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/ 23 August 2005

Unlike Americans, Japanese are reluctant to borrow

At a forest shrine lined with incense-burning urns, Japanese pilgrims enter a small cave where they stoop to wash coins and notes in trickling spring water. Cleanse your money here, the tradition goes, and it will multiply. The ritual dates back perhaps 700 years, and it says something about the Japanese view of money: an attitude far different from that of many Americans.