作為一個外國人，你可能很難在日本東京的NIHONBASHI商業區獲得現金。
上周在東京時，我一連試了好幾個ATM。頭兩個不接受我的美國借記卡，第三個成功了但給我吐的是設計非常漂亮的1萬日元大額紙幣，上面是有點憂鬱的東京大學學者和創始人福澤諭吉。
我需要現金，因為日本小商小販喜歡現金。韓國幾乎所有交易和中國大部分交易都是無現金形式，但約80%的日本零售交易依然使用現金。這是因為在日本實體的金錢是生活不可缺少的一部分。
金錢是文化事物，在日本尤其如此。日本有個叫otoshidama 的傳統，孩子新年可以得到包在小小的可愛的信封裡的一小筆現金，這些信封叫pochiert bunuro。
日本國際大學全球交流中心研究者Mihoko Sayurai說"我們以前非常期待得到那些小信封。"她還說現金感覺更加安全更加心安。過節或者進行慶祝應該有禮物，日本人通常會將舊的紙幣換成嶄新的沒有摺痕的紙幣。
不使用現金不一定會加快貿易速度，因為日本零售商非常非常善於結算零錢。Sayurai說："我們相信日本的收銀員會輕鬆完成準確的找零工作。她在美國讀的碩士，她說美國收銀員結算現金能力不怎麼樣。日本國際大學教授Soichiro Takagi說："付現金比等劃卡快多了。"
紙幣的觸感、日本收銀員找零的能力還有現金在日本人生活中的各種象徵意義都很重要。此外，日本顧客也十分理解小商販抵制現金的理由：他們知道如果接受銀行卡支付，那商販就要付給發卡機構3%的處理費。Takagi說："我們關心商販，所以我們寧願付現金。"
2018年，3000萬前往日本的外國人肯定已經注意到，禮節和尊重在日本十分重要。
同時，看著中國行動支付的迅猛崛起，相隔不遠的新加坡和香港也決定開始快速推動無現金轉型。韓國已經轉型了20年，比如用信用卡支付可以享受減稅以及要求所有公司企業每年至少2萬美元通過無現金方式接受。現在韓國計劃2020年前完全實現無現金社會，先開始逐步停止鑄造硬幣。日本離韓國只有600千米不到，而且在科技方面向來領先一步。但目前日本的文化還沒有準備好接受無現金社會。
當然日本也有廣泛使用的無現金支付系統。比如很多東京零售商店和交通系統都接受預付智能內部晶片卡（PASMO和Suica IC卡）支付。Sayurai說它們受歡迎的原因是它們不用綁定銀行卡；本質上獨立，用戶也沒有透支的風險。但要充值這些晶片卡，你需要……現金。日本的計程車幾年前才開始接受信用卡，一些依然堅持用現金。上周我每一次打車，我都要和司機交流一番，用手比劃出卡的形狀並且點很多頭以確保司機接受刷卡支付。
網上納稅也不方便。2016年開始，日本向每人發放了國家ID，每人有個獨有的12位號碼，名為"我的號碼"。但取得一張實體的上面印著你號碼的卡並不是強制措施；這個號碼目前沒有綁定太多東西；只有約一半的日本人真的有張實體ID卡。如果想在網上報稅，你需要申請實體ID卡並且買一個讀卡器。你上傳報稅表和你的身份卡掃描件後，稅務局就會列印出來然後將紙質版存放許多年。
目前，日本正進行著一場角力，可能會改變以上的格局：日本政府正推動無現金社會以使經濟更加消費者友善並增加生產力。政府考慮給從中小型企業無現金購買產品和服務的提供2-5%的商品價格返利。
政府的政策中有一些不協調之處：日本政府同時也打算提高2%的消費稅（向客戶"消費"的產品和商品徵稅），而且上述返利不是現金而是給消費者卡上"積分"。然後信用卡公司根據自己的政策來兌現這些積分。這將給日本年齡較大的貧窮人口帶來大量負面影響，他們更可能受消費稅的影響而且更不可能有信用卡。
無論短期內日本政府的政策有什麼效果，他們似乎並不想進行真正的結構性轉型。日本政府運作數位化程度不高，納稅和使用模擬進程交通的複雜依然會存在。這些計劃的統稱"無現金願景"更多只是個口號。Mihoko Sayurai之前在挪威住過好幾年，從來沒有使用過現金。去年秋天她回到日本後，她發現總是需要帶現金。我問她她認為日本政府是不是在推動無現金轉型，畢竟充值交通卡還有納稅都那麼複雜麻煩。她說她認為日本政府的目標是近期的2020年東京將舉辦的夏季奧運會。政府已經注意到外國人在日本獲得現金有多麼困難。（我跑好幾個ATM這種事情並非單例。）日本希望來奧運會的外國人能夠更加方便地購買更多商品，而不用揣著大帶現金走來走去。
但為此的努力現在遇到現存體系的阻撓，很多問題還是文化上的。比如Nihonbashi的大橋和高速公路重疊，很多日本人都支持拆除高速公路。他們不擔心堵車，他們只想要那座古老美麗的大橋回歸。
IN NIHONBASHI, A business district of Tokyo named for an old, beautiful bridge that has been obscured by an expressway, it is very difficult for a foreigner to get cash. When I was in Tokyo last week to give a talk, the first two ATM machines I tried refused to cooperate with my American debit cards. The third one worked, giving me large, beautifully designed ￥10,000 bills featuring a dot portrait of a somewhat glum Yukichi Fukuzawa, scholar and founder of Keio University.
I needed cash, because Japanese retailers love cash. At a time when almost all transactions in South Korea and most sales in China are cashless, about 80 percent of Japanese retail sales are in cash. That’s because in Japan physical money is a deeply felt part of life.
Money is cultural, especially in Japan, where a tradition called otoshidama requires that children get small amounts of cash on New Year's Day in adorable little envelopes called pochi bukuro. "We used to look forward so much to getting those envelopes," Mihoko Sayurai, a researcher at the Center for Global Communications at the International University of Japan, told me. Cash feels safer and more secure, she added. For gifts marking ceremonies and celebrations, Japanese people routinely turn in their old bills for fresh, unfolded new ones.
Moving away from cash doesn’t necessarily speed up commerce, since Japanese retailers are crazy good at counting change. 「We trust our shopkeepers to give us accurate change," Sayurai said. (Sayurai went to graduate school in the US, and she made it clear to me that she doesn’t think much of American shopkeepers』 cash-counting abilities.) "It's much faster to pay with cash than wait for a card transaction," International University of Japan professor Soichiro Takagi told me.
There is something about the feel of bills, the skill of the shopkeepers in dealing with them, and the ceremonial role of cash throughout life which resonates profoundly in Japan. In addition to this attachment, Japanese customers are sympathetic to the small-business owners resisting cashlessness: They know that shopkeepers have to pay a 3 percent fee to card networks for the privilege of accepting cashless payments. "We care about shopkeepers," Takagi told me. "So we'd rather pay cash." As most of the 30 million foreigners who visited Japan in 2018 will surely have noticed, manners and respect are a very big deal in Japan.
Meanwhile, Singapore and Hong Kong, not so far away, are watching the staggering rise of mobile payment systems in China and pushing swiftly toward cashless. South Korea has been steadily moving toward cashless for more than 20 years, giving tax deductions for purchases made using credit cards and requiring that all businesses making more than $20,000 a year accept cashless payment methods. Now South Korea is planning to go completely cashless by 2020, beginning by phasing out the production of coins. Japan is less than 600 away from South Korea and has a reputation for being a step ahead when it comes to technology. So far, though, Japanese culture isn't quite ready for a cashless world.
To be sure, there are some cashless payment systems in wide use in Japan. For example, prepaid smart internal chip cards (PASMO and Suica IC cards) are accepted as payment in many Tokyo retail stores and transit systems. They're popular, according to Sayurai, because they're not tied to bank accounts; they're independent in nature, and the user doesn't risk going beyond his or her means. But in order to fill them, you have to use … cash. Taxis in Japan didn't take credit cards until a couple of years ago, and some still insist on cash. Each time last week I hailed a cab, I had to have a little interaction with the driver, forming a rectangle with my fingers and doing a lot of head-nodding, to make sure he would take a card.
Trying to pay taxes online also isn’t easy. Beginning in 2016, everyone in Japan was assigned a national ID in the form of a unique 12-digit number, called My Number. But getting a physical card with your number on it is not mandatory; the number is not tied to much at the moment; and only about half of Japanese people actually have cards. To file taxes online, you have to apply for that physical card and buy a card reader that can scan it. Once you transmit your tax forms and a scanned image of your card to tax authorities, they print everything out and store the paper for years.
There's a tussle going on right now in Japan that may change this picture: The government is pushing for greater cashlessness to make its economy more consumer-friendly and increase the country’s productivity. The government is thinking of refunding 2 to 5 percent of the cost for products and services purchased from small- and medium-sized businesses, if those transactions are cashless.
There are a couple of inconsistencies in the government's approach: It's also planning to raise consumption taxes (taxes on products and goods "consumed" by a customer) by 2 percent, and the refunds will be in the form of "points" on customers' cards rather than cash. The credit card companies will set the amount of points according to their own practices. This all sounds as if it will have an outsize negative effect on the poorest and the oldest in Japan, who are both more likely to be affected by consumption taxes and less likely to have credit cards.
Whatever effects it will have in the short term, this government push away from cash does not appear to be truly structural or transformational. The Japanese government is not highly digital, and all the complexities of paying taxes and moving through life using analog processes are likely to stay in place: The "Cashless Vision,」 the term for this set of plans, may be more of a slogan than anything else. Mihoko Sayurai lived in Norway for several years, and never used cash. On her return to Japan this past fall, she found herself carrying cash all the time. I asked her why she thought the Japanese government was pushing for cashless, given the complicated internal processes for topping up transit cards and paying taxes that she had described to me. She told me she believes the government’s current motivation is the nearness of the 2020 Summer Olympics, to be hosted by Tokyo. The government has noticed how difficult cash access is for people from other countries. (My trips to several ATMs were not unusual.) Japan wants foreigners visiting for the Olympics to have an easier time buying more goods without having to carry huge amounts of cash in their pockets.
But the effort is running into a buzzsaw of existing clunky systems, and many of them are cultural. It's like that bridge/expressway overlap in Nihonbashi, where there is public support for getting rid of the expressway. The Japanese aren’t worried about keeping the flow of traffic; they want their old, beautiful bridge back.
譯者：MM
來源：WIRED