Counting Money . . . in Japan!

It's the little things that make countries different.

For instance, it used to be that whenever I got one of those customs forms asking me to declare currency in excess of $10,000, I could never imagine a situation in which a regular, law-abiding person would be carrying that much cash. What would it feel like to know you had that much money in your pocket?

Now I can tell you: it's terrifying, even in a place as safe as Japan.

You see, Japan is a cash economy. They don't use credit cards too often, and small restaurants (read: most restaurants) don't even take them. The withdrawal limit at the ATM isn't $500, it's $5000.

And to go along with all that cash, they have some interesting ways of counting it.

This morning, BoingBoing linked to a video showing the different ways people count money in different places throughout the world. East Asia is the first:


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Indeed, this is the method I've seen Japanese people use for "normal" amounts. But for huge piles of cash, they use a different, much zanier method.


(link)

For the first few seconds, you're completely puzzled as to what they're going to do with that giant fan of money. Maybe wave it around while taunting their enemies? Then it becomes clear that the Japanese have had a lot of practice with this whole counting cash thing.

Of course, when I have to count large stacks of bills (which happens surprisingly often, despite my choice of career), I resort to the much less graceful method of turning a big stack into little stacks of ten - ten being about as high as I can count without getting lost.