Wondering what else is hidden

Every country has its own financial system, but in my experience so far, Japan's is quite unique.  It relies significantly on bank transfers to pay bills - credit cards are used (though not to the extent as in the US) and, aside from PayPal for some online purchases, I haven't really discovered yet other e-payment systems.  ATMs often only function during business hours (pro-tip: most 7-11 convenience stores are 24/7, so if you need to get cash at odd hours, that's my go-to.)

Anyway.  Though we usually try to avoid setting up a local bank account when we move, it seemed inevitable here.  Even if we didn't have, say, soccer team payments, the highway EZ-Pass equivalent can only be linked to a domestic Japanese credit card... which can only be paid by a domestic Japanese bank account.  Thus, as we do hope to take some road trips with our new-to-us Honda Odyssey, no choice but to open a local account.  One of my Japanese teachers dubbed this the "Galapagos Mentality" -- as an island nation, they keep things locally-specific.  

With the post office bank account all set up, we ventured out today to attempt two bank transfers.  The ATM had a "English" button, but no options looked promising.  On the Japanese screen there was a "EZ Pay" button, but clicking that then required a "payment code" which wasn't in any of the bills I had received.  After a few minutes of staring at the other Japanese and English options, I asked the post office employee for some help.  

She showed us which button to push and walked us through the Japanese menu choices - needless to say, it wasn't too hard once we knew what to push and learned the Japanese banking words (not really something taught in diplomatic Japanese classes or in my university literature and culture focused classes).  After she left, we even paid the second bill on our own with only one incorrect button.  Yay. 

Then out of curiosity, we went back to the English menu to see what we had missed.  Only to find that the option choices under the English menu really were completely different.  We never found a way to pay an account in another bank.  

Which makes me wonder, as we go about daily life here, what else might be hidden when using the English version of things rather than the Japanese one?  Thankfully my Japanese is good enough that, with not too much effort, we can power through in the Japanese versions.  But if Greg or Lea are trying something on their own - or if I'm just feeling tired - I think there will definitely be things we will miss.  

I'm 100% sure this probably happened in Vietnam, too, but my Vietnamese was never quite strong enough to be so aware of it.  All the more reason to try and operate as much as possible in Japanese, so we don't get an edited version of what might be out there.