Well, it’s been a few days between posts again. Little has happened, except exams and a big tearful graduation. All the teachers are in a meeting now, which is no doubt to do with the upcoming entrance exams for the school. I’ve yet to figure this out; you finish junior high (12-15 yrs old), and you apply for schools, going for either the Academic type or Worker Drone type (such as mine) by estimating how smart/stupid you are? Or does the junior high you’re at decide you’re in the stupid 50% of the population, THEN you apply at a WD school, and they accept or reject you?
Hm, that must be it. Sorry, just had to write that down to get the process clear in my head.
While the cats’re away, I can bring you the FIRST EVER instalment of:
Japanese mysteries
A syndicated series
Pt 1 The Hanko
How safe is a signature, really? It’s not very difficult to create a passable forgery. My own signature changes quite a bit every time I make it, for a start. And how reliable are these supposed ‘handwriting experts’ anyway? Where are they? I’ve never met one. It’s a stupid, outdated system. We should have fingerprint readers or DNA samples imbedded in documents or something by now. That’d be cool.
But as dodgy as signatures are, they are as secure as Kerry Packer’s frozen head compared to hankos. (local touch, nice – ed.) Hankos are a stamp of the Chinese characters that make your name, and are used in Japan as proof of identity. Mine are at the top of this page. I could use it to open bank accounts, rent a flat, get a passport (if I were Japanese), authorise insurance, and would use it sign my will with if I owned anything here. They cost $2, and any local key-cutting-type-dude can make one for you.
So, bank fraud is pretty rampant here, or so the English language papers here tell me. Most of the time they don’t mention hankos. But when hankos are used, rarely are the banks found liable. Often people just have to lump it.
On the other side of the bureaucratic reversible jacket, I have to use the thing to sign in every morning, and to stamp – 4 times - the form that lets me go to primary school once every 2 weeks.
Such a system is ideal in conditions such as, say, China, 500 years ago. One might have thought the age of mechanical reproduction might have changed things. I can see the meeting now … way, way up in the meeting room of power, circe 1900 …
Head Bureaucrat: “So, you say we have machines that can make many, many copies of things now. Cheaply, quickly and easily. They are glorious devices that befit Emperor Meiji’s vision for this blessed country.”
chorus of bureaucrats “Yes sir. They are a wonder indeed.”
“Mm, yes, you agree with me well. And you tell me, as they develop over time, through the application of the principles of supply and demand in a basically capitalist economy modelled within the constraints of an essential governmental structure that may be interventionist at times in order the redress the imbalances of inequity that are simultaneously and regrettably produced by said economic model, they will be able to reproduce almost any material want or need with satisfactory results?”
“Yes sir. Within limits, yes sir.”
“I see. Your agreement with me wasn’t so great there, by the way. But, very well – let us use this method to become the greatest producer of said goods the world has ever seen! We will reproduce things with speed of ten thousand eagles! Order me a hundred machines to present to the Emperor!”
“… uh, what sort of machines would you like, sir?”
“Any! The ones that make those useless little trinkets one ties to one’s fob watch! The Emperor likes those. Here’s my hanko, which uniquely identifies me as the purchaser of these goods, and these goods alone!”
…
(another meeting, weeks later)
“Fellow bureaucrats! Should not my reproducing machines have arrived by now?”
(much squirming)
“Uh, there has been a small problem, sir.”
“What? In how many ways have you failed me? … Is it in the thousands?”
“…It appears you have become the what might be the first victim of what is already known as hankohacking, sir. Very nasty business.”
“Tell me what this is of which you speak before I silence you with the force of ten thousand typhoons.”
“It appears, well … we placed the order …”
“Yes?”
“…well, we placed the order with an American company which only recently outsourced its Easy Asian distribution operations to Malaya, where it appears a young goods clerk managed to somehow reproduce your hanko (through what fantastical technical skill we know not of), and has since purchased, under your name, many flat-screen daguerrotypes, high-definition dictionaries and laptops!”
“What?! I am fueled with the rage of ten thousand feral cats in a bag …. eh? Wait up. What’s a laptop?”
“American word for hooker, sir.”
(silence)
(through teeth)“… Don’t … mention … this … to … the … Emperor.”
THE END
There you have it. Hankos. Still with us.
One hour to finishing time. They’re still in their meeting (my other teachers, that is). Back to twiddling my thumbs.
Filed under: Uncategorized
