Ah, money. Money and China. Money and China and getting money out of China.
Several months ago I wanted to send a little money to my account in South Africa, so as to replenish what little there was to pay my bills with. It ended up being the most expensive money I have ever sent.
See, I cleverly thought doing a direct deposit into my account would be the easiest. After a week of visiting the Bank of China with several translations of what I wanted to do, I eventually managed to explain to them what I wanted. In the end, I paid 440 yuan to send what was about 1800 yuan.
Miscommunication (beware of those) or non-communication (beware of those too) resulted in them not explaining that whilst the money was being sent via New York, New York Bank of China would also take $22 (US) for their trouble. Sigh.
So in steps Western Union. This, of course, is not a solution for South Africa, because in South Africa there is no Western Union. But this time I wanted to send money to my son in Malaysia, ‘hong pau’ for Chinese New Year.
On my first visit I didn’t intend to accomplish anything other than picking up the form I had to fill out. A brief exchange followed about which form, ‘sending money’ or ‘receiving money’, I wanted, and I was on my merry way.
The next day I returned at 1pm as previously instructed. No, he said, come back at two. I returned at two, and there were some queues. My turn came around and he took the form and asked where was the Dollars I had indicated. I gave my bank card and said take it from there.
As he called up my account, I could see he was looking for something that wasn’t there. I wondered if somebody had emptied my account. “Mei you Mei Chen” he said, meaning I don’t have US Dollars. Duh, I thought, and said he must convert the Yuan.
Oh no, he explained, they can’t convert US Dollars, I have to go to the Bank of China for that. Sigh. So here it starts, I thougt. I took the bus 3 stops down to my friends at the Bank and went to the Exchange window, wad of cash in hand.
“Wo xiang you Mei chen” I said, cleverly applying my new vocabulary, waving my cash at her. And she replied with several words, none of which was in my clever new vocabulary. Giving up, she pointed to the woman who last time didn’t help me so well. I couldn’t help but notice that the electronic “hows-my-service” thingy in front of her had only 2 stars on it (out of 5).
I walked over and showed her my Yuan and said I want “do las” She tapped a few keys on her calculator, showed me the ammount and took me back to the Exchange window to share her knowledge with the woman I had just visited. Wow, I thought, what a specialised function she performs. I handed over my Yuan to the cashier and moments later departed with my dollars.
In a blitz, having braved the overfull bus, I was back at the Agricultural Bank and Western Union agent. This time, the bank was as packed as the bus. I siged, and stood in line.
The guy noticed me and took pity on me, so a colleage of his who speaks English, called me to a vacant window, took and copied my passport and gave the form and money to the other guy… effectively cutting in front of the whole queue. Annoyed stares where directed my way.
For the next half hour they tried to record the details on the computer, but had ‘techincal mistakes’ that they couldn’t explain to me. Eventually they managed, and an hour after I started I was finished. Fairly hassleless compared to before, and a lot cheaper too.
I sms’ed my ex to send her to the bank, but I had no reply. Story of my life.