Regarding Kevin Rafferty's Sept. 16 commentary "Abe's 2020 vision challenged": You get fingerprinted and photographed in a whole lot of countries these days, not just Japan or the U.S. — it's unfortunately the way the world has gone, by and large. And getting luggage inspected 20 to 50 percent of the time in Tokyo or Kansai? Honestly, I've had to open my bag exactly once, and it was only one bag, the inspection was cursory, and it happened over 10 years ago. It's hard to imagine customs moving more easily than it does in Japan.
Rafferty writes: "You want to open a bank account, it is a hard struggle through pages of forms in Japanese. You want to send money abroad from a Japanese bank, it will check you as if you are a criminal, even for tiny sums."
This is not correct. You can open a bank account in English at Shinsei or Citibank, for two. The forms for overseas remittances aren't bad at all, either — about on par with doing it in other countries.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.