The Bureaucratic Bombs
- Sio
- Jan 30
- 2 min read
Every Japanese procedure feels like defusing a bomb. A mistake on my residence card can block the bank, delay autopay, and cut utilities. Each step is a fuse, one slip, and everything blows up.
Gas autopay dragged on: site rejected my name, I waited for codes, my card was refused. At last one paper form came. I stared at the boxes, sweating—one chance, no mistakes.
My bank’s daily limit was 50,000 yen—absurd. The app failed, the site demanded approval, so I went in person, handwriting forms just to raise it.
Bureaucracy here is harsh, zero tolerance for error, yet you never know what went wrong. It feels like an endless bomb loop.
One wrong form—redo. Seal crooked—redo. I heard of someone who spent a year fixing autopay, refilling the same form 5 times.
My residence card had only roman letters, and I was told to add kanji. I feared a ripple effect. I nervously handed in the form, but it processed smoothly, the new card ready in just half an hour.
I left still tense, replaying failures in my head. Days later, nothing was affected—banks, health, utilities all fine. I realized fear is often bigger than reality, sometimes from myself, sometimes from the system.
Resetting life is full of unknowns. Some fears never vanish, but I can live with them.
Even if I’ve learned the system, I still have to learn the people — and face all the uncertainties that keep appearing.
Since uncertainty will always exist, I might as well carry it as part of daily life.
Sio
Resetting life in Osaka after years in the UK, France, Spain, Canada & Argentina. Seeing Japan from the outside, living it from the inside.
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