When I was in Turkey a few months ago I talked about having money problems regarding my UK credit card being rejected. I never bothered sorting out that card as I was hoping to get a Japanese credit card which would be far more useful to me as I’ve got money here and the yen goes way much further now than its ever done in my lifetime.

Having spent a good half hour going through the usual Japanese red tape at SMBC (the Japanese bank I’m with) I waited expectedly for a letter in the following weeks. However, when it did arrive it was bad news and there was some letter saying I’d been rejected which obviously p*ssed me off immensly. Non-Japanese residents reading this may also be shocked but you really shouldn’t be as this kind of thing is part of being a foreigner here where there’s seemingly one rule for them and one rule for us.

I can understand that there have been many foreigners here who have ran off and left Japan without paying their debts but given that I provided them with all kinds of information (including my workplace information) and am completely up-to-date with my residence tax it is very frustrating to have not been given one. This annoyance is further highlighted by the fact that other people have seemingly been given a credit card without fuss. Maybe I’ll just have to try with a different company. On the other hand I do know of guys who are married to Japanese and whathaveyounot but have still been denied a credit card. All this is just typical of the Japanese system and the endless admin involved with most things. Rant over.