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 easily be able to see that the amount is correct while avoiding escaping coins. They also often show ads, nowadays on displays. And nobody moves them around in Germany, they just sit on top of the counter.
Japanese Change Trays
71–80 of 175 posts
Re: Japanese Change Trays
#72Pro tip: if you want to review the correct pronunciation of the word "gai-jin," skip the tray and hand your cash directly to the clerk.
I'd be very surprised if anyone actually said this in front of you, unless you are also being obnoxious in other ways.
Re: Japanese Change Trays
#73Genuinely 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.
Hmm, good question. Part of the answer is that drive-thrus are very rare in Japan. But there's at least one MacDonald's in the city where I live that has a drive-thru, but I've never noticed what they do.
Pizza delivery guys will just pull out your change from a coin purse, though.
Edit: Just remembered that sometimes toll collectors on the highways use them, but not 100% of them, so there's that.
Re: Japanese Change Trays
#74Is it possible that it could be related to change needing to be weighed to be determined legitimate, or simply as a way of measuring the amount? (like paying with gold dust in the Yukon or what have you) Beyond that I can see it being a result of extreme cultural stratification, as the article touches on - that it would be seen as demeaning for a higher-class person to put money directly into the lower-class person's…
Well you hit on a good point, the need to be wary of counterfeit currency. There were disincentives to using gold and silver in daily usage. The golden koban coins (Ryo), as well as silver and brass coins, formed the official Edo period currency. However, the amount of gold used in minting koban declined over time, and there were also regional, unofficially minted koban, so it would have been relatively straightforward to try to create counterfeit koban. In addition, Spanish silver dollars were used unofficially, despite not being the official currency. The actual value of all these coins could fluctuate on a seasonal or even daily basis, and was tied into the price of rice. All of these are reasons to not deal with exchanging metals for daily transactions, hence the prevalence of credit-based transactions.
Re: Japanese Change Trays
#75They 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…
I always assumed their purpose is to minimize touching of the hands between vendor and customer.
Re: Japanese Change Trays
#76There is a much older custom that seems so similar it is hard to imagine that it is not related. When passing an item to someone - say a cup to a house guest - one is traditionally never supposed to hand the item directly to the other person - i.e. never directly from hand to hand. Typically this meant placing the item on a tray (お盆) and offering the item on the tray to the person (or at least placing the item in fro…
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I'm not sure about the origin of the custom, but perhaps the action of taking something out of someone's hand feels too close to taking it forcefully from them - i.e. for the same reason it is considered impolite for two people to hold the same piece of food by chopstick (for example, if passing food between people from chopstick to chopstick).
Isn't the chopstick thing related to funeral rituals?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_funeral
> The relatives pick the bones out of the ashes and transfer them to the urn using large chopsticks or metal picks, two relatives sometimes holding the same bone at the same time with their chopsticks (or, according to some sources, passing the bones from chopsticks to chopsticks). Known as kotsuage (骨揚げ?), this is the only time in Japan when it is proper for two people to hold the same item at the same time with chopsticks. At all other times, holding anything with chopsticks by two people at the same time, or passing an item from chopsticks to chopsticks, will remind all bystanders of the funeral of a close relative and is considered to be a major social faux pas.
Re: Japanese Change Trays
#77They 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…
I always assumed their purpose is to minimize touching of the hands between vendor and customer.
That may of course also play a role especially when handling unpackaged food but then again the money goes through both hands anyway. Most of the time I see people counting the money when they place it there coin by coin. And it makes putting the change back into the wallet easier because you don't end up with a hand full of bills and coins.
Re: Japanese Change Trays
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was called hakujin once, by a very angry man--"iranai, hakujin ga kirai" was the exact greeting. Granted, I was a Mormon missionary knocking on his door to talk spirituality, but out of the thousands of doors I knocked, that one still stands out as pretty spicy. In comparison, gaijin never seemed that bad.
What makes people like you think it's a good idea to go and bother people in their home about your religious beliefs? Many people must find it frightening or just very annoying. Why subject people to that? It doesn't seem nice, let alone Christian.
It strengthens their own beliefs and it also will rarely brings new converts.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11257637/Religi...
> Rachel Underhill, 39, a florist who lives in Peacehaven, East Sussex, was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness before leaving the religion in her twenties
[...]
> We weren’t allowed to make friends with anyone “worldly”, which meant anyone who wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness, or do anything outside the religion, which they called “outside the truth”. It was incredibly isolating. We were brainwashed into thinking all worldly people wanted to abuse us, and this was confirmed every time we knocked on doors to try to convert people – you can’t imagine the damage it does to a child being constantly yelled at to go away.
This is why you might see me arguing against mocking religious people - it does nothing to convert them and may just strengthen their beliefs.
Re: Japanese Change Trays
#79Earlier 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.
When I was in Japan in 2000 my host family made it very clear to me after talking to some Koreans that they were not Japanese.