currency exchange, yen to yen
Although Japanese bills tend to be pretty clean, it would still be a mission impossible to acquire bills without any wrinkle in everyday life. So most people go to a nearby bank. Primarily this currency exchange service is used by shop owners, who want to make sure they have enough loose changes for their customers. You can fill in the form they provide and indicate how you want to your cash, in which bills or coins, and how many. But simultaneously you can also mark a check box indicating that you would like all bills to be new.
Exchange up to 50 bills are done for free, up to 500 will cost you 315 yen. Although going to a bank during such busy times like right before your interviews is a hassle, it is certainly nice when you have such clean bills in your hand even if that is for a short time.
I don’t know quite well what actually happens to the old bills, but one interesting example I saw was to make a souvenir out of it. My school alumni who works for Bank of Japan showed me that their gift shop sells a pen which fills the cartridge space with old shredded bills. It’s true, you won’t get such a thing anywhere else!
And speaking of the perceived value of bills, we see that different countries have different perception. In China, quite often I saw bills with scribbles. Some came with numbers, which was obviously a trace of counting; while some came with someone’s name… perhaps money was collected from different people and those names indicated the person who paid? The below image is the 100 yuan bill, the biggest bill you find in China.
