Home > Focus on Japan 2014 > The Gaijin Tax?

The Gaijin Tax?

April 19th, 2015

A few years ago, I went to Akihabara and tried to buy some cables at a shop there. The four cables I got were in boxes with prices clearly marked; the total was ¥500 ($4.20). The guy at the counter tried to charge me ¥1380 ($11.60). I later realized that my dress was different—I probably looked more like a tourist, so they probably figured that I would pay without question.

At the time, I was pretty shocked; this really had not happened to me much in Japan. It happened in Europe when I visited, like the bakery counter lady in Athens who crassly gave me way too little in change, and when I complained, she took it back and gave me even less. I never imagined that happening in Japan.

However, I have noticed that recently, clerks “accidentally” make “mistakes” with me quite often.

Just the other day, Sachi and I went to a local burger joint, and got a standard lunch set each. There was nothing on the menu more than a thousand yen (less than ten bucks). Even the beer I ordered only cost a few dollars when swapped out for the drink that came with the lunch set. So, for two people, the total should never be more than, say, ¥3000. Even that’s a bit high.

So when I went to pay, I was rather shocked that the total was more than ¥5500 (about $50). The restaurant guy, who had served us and knew that there was only the two of us and we had not ordered anything special, had rung up the total, announced it to me, and then stood there waiting for me to pay.

The thing is, the amount was so far off it stood out like a sore thumb—like going to McDonald’s, ordering two Big Macs, and getting asked to pay $25.

This guy was not a newbie, we’ve seen him since last year; he maybe even owns the place. The total should have immediately stood out to him as incorrect, more than it did to me. But it took me to give him a puzzled expression—for several seconds, no less—before he caught the “mistake.” I put that in quotes because, frankly, I don’t think it was a mistake.

The thing is, after this happened, I began to recall other similar incidents over the past few years. I always just discounted them as errors, and maybe in fact they were—but the thing is, they are happening with increasing frequency, and are typically not minor overcharges. Several times, mostly at restaurants but also at other shops, I have had to check the tally carefully when I am given a total that seems suspiciously high. So much so that I now almost reflexively check my receipts, even when the total doesn’t seem unusually high.

Generally, I am beginning to get the feeling that this is a “gaijin” thing—something that’s happening because I’m a foreigner here. If so, it is relatively new; this never happened with such frequency before. (Although I would be interested to hear if Japanese people get the same thing as often as I do.)

I’m not counting the trivial stuff, like the conbini that gave me a 100-won coin instead of a 100-yen coin in my change (the Korean coin is worth 1/10th the Japanese currency), or whoever it was at McDonald’s giving me a single patty in a double burger. Just the times when the amount I am asked for is significantly over the total I am supposed to pay.

In Japan, when they give you change, it is (or at least used to be) customary for them to politely ask you to check the change to make sure it is accurate. I never really used to do that because it was always right. Now, I don’t hear them saying that as much—and I’m checking the change a lot more now.

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  1. Troy
    April 19th, 2015 at 15:41 | #1

    Japan’s per-capita real GDP has risen 8X since the postwar:


    but per the graph most of that growth happened before 1990.

    Mebbe the past 25 years of grinding deflationary pressure is slowly making people more crooked . . .

  2. Troy
    April 20th, 2015 at 05:40 | #2

    (wow, that graph is really something. Since 1990 Japan has managed to boost real per-capita GDP up just one $4,000 bracket, while they made that same $4,000 jump TWICE each decade 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and of course moving eg. from $8,000 in 1964 to $12,000 in the late 60s was a 50% rise in incomes, much more than the 15% rise of 1990-now.)


    is a graph with US, China and India too, showing China is now where Japan was in the early-mid 60s — seems about right.

    US sure powered away from Japan in the 1990s — but in the Japan as #1 / The Japan That Can Say No era, Japan was sure closing the gap!

    I think the rise in US GDP has a lot to do with our colossal trade deficits with China, Japan, Mexico etc. We’ve gotten a lot of ‘free’ stuff basically that helps our productivity since it depresses the materials cost of our goods-producing and distributing sector, leaving profits that look like productivity.

    Plus we are a lot more productive now than 1990, thanks to PCs, the internet, cell phones, etc etc, not to forget 25 years of incremental process improvements as we learn how to do business more efficiently.

  3. Troy
    April 22nd, 2015 at 07:25 | #3

    Re: my Macintosh situation, man it’s tough!

    The only thing keeping me sane is knowing Apple has to update the rest of the line (15″ MBP, iMac, Mini) with Broadwell, and WWDC is a good time to announce something.

    The 2008 MBP died in December, making my 24″ LCD display unusable, but I just got a DisplayPort -> DVI dongle that’s working pretty good on my Windows 10 box for me now.

    I’ve been combing over Apple’s product ranges; Apple is pretty clever with the pricing structures, making it silly to get an iMac when I’ve already got a perfectly good 24″ display to put into use again.

    That would reduce my options to a Mini or laptop, since the Pro Tube is just ridiculous at $3000. The 15″ MBP will be pretty much overkill I guess, the new GPUs would be nice but not $2500 nice.

    What with how great the iPad Air 2 is, maybe I don’t need a laptop at all any more, so just getting a Mini would suffice.

    If Apple does what I think they’ll do, the Broadwell update is going to be utterly incremental over Haswell — maybe 10% better CPU and graphics performance, since it’s just a process shrink (and the Minis don’t care about ‘battery life’), but the big news with 2015 is NVMe PCIe 3.0 4x SSD — this is FINALLY going mainstream. Apple had SSD a long time ago with the Air, and PCIe 3.0 with last year’s stuff, but NVMe is the final modernization. Not sure how significant NVMe is but it’s worth waiting for I guess. Nice junking one of x86’s legacy hobbles at least!


    I’m working in Unity this month and next anyway, so don’t really need a Mac for much. Targetting my project for the rumored Apple TV with AppStore! I’ve been waiting *decades* for this one!

  4. Tim
    April 23rd, 2015 at 11:28 | #4

    This sort of thing never happens to me in Korea. Perhaps it makes a difference that they perceive me to be an American and America stands between them and N.Korea, China and Japan. I have friends who believe that helps Americans to be treated well here. Perhaps.

    I almost always pay with a bank card because I don’t like change, coins are almost like lost money (short term, anyway). They get thrown into a bucket.

    I did go to various points in Kyushu in February. I didn’t see any of that kind of behavior. People treated me great there too. Maybe this is a Tokyo (or Big City) phenomenon as well?

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