post office, money orders, kanji

As an update to my money order adventures, I would like to report that I was able to cash it (with NO fees/charges) at the post office bank! (in Japan the post office is also a bank) The exchange rate is horrible right now though. But it wasn't that difficult to do....since I asked my Japanese coworker to come with me. We had to pick a number, then wait... and wait... then talk to the clerk... then wait while he searched the manual... then talk to him again... then my coworker had to write a bunch of kanji on the back of the money order... then we waited again... and then I got my money! The whole thing took about an hour.

I asked my coworker what she had to write on the money order and she told me that there's some law that says it had to be written and she basically wrote that we agree with the law that says we have to write down what it says in the manual. She asked the clerk why we had to write it, and he didn't know why but it needed to be done. So my coworker and I were wondering why they would make such a law because if foreigners wanted to cash a money order on their own (without any knowledge of Japanese), they wouldn't be able to. She said that the kanji used is even too advanced for jr high school students and the lower grades of high school.

bank service charges

Today I went to the bank to try to deposit an international money order. But after the teller patiently explained to me using hand motions, pictures, and an electronic Japanese-English dictionary that after the bank service charges I would be getting about 1% of the original amount back I decided not to deposit it. Depending on the service charge of the foreign bank I could have even owed money had I decided to deposit it. That's just ridiculous.