In Japan it is impolite to hand someone money without putting it in an envelope first (except restaurants, of course). Consequently, there are special envelopes for everything: fancy funeral and wedding types, cute little kids’ festival types, and the long slender everyday-use types, to name a few.
All of my students pay me using slender, brown envelopes. I have piles of them in my room. Despite the fact that I ask my students to refrain from killing more trees, they don’t listen. In fact, I’ll be standing there waiting for them to pay me and they’ll go over to the cabinet, pull out an envelope, put the money in, and then hand it to me. I feel an incredible urge to take the money out, put it in my wallet, and then hand the envelope back. But I imagine that would be taking it a bit too far. After all, who doesn’t need one hundred envelopes too small to send letters in?
p.s. Japanese envelopes do not have licky adhesive to keep them shut. You have to provide your own glue. I find this very annoying.
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