Today is the best day of the month for the J-List staff, payday, so I thought I’d write a bit about how payment of salaries and money works in Japan. While most people in the U.S. probably get paid twice a month, receiving a paycheck every second Friday, in Japan payday is always once per month and always on the 25th, or the next business day in cases like today. Since virtually everyone in the country gets paid on the same day, making a trip to Akihabara the weekend after payday is great fun, as everyone has money to buy cool figures and other otaku-related products. The word “paycheck” has no meaning in Japan since there is nothing resembling a personal or company check for issuing payments. Up until the last decade or so, it was common to receive your monthly salary in cash in the form of crisp 10,000 yen notes in a brown envelope, which was really strange to me at first, since Americans rarely touch large amounts of cash like that. Now, of course, nearly all companies have switched to direct deposit of funds to our employee’s bank accounts.
I was shocked to receive my monthly salary in cash when I first arrived in Japan.
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