We talk about money, cash, credit, employment (and what’s considered a
“real” job), and other money-related topics as they happen in Japan and the US.

Transcript

K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about money.

C: Yeah?

K: Yeah.

C: Like money?

K: (laughs) I was actually thinking of the song “money changes everything.”

C: Uh-huh.

K: And I think it’s by Cyndi Lauper, but that’s not actually the topic I’m
thinking of, but when I said “lately I’ve been thinking about money” I was
thinking of – I can’t sing it, so I’m not going to sing it, but money changes
everything.

C: Okay. So, we’re not going to make our money off of your recording of
that.

K: (laughs)

C: So, what are you thinking about money?

K: So, I was thinking about how in the United States, if I walked around
with a hundred bucks in my… wallet, that that was a large sum of money to walk
around with. And that I would never deliberately or intentionally walk around
with a hundred-dollar bill because no place would break a hundred-dollar bill.
Like, there’s signs everywhere “we cannot break a hundred-dollar bill.” And, in
Japan, there has been times when I, and I’m not proud of this because Japan’s
an all cash society, there have ben times that I’ve bought gum that was like
under what would be a U.S. dollar with a hundred-dollar bill. And I used to
apologize for that when I first came here. Like if I spend under twenty
dollars, under ni sen, which is 2000. Which is about 20 U.S. dollars depending
on the exchange rate. 

C: Yeah, it’s varied from 25 to… 18 U.S. dollars in the time we’ve been
here.

K: Yeah, so if I didn’t spend that, and I gave someone a hundred-dollar
bill, which is a man en bill – ichi man, which is ten thousand – then I should
apologize. And I would feel so incredibly guilty about it. And they would look
at me like “what are you talking about? You’re being drama.”

C: Right.

K: Because people walk – people walk around in Japan with hundreds of
dollars in their wallet. It’s really common to walk around with five hundred
dollars in your wallet in Japan.

C: Yeah, I was thinking about pizza delivery in the U.S. – if you needed ten
dollars back in change, they’d be like “I don’t really care that much change.”

K: Yeah. Because they didn’t want to get robbed. 

C: Right. Exactly. And I got a delivery her the other day, and the guy,
like… tiny old guy, right?

K: Mhm.

C: Should have been – not should have been, I don’t hurt anybody – but
size-wise

K: In the U.S. would have been terrified.

C: Visibly opens up his change things and displays to me, not like “look at
this” but just not concerned that I should see it, that he’s got basically a
thousand dollars in various bills there to make change for people because he’s
doing COD orders. 

K: I never understood robbing pizza delivery people. They’re coming to your house.

C: They know where you live. 

K: Yeah. Like, you’re going to get busted. So, how’s that working out?

C: I’m not sure.

K: Like, who’s the person that’s like “yeah, please commit a crime in my
home.”

C: Right? I don’t like the concept of robbery in general. Thievery, I’m not
a big fan of it; I understand theft for necessity, but I think that that’s
actually a sign of broken society. A whole other thing about money, but robbing
people just… don’t. There’s so

K: Oh, come on babe, we digress.

C: It’s so easy to just steal money, why rob people?

K: (laughs)

C: Saying this, I have never even shoplifted. Like, all of my brothers were
banned from the local drug store when we were growing up because they had been
caught shoplifting multiple times. And I wasn’t just never caught I never
actually did