Thursday, October 12, 2006

Banking in Korea

I transferred money to the States today. No, this wasn't in response to potential won devaluation or anything; it's something I do every month. Anyhow, in the past I've dealt with a very nice banker who speaks excellent English. He wasn't there today, so instead I worked with a different man: one who spoke very little English, but who was very nice and helpful and who got the job done. After transferring the money, I thanked him thoroughly and went upstairs to my school. (My school is located on the second floor of the bank building.) About five minutes later the bank called and talked to Simon... the banker had called to apologize for not having been able to help me better because of his poor English! He had no need to apologize whatsoever. Sometimes Korea is simply Awesome.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had similar experiences with the banking system in China. They always managed to get the job done despite the language barriers. This made me incredible happy. On another note, your pictures of Korean Thanksgiving and the mask festival were absolutely fantastic. What amazed me most about my trip to China were the colors. The array or spectacular and vibrabt hues of colors. It seems to me that some of those same colors are expressed throughout East Asia. It looks like you are enjoying your experience. I would make the best of it and go to as many festivals and local events as possible. While many of them will be stagged like our own festivals and thus part of a consumer society, they are still a unique cultural experience. Keeping posting the pics. They are incredibly enticing. Have a good weekend,
Christopher

Anonymous said...

This is not related to todays blog but its in connection to yesterdays comments. If you did not read them, I was mortified by the lack of media coverage on the death toll in Iraq being over 650,000 which continues to baffle me at this moment. But needless to say, yahoo reported that President Bush has denied this number tady and believes it to be a gross exageration. This makes me sad. At some point, I am not sure when someone in this administration is going to step up and take blame and responsibility for their actions. I am sick of lies everyday to the point that I feel as if I am living in the twighlight zone. It should not be a suprise to you that the Republicans are blamming the crisis in Korea on the Clinton Administration which is a tough pill to swallow. I mean how many years have to pass before we can stop blaming all of the ills of the world on Clinton. I mean, its not like the President and his administration has not has six years to correct any of his policies that they disagreed. I mean they have done a hell of a job correcting his environmental policies for the benifit of Big Buissness. This is all very dishartening to me, and I have truly lost faith within the American public and in our political system itself. The truth of the matter is that this president should be impeached for the lies that he has told, but the reality is that he will never even be slightly reprimanded. None of this is new. Everyone will automatically look back and say well Nixon..., but I think that people should probably look back and say Reagan and Bush I. Can anyone say Oliver North and Iran Contra. I think that these situations offer similar circumstances to the ways in which this administration handles its problems. It makes me sick. Where is the voice of the left that infamous group which conservatives always hark to be can only show Ted Kennedy spouting off his crazy ass rants to the American Public. I think that our political system has failed the American people. I think that it has failed us for a while now, but this is the moment when those failures have become self evident. I am not sure how to reform a system that is layered in corruption and influences by multinational corporations that funnel money into congreemens pockets through campaign contributions and travel expendetures. Both parties have failed the American people, and I am sad to say that it is not Americans whom now suffer but innocent Civilians whom die everyday by a combo of American bombs and insergent mortars. And yet we remain silent. We go home, crawl under our covers, and hide from the Truth.

Christopher

Caitlin said...

Your banker is awesome. It's moments like that that make all the crap you deal with abroad (most of it no one's fault) worth it. Yay for your banker!

And, yeah, I don't have anything to say that Chris(topher) hasn't said already about Iraq.