D - Banking in the Mirror Universe

Some of the poor souls that know us are aware of our affection for Star Trek in its various forms. Before you reach for the "Close" button, I promise the Trek-related portion of this post will be over shortly, so bear with me. Some episodes of Star Trek feature a concept known as the "Mirror Universe". The Mirror Universe contains the same characters, ships, places, and concepts as the regular universe where the heroes dwell - except that everything and everyone in the Mirror Universe is twisted. For example, rather than Earth being part of a peace-loving interstellar Federation, in the mirror universe, bloodthirsty humans seek to destroy and enslave other planets. And as the following pictures of Spock show, people in the Mirror Universe have more facial hair.

Normal Spock

Mirror Spock

Okay, okay - I'm getting there! You're asking "what does this pointless Star Trek trivia have to do with China?" Well, my experience at the Bank of China on Friday of this week was a bit like banking in the mirror universe. Everything looks and sounds the same. The BoC features 5 tellers. They have savings accounts, they have checking accounts, they advertise Certificates of Deposit. China has ubiquitous ATMs dotting the landscape of every town and city. Oh yes, it looks quite normal but in fact evil is lurking just beneath the surface.

First, a little background before I get to the meat of my suffering. C and I did not have to open our Bank of China accounts. We simply showed up to the Foreign Affairs Officer's room at the University one day and she handed us our ATM cards, PIN numbers, and bank books. On the appointed day our salary was automatically deposited in the bank account. We used the ATM and our PIN worked and we got money. It couldn't have been easier. Life was good.

Then one dark day I was in a bit of a hurry. My friends and family know that I am a bit absent-minded. I am actually quite thorough with most things but if my mind gets occupied or I am worried about being late somewhere, all my usual exacting detail goes out the window. Yes, I lost my ATM card like an idiot. I've been banking in the US for 9 years and I have NEVER lost my ATM card. But because we're in China and banking in the mirror universe, I of course managed to do so here. I take full responsibility - it's not the Bank of China's fault that I was careless.

So I called the Foreign Affairs Officer and explained the situation, confident that she would grease the wheels of financial service as she had before. She indicated that all I needed to do was to take two copies of my passport to the bank on campus and they would take care of it. Ah good - that sounds easy. I asked our student volunteer Sylvia to go with me since my finance Chinese is sorely lacking. Upon our arrival she explained the situation to the teller who indicated the following stipulations.

1) All lost card requests must be submitted prior to 3:30 PM
2) The lost card request must be written out in Chinese
3) The lost card request must be written by the person who wants the new card.
At the time, it was 4pm so we couldn't submit the request that day. The following day Sylvia and I returned, this time at 2pm. We gave the teller my passport copies. The copies were not full size -- they were slightly smaller than my actual passport. She had to call someone to confirm they were usable, and thankfully they were. Next, she gave us two forms to fill out and sternly instructed Sylvia that I MUST write it myself or it could not be accepted. We took several copies of the form so Sylvia could fill one out and I could do my best to emulate her writing. The first few parts of the form weren't too bad but eventually some VERY complex characters were required and I made a mistake. Well, it turns out that you can't scratch anything out on the form. If you make even the smallest error, you MUST fill out a new form - they cannot accept a damaged one. Sylvia realized that if we kept going at our snail's pace we would never finish by 3:30pm. Our new strategy was for her to fill the form out with her left hand. It would look different from her normal handwriting and crude enough to pass for a foreigner that had no idea what he was writing.

The process went like this - we waited for a customer to be served by our particular teller, then Sylvia would fill the form out with her left hand, while I would pretend to be writing on a separate sheet of paper. We finished those two forms...then were handed another 3 to fill out! We were essentially filling out the same information over and over, just in different forms. One was the "I lost my card" form, another was the "Please give me a new one" form, and yet another was the "Authorize an investigation of the loss of the card" form. They were endless. Oh -- and the forms must be filled out with black ink. We did one form in blue and it was rejected. In another instance, the forms had carbon copies attached but Sylvia's left-hand Chinese didn't press all the way through to the last sheet - we had to do it again.

Finally we finished all the forms after an hour and 15 minutes...just inside the 3:30 deadline. The teller asked Sylvia repeatedly if I had filled out the forms. "Of course!" she answered - which was partially true. I did write the account numbers, my english name, and the date. I am so glad they didn't ask me...I am the worst liar.

Some of you may read that and think it's not that surprising. We've all been in situations with large bureaucracies and dealt with paper pushers and silly rules that don't make sense. The bank teller said I had to fill the form because some Chinese person had a stolen a foreigner's money by filling out such a form and tricking them. I argued that I had to trust that Sylvia was writing the correct things anyway - it was a useless precaution. I think what is instructive about this event is the comparison of Chinese business and American business. I can remember when I worked in New York at a large investment bank. EVERYTHING is about efficiency. Don't have 6 forms when 1 will do. Make it easier for the customer and faster for the company. Make it require fewer people. Who knows, maybe it's just as bad to get a new ATM card in the US - not sure since it hasn't happened to me. And yes, US corporations do take security seriously at the same time they put things online and streamline how routine tasks like new ATM cards are handled. But the mentality here is totally different. Processes in China are designed to incorporate more people rather than fewer.

It's funny, on occasion the extra people required for every task in China are good for the customer. Sometimes you get better service because there are so many people looking out for you. Most of the time though, it's inefficiency for inefficiency's sake. C and I both laugh at the grocery stores here -- EVERY single aisle has an employee in it, ostensibly to help you find what you need in that aisle, but more likely the purpose is to give the people jobs. Perhaps they'll be bored to tears because they get to talk to only one customer a day, but at least they won't be staring down tanks or complaining they can't read the news everyone else in the world gets to read.