Now I'm not sure what banks are for.

Sometimes I feel this blog is a complete waste of time, because there is no possible way to properly convey the experience of living in China to those who have not.  But today, a tiny event happened that I think will help me.

First, some background.  This is a cash society.  They don’t really use plastic for anything but major purchases like airline tickets or at the numerous extremely swanky malls.  Which, on a side note, are bizarre in themselves because I couldn’t even afford to shop there in the states and yet they have these malls every few blocks it seems.  The income levels and gaps here are both extreme and strange.  You know, because it’s “communist” here.

I’ve gotten well used to paying for everything with cash, no problems because my card works at most ATMs here.  Just have to remember to take money out every couple weeks.

But here’s the first headache: for some inexplicable reason, giving back change is the most troubling, soul crushing act for every seller in China. [for the rest of this post, “$” is China bucks unless otherwise noted because my computer is entirely in Chinese and I can’t find the silly little “Y” sign] If it costs $7 and you hand them a $10, the first question will be, do you have smaller bills?  If not, the next question will be, do you have $2 more so they can just give you a $5 back instead of $3?  If it costs $7.60, they want the .60.  And god save you if you’re the asshole who only has a $100 (which is equivalent to about $15USD and is the only bill that you will get from an ATM, so pretty often you can count on being that asshole).  I’ve lived in China for a small while, so I’ve gotten the hang of breaking “large” bills at places I know will have change, like KFC, and praying that I have the correct change when I need to buy something simply to avoid that look you get for not having it.  I’ve literally had a shopkeeper pull a smaller bill out of my wallet when she saw that I had one instead of breaking the larger bill I had handed to her.  I couldn’t make this up.

Which leads me to my tiny event.  I finally got my passport back from the visa people, so I could finally go open a bank account here for that shining future day when I get paid.  After a funny moment of confusion when all the little Chinese girls were trying to figure out whether “Jennifer” was my first name or last – apparently my school has also been confused on that because neither attending teacher could correctly answer – I was asked to pay $15 for the account and card.  I handed them a $20, being the only smaller bill I happened to have at the time.  And waited.  And waited.  Brace yourself.  The bank, THE BANK, did not have $5 to give me.  They finally decided to credit the money to my cell phone.  Which I could care less about.  What I am mind boggled about is that THE BANK DID NOT HAVE $5 CHANGE.  What do they do there?? 

Hopefully, this post has enlightened you just a bit as to my current plight.  Every day in China is….a day in China.  I can neither label this a "love China" nor "hate China" experience, becuase all I can do is shake my head.  I wonder if when they come to the US it is so bizarre and incomprehensible to them.  But I really don’t think it is.