The curse of the overpriced, mysterious phone card

Sleep deprived and grumpy, I stomped around my flat. I made some toast and tried to organize my things a bit better. A whole day in Japan to myself and I didn't feel like putting a toe out the door. What was wrong with me?! In the other countries I have traveled, the promise of exploration and new experiences was my cup of coffee, a energizing jolt to shoot me out the door. Japan had the opposite effect, I was scared and wanted to stay in my comfort zone. But out of necessity for contact, I decided to get over this feeling. On the way out the door the day before, my employer tossed this plastic card at me and said I could recharge it at the convenience store. So that was my big mission of the day get a phone card, try to call someone .


I arrived in Japan without a phone and little did I know how difficult it would be! There was a new law passed in Japan that made it extremely hard for foreigners to purchase cell phones here. I suppose enough of them left Japan without paying until the end of there contract, which obviously pissed off the very organized and think-of-everything Japanese cell phone companies, so they decided to get some sort of law passed, to make another loop hole for us 'gaijins'-foreigners to jump through. What you needed to bring into a major cell phone company was *deep breath*: proof of employment, proof of a bank account, your alien registration card (which took 4 weeks for me to get) and a wad of cash. I just didn't get it, back home you throw money in someones face and they are quick to take it and give you something in return...but how very different Japan is!


I had to buy a costly prepaid card to attempt to use at a phone booth. The card cost me ￥2000 or roughly $25 US for 40 minutes of airtime...what a rip! Maybe that was the cell phone companies secret plan, taking advantage of the desperate foreigners spending all there earnings on phone cards, while as an added bonus keeping them out of trouble, because they're too busy confined in a phone booth! I'm onto them!  I was so desperate to talk to my boyfriend or anyone for that matter, even just the recorded operators voice would give me a breath of normality. 


I went to the nearest 7-11 and gave the man behind the counter my card. I wasn't really thinking straight and asked him to recharge the card in English (its usually a pet peeve of mine when people speak English to a stranger in a country that isn't English speaking and people do it in such a condescending  way-there not going to understand you even if you speak very slowly and loudly!). The man behind the counter, wasn't Japanese, so maybe I just thought for a second I was back home (no excuse tut tut). He was a very nice Indian man and stamped my card, took my money and handed me the card back. Hmm ok this didn't make sense. He had stamped some card the card with no password, scratch here pin and then took my money and it's just supposed to work. This was a loose card, that anyone could have picked up. The man's English wasn't great and once I started trying to explain my confusion in how the card worked, the language barrier widened. The man claimed to have never seen this kind of card before, but then scanned it in. I was undoubtedly suspicious that I had just handed a man ￥2000 for nothing! The situation quickly escalated, I said I wanted my money back and shoved the card back at him. He said he couldn't do this and he was now sure that the card worked and maybe he had seen one or two like this before. Anyways the polite, but flustered clerk (as I'm sure an encounter of this kind rarely happens in Japan and  if it does it is most likely with a rude foreigner) said he would show me on his cell phone. 


So we walked outside and he pressed a bunch of buttons and a Japanese woman said some words. I wasn't convinced, the paranoia had kicked in. I asked him to type in a long distance number-I gave him my boyfriends. It rang a few times, then went to an answering machine. Ok I was convinced, but then the guilt kicked in with my somewhat harsh demeanor with this innocent man. He seemed unharmed and I thanked him. He then randomly pulled out a pen and wrote down his phone number and said for me to call him if I had any problems. The guilt vanished, I didn't feel bad about my harshness, now that it seemed a lame pickup attempt was being tried on me. I glared warily back at him trying to read if it was skeezy or if he was just that nice. Well whatever! I had my phone card out of it and would most likely never see that man again.  I'm still a little confused about how the card works but I guess you can never know it all-and Japan is a good place to start in realizing that!