Vending Machine in Japan (Lin Te Kuan)

      Japan is a country full of machines. Because of their highly developed technology and busy Japanese are lacking of time, machines are important to Japanese. Vending machine is one kind of machines, saving a lot of time and manpower. But what’s really surprising is that Japan has a lot of strange vending machines. These vending machines have so many special functions that can be far beyond my imagination.
      The first one is tobacco vending machines. A lot of Japanese are tobacco-addicted. So many Japanese are smoking that causes a great demand of tobacco. But Tokyo is a big city, many people may want tobacco anytime and anywhere. There cannot be so many stores to sell tobacco to satisfy everyone. So they invented tobacco vending machine. People can find tobacco vending machines on the streets and in the corners. So now people can buy tobacco without a lot of efforts. And these vending machines can also prevent children from buying tobacco. They create a card that can only be bought by people over twenty years old. Anyone who wants to buy tobacco through vending machines has to insert this kind of special card. So children under twenty cannot get tobacco! I think this is a great, smart and convenient invention!
      The second one is food ticket vending machines. A lot of traditional Japanese food shops have this kind of vending machine. Customers choose their food buy selecting on the vending machines and pay the bill by buying the tickets that shows what the customers want to eat. And then the customers go into the stores and give the tickets to the workers in the shops, then the food is ready! This is also a brilliant invention! There are three advantages of this food machine. First, it can save the time and manpower to order. Shops don’t have to print menu and don’t need to hire anyone to order for the customers. And shops don’t have to waste sit to wait for a long time for customers deciding what to eat. So the only time customers would spend is only waiting the food and eating. Second, shops don’t have to hire people as cashier. And sometimes the shops in order to cut down on expense, workers have to cook and be the cashier. That’s not good because money is dirty. Third, it’s also convenient for customers because then customers don’t have to worry about dividing the bills! I think it’s also disturbing to divide bills with friends. But this kind of vending can solve this problem easily because then customers can order individually and vending machines can also give the customers changes individually. So I really love this vending machine!!
      Japan has other kinds of special vending machine and I think this is so special!