September 07, 2021 · 9 min read
Recently, I read "Why is the salaryman carrying a surfboard?" by Ray Masaki. It's a great read and it reminded me of some of the bullshit bureaucracy I had to deal with as a non-Japanese person living in Japan.
Japan is known for being convenient with its convenience stores, trains and infrastructure, but there's a lot of inconveniences as a non-Japanese when dealing with something that revolves around you fitting in the system.
We all heard of the difficulties of renting an apartment as a non-Japanese. When I talked to a local Japanese lease agent a few years ago, he said it's easier if you are White to rent an apartment. If the landlord know that you're Black, Chinese or Southeast Asian, you will be in the higher risk of the meiwaku (causing trouble) scale. He told me since I am a Canadian citizen and speak Japanese, I should be fine. I still don't know what the hell that means till this day except that I have a certain privilege over other groups of people.
There's also very specific rules to the surname you take when you marry in Japan. If the two are both Japanese citizens, they are not allowed separate surnames. One of them will have to change their surnames. In my case, my wife is Japanese and since I am a non-Japanese, she is able to keep her surname. In the event that a Japanese and a non-Japanese have a kid, the kid must follow the Japanese person's last name. So if I wanted to change my kid's name to my last name, it can only be changed via a family court proceeding.
Anyways, there's a lot of discussion out there on the racial or gender discrimination that happens in Japan, but today I want to talk about discrimination towards people who have a legal name in Japan that uses alphabets and on top of that have a long name.
Before I go into the long name part, I want to talk about the questionable User Experience (UX) decisions made in certain apps.
UX in Japanese websites can be hell if you do not have a kanji name in the account registration/linking process. For example when filling in your legal name with an English keyboard input, apps like Paypay can error out and give you a warning to use "full-width alphabet characters", which I tweeted about here. This can happen to phone numbers as well. Basically some sites require all inputs to be "full-width." If for whatever reason it must be in full-width, the app should convert it for me, instead of expecting me to know how to use a Japanese keyboard to type "full-width alphabet characters." Most people who don't know what that means end up giving up on the registering process.
I have an Amazon Prime account in Japan, and when I login a web browser, I can see my purchased Kindle books and can watch Prime Video. On iOS though, if I login the Kindle app, it shows that I have not purchased any books. If I login the Prime Video app, it asks me to start a 30 day trial with Amazon Prime. What the fuck? I called support and they didn't know why. My iOS language setting was in English, so I tried changing it to Japanese and relogined. Lo and behold, my books showed up on Kindle, and I can use Prime Video fine again. It's mind boggling that your account is determined by not only your email and password, but your iOS language setting as well. Amazon is discrimating against a whole chunk of users, who don't use Japanese as their default iOS language.
Coincheck is a Japanese crypto currency exchange app. My partner, who is Japanese was able to verify her identity using her Driver's License when registering for an account. But for some reason I wasn't given that option in the app. If you check their page here, it clearly states that you can use your Driver's License as a document. Is it because my iPhone language is set to English, so the app assumes I don't have a Driver's License? It makes no sense.
Anyways I finish taking photos of myself and my other documents and I got an error that it cannot verify my document using their garbage verifier. Apparently my partner failed on that section too. But it asks you to redo the whole photo taking process but this time, it allows you to submit it without "instant" verification. Why couldn't it have allowed the submission of docs without the instant verification if it couldn't verify the docs the first time around? It makes no sense.
I managed to submit my application and then a few hours later, an email comes back saying my full name in Katakana is missing a space between my surname and first name so I had to resubmit my application again.
■登録の氏名（フルネーム）と、カナ氏名は、姓と名の間に「スペース」の入力が必要です。
例）氏名：Coin Taro
カナ氏名：コイン タロウ
修正のうえ再度申請してください。I've been using Coincheck's English interface the entire time and they sent me this email in Japanese, which is a little confusing. I go back to check the app wondering what they meant and saw that the input for a full name was a single input field. Usually the surname and first name are separate input fields. I'm wondering why aren't they separate, then you wouldn't need to expect the user to add a space themselves. Worst part? I had to retake all the photos again even though the error was on the name input field unrelated to the photos. The name input happens in the step before doc submission. Technically speaking, before transitioning to the doc submission page, they could have told me my full name was missing a space. Why must I submit the application, wait several hours to a day, just for them to tell me something they could have told me during the application process? The UX make's no sense!
When you fill out forms for certain things like a tax return in Western civilization, you've probably encountered fields that are lined up in squares where a single character can only fit in a single square. The name field will usually have lavish pool of squares except when you're in Japan. They don't expect you to have names that are long. Since my name couldn't fit in the limited set of squares, they made me write the remaining characters outside the square and put my 印鑑 (stamp) beside it to prove I made that change. It is a minor thing but it is a lack of consideration for users who don't have Japanese names.
This year, I created an SBI Securities (brokerage) account so that I can create my NISA, an equivalent to a TFSA if you're from Canada. My account was successfully created, but when I received my account details and login credentials, I noticed that a few characters were shaved off my legal full name. Hoping it was a typo, I called them to confirm and apparently, there is a 17 character limit to a full name using the alphabet. So in SBI's system, my record doesn't have the last few letters of my first name.
Imagine if your surname was Smith and your first name was Alice Christy. Smith is 5 characters. Alice Christy is 13 characters if you include the space between Alice and Christy. The space between your surname and first name does not count towards the limit, so your total character usage would be 5 + 13 = 18. Since the limit is 17, that means the name would be registered as Smith Alice Christ. Christ! I know eh.
Anyways back to my call with SBI's support team. Naturally, I was like are you kidding me, can you tell your Engineers to fix the character limit or trim off the spaces in my first name, so that it fits the 17 character limit and obviously, they said they couldn't do anything about it. And then I proceeded to question them how am I suppose to transfer money from my bank to SBI since the legal name does not match. Support told me, "Unfortunately, people in your scenario will run into bank transfer errors due to the name mismatch and you must call us when that happens so that we can allow the transfer to go through." If I don't call SBI, the money will stay in limbo and I'll have to call my bank to cancel the transfer and get charged a penalty for a bounced transaction. I reply by saying, "I'm guessing it's the same when I transfer money out from SBI back to the bank?" Support goes, "Yes, you will have to call us then too." I'm thinking because of a limitation on your side, I have to jump through all these hoops with the anxiety that a transfer would bounce?
Support continues with, "You can fix the account holder name mismatch issue by getting your bank to shave off the characters in your name to match SBI." I was speechless.
SBI has this thing called 即時入金 (Instant Transfer), which allows you to transfer money from your bank to SBI through SBI's dashboard incurring no fees. Our conversation above was in regards to Instant Transfer. Support continues, "If you don't want to call us each time a transfer error happens when you use SBI's 即時入金, you can always do a transfer from your bank's e-banking service directly instead, since you can specify the name of the recipient, but it will incur a transfer fee unfortunately."
I am not sure why there is a 17 character limit, but I didn't want to deal with this inaneness so I called Rakuten Securities Account Creation Customer Support, the main competitor to SBI. My first question was, "What is the character limit for a full name in English?" Even though I couldn't see the expression of the dude on duty, I could tell he had the "Who asks this kinda question?" kinda face. He said, "Sorry let me confirm," and keeps me on hold for two to three minutes, then told me the answer I didn't want to hear. "Sir, it's 17 characters." I asked him why, and he told me an excuse like "Only 17 characters can fit in the letter head so anything longer needs to be shortened." I proceed to tell him that it would lead to bank transfer errors due to a name mismatch and he told me that I will have to call them when that happens, same with SBI Securities. "Anyways, please do not mind the character limit and create an account with us!" I hung up fuming but after saying 検討させていただきます, which means to let me think about it politely.
Both SBI and Rakuten are "name with more than 17 character peeps aren't welcome." Is there a term that can describe that? Is it racism? Namism? Upon googling Namism, Urban Dictionary spits out "A type of prejudice against people in which the namist believes that all people with the same name share the same traits." No that ain't it. I give up. Why can't people with a longer name invest in Japan peacefully without all the bureaucratic bullshit? Who'd have thought an outdated character limit rule could cause so much anxiety?