed the balance option, to my horror it read 100 yen. I was told the Japanese were efficient! Where was my money? I have already set up accounts with my phone company, water, gas, and electricity to automatically debit my bills.
When we returned to the office I was handed a small envelope filled with cash! Saweeeeet! Money! We drove back to the atm so I could deposit the money. I am now fluent in Japanese ATM language. And yes, turns out there really is a button that sends money to farmers in Thailand.
Here’s a video of my first week in Fukuoka: