Money, Money Changes Everything

Finally, after procrastinating for as long as I possible could, I got Tasha to take me to the bank today to finally transfer all the money I have saved in one big lump; my first transfer. The process was painless enough, for now, but I am not so optimistic as to believe that this first transfer, my current life savings, will actually be completely successful. I imagine awkward phone calls, during business hours, when I am away from friendly English speaking Koreans, me not knowing what to say “what do you mean all my money has disappeared into thin thin air?" (What is thin air anyway, where does this saying come from?) Assuming it will take about a week to know if we achieved transfer, I’ll just have to spend sleepless nights hoping someone will be able to bail me out if need be. (Passive aggressive underhanded warning to my family of potential need for temporary monetary aid in the very near future, should this transaction fail.)

One of the many delightful things about Korean banking is need the to only have to deal with humans once. I have to talk to the teller once, and after that I am able to use the ATM to send money home Similarly with bill payments, although even with that I didn’t need to I didn’t actually need to talk to any teller, but I tired to set up an automatic bill payments, but the teller didn’t understand exasperatedly showed me how to use the bill payment machines, lets say BPM for short. Yes, here in the land of people who just do things better, they have machines (for those sans internet) to make bill payments at ATM like machines. All bills come prepared to work in these machines each bill I pay, Water, electricity, and gas, come perforated to be thirded. I insert my bankcard into the machine (dirty) and one third of the bill, then I enter my pin and bills are magically paid. Unfortunately the BPM’s don’t have an English option so I am required to memorize which buttons to press, which is generally obvious, except the first button. This no English option is also s problem at non-bank ATMs, like in convenience stores and in the subway. All of which have a foreign card option, but my card is not foreign, so there is no English option for domestic cards, clearly the designers did not have the huge ex-pat population is mind when designing the machines. Even in Ssangmun I have seen other waeguks at the bank.

One other interestingly out of character inefficient thing about Korean banking is that businesses that pay their employees by direct deposit can only deposit into one bank, it seems. Like Kang Tae Woo can only deposit their teacher’s salary into Kook Bank’s. This is no problem for me, I simply opened my account at KB, but for the other teachers, like Tasha how do their primary banking through other banks, like Woori, it is annoying. They have to transfer money from one bank to another every month. KB - Kook Bank means “people” and Woori means “us” or “our”, very democratic names for bands. Tasha asked which band I used in Canada I had to tell her I don’t use a bank, but rather a Credit Union, which is different buy I couldn’t tell her how; I don’t know.

It also turns out that I can only transfer from the KB in which I initially sought the transfer, which means I have go back the branch which Tasha took me too. Which is good and fine, I have had to many bill payment disasters there and the dude who speaks English lacks basic listening skills, once he makes up his mind about what either Sally or I are asking, he can’t be swayed to think otherwise, see previous mention about automatic bill payment. Also, once while attempting to pay a bill, I couldn’t the fill that I ad stuffed into the bottom of my gigantic purse and this caused me to become flustered and sweaty. I assume the helpless child look appeared on my face and the attendant/ security guard felt the need to swoop to my rescue. Naturally, having the man child standing behind me over my shoulder assuming my ignorance, caused me to panic further and I was no longer able to think straight or remember if I used the top left button or the top left, also being confused with having just used a subway ATM the day before, on which the buttons also need to be memorized, which I explained earlier. In the that annoying over helpful way some Koreans assume, he proceeded not to show me how to use the machine, but to do it for me. Although I appreciate his intentions I learn by doing no by watching, leave me alone and let me figure it out, eventually the knowledge comes to me.