You’re Nothing But A Number

Japan has fallen upon the big brother idea of giving all people living on its shaking islands a number. The story is adequately called “my number” or in Japanese-katakana English: mai nanba-

I have no clue what the practical use of this thing is supposed to be. They say it will simplify some bureaucratic shit, but at the moment it’s nothing but increasing bureaucratic shit and on top of that an excellent governmental tool to control its citizens and spy on them. The most unbelievable of the “my number” usages is that you need to register it with your bank and need to state it in the future if you want to make bigger international money transfers. WTF… I don’t want the government to know what I do with my hard earned money, damn it…

Anyway, everybody who lives in Japan for more than a year (I believe) already got the bloody number on a flimsy piece of paper. You could order a plastic card, which is what I did, and received a written notice that I can pick it up from the ward office responsible for my address some time in March. I couldn’t simply go there, but had to call them and make an appointment, which was only some two months after I received the notice. Ridiculous.

So, finally, my appointment for picking up the damned thing had arrived and I went to the ward office. Arrived there my appointment had apparently slipped through the registration net… pffffffff… first major mishap.

They made me wait for a bloody half hour and then the card’s expiration date was wrong because I got the original “my number” on the flimsy paper in January or so and in February my visa status changed from limited to permanent. So the official dude vanished again in the depths of his papers and needed another bloody half hour for writing onto the card that the expiration date is different.

In the meantime you have to think of several security codes for the card and input them into a computer system (now how secure is that, I wonder). The official dude was citing computer trouble for why it took so long to take care of me as one of his lame excuses.

So I spent an entire hour in that bloody ward office for a card that I don’t want… Needless to say that I got angry at them and told them what a crap this all is… I know it’s not their fault either but the incompetency, rule-stickiness and idiocy of such officials just drives me through the roof.

I felt very sorry for an old gentleman, over 80 for sure, who was going through the process parallel to me and he stood bewildered in front of those computer screens. Security codes? Input? Where? What for? How? What? The old guy was totally confused and didn’t seem very computer literate in the first place. Another official dude treated the poor guy like an idiot while explaining to him what he had to do with the computer.

Now I’ve got this stupid card that I will try to avoid using if ever possible… but my company has it already and my bank will get it if I don’t find another way to send money to Germany to feed my private retirement fund… big brother is watching you! No thanks! And greetings from the country of bewildering bureaucracy or was it bureaucrazy?