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Department stores in the U.S. (At least in Minneapolis) used to ferry payment via baskets on wires from the clerk up to an accounting room where the money was counted, change made, and delivered back to the customer via the same contraption.
Interesting, do you have a source so I could learn more?
Lived in Japan for 8 years and have worked part time in cafes .. The training I got was to leave the money in the tray until you confer the change to the customer. It prevents things like "hang on! I gave you 5000 not 1000!" - the money paid stays in plain sight until the transaction is complete. Shop staff almost never put the money away before you get your change.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"alien" more correctly captures the connotation. "gaijin" is very much a derogatory word. "gaikokujin" (person from a different country) is more neutral.
Gaikokujin is indeed the correct word for foreigner. Gaijin is slang. It's not necessarily used with a derogatory meaning. Also it's important to note that it's mostly used for white people, they'll never call a Chinese or Korean "gaijin" for example.
I think this is incredibly important here. People watch movies like Fast and the Furious and think it's always a bad, derogatory word when that isn't the case at all.
As with many words in our own language, context is incredibly important. Take for example, the English word 'foreigner'.
If I see a guy struggling to read a menu at a restaurant, I may say "Oh, he's probably a foreigner. I'm going to go see if he needs help". That's not a negative or derogatory usage. If I say "I wish those dirty foreigners would just go back to their home country", I've now turned the word into a derogatory one.
This is exactly how the word gaijin is handled. It can be used in a derogatory manner, but it's not inherently derogatory. It can be used in a non-derogatory way. It's a shame so many people get their cultural knowledge from Hollywood movies.
They are also in use in Germany and it never occurred to me that they may not be used all over the world. They are called [Zahl|Wechselgeld][teller|schale] [1] which translates to [paying|change] [plate|bowl]. They can not be found in every shop but probably in the majority. Some people use them, some don't. And it is more common to present the change in them than the payment. The obvious purpose is of course to easi…
come on, this is common in EU..Germany etc, too
Where have you seen this? I've lived in Berlin for six years and I have literally never encountered anything like it.
Genuinely curious now ... if the trays are meant to avoid hand contact, how do things work in drive-thrus there? Fairly common to get some level of hand-contact there when passing around money, credit cards or food bags.
It reminds me though, in fast food places they often have you order by kiosk and then take your receipt to exchange for the food. So there's no (other) human involved in the transaction.
Question: Is money considered "dirty" in Japan? In North America, women keep bills and coins in their purses next to used tissues, and studies have shown that men's wallets have an even higher concentration of bacteria than women's purses. We sit on and, on hot days, sweat on our money all day. Let's face it, the stuff is pretty disgusting. However, if somebody hands you a twenty, your first reaction is usually not,…
Department stores in the U.S. (At least in Minneapolis) used to ferry payment via baskets on wires from the clerk up to an accounting room where the money was counted, change made, and delivered back to the customer via the same contraption.
Question: Is money considered "dirty" in Japan? In North America, women keep bills and coins in their purses next to used tissues, and studies have shown that men's wallets have an even higher concentration of bacteria than women's purses. We sit on and, on hot days, sweat on our money all day. Let's face it, the stuff is pretty disgusting. However, if somebody hands you a twenty, your first reaction is usually not,…
Compare that to the US where I've seen a supermarket teller draw a line with a pen across a bill after accepting it (why?) or people pulling wadded cash balls out of their pockets to pay for a soda at a convenience store.
I don't know what accounts for the difference but I did like the typically crisp and new bills in Japan.