In America there are plenty of slots for credit/debit cards because, hey, it's how we life; cash is for suckers! Things are different in Japan where cash is literally king.
While there are slots to carry things like your ID and ATM card, there is much more room for cash and most wallets even have a coin purse. It may sound strange for an adult to need a pouch to carry around change, but there is more change in Japan.
An American penny is the same as a Japanese yen; an American nickel is the same as a 5 yen coin; a dime, a 10 yen coin and so on. The difference comes in when you hit a dollar bill (100 cents), in Japan they have a 100 yen coin and in America the five dollar bill is equal to the 500 yen coin. The Japanese don't start using paper money until they hit 1,000 yen or ten dollars. So you can see how important pocket change is in Japan and how easily you can collect a large number of coins.
As a result, a men's wallet in Japan gets very bulky, very quickly. It is for this reason that many men don't carry their wallet in their pants pockets and in their backpacks instead. It is just a tough habit for me to break and I still carry my wallet in my pants, maybe someday I'll change. With my luck it will be right before I move back to America and on my first day back get my wallet stolen by some clever pickpocket (pick backpack?) but until then..
"No, that's not a wallet in my pocket, I was just checking out your zettai ryouiki."
Didn't I just say that?
Ah yea! In the anime's girls have multicolored wallets while the guys have solid colors! Did you that in the school cafeterias all students have to pay to get food? But there's also two types! Regular lunch food then the sandwich depot where its first come first serve! :3 but the food is cheap. Usually about 10-30 yen unlike the restaurants o.o
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school in the US (back in the stone age) I had to pay for my lunch and man, did it stink. Crazy thing about school in Japan are the skirts that the girls have to wear. They are SO short, just like in anime and manga, I was really surprised because I thought that anime exaggerated how short the skirts were, but it's accurate!
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