ATM Asian Mayhem: Part 2

Monday I arrived at the bank about ten and insisted on speaking to the manager at once. I explained that they had multiple copies of my passport in their files because I had received Western Union transfers at their branch. Some time passed as she conferred with two others and came back, saying there was little she could do. I then told her I wouldn't leave the bank until they either had me arrested or I got my money. The manager disappeared and after fifteen minutes reappeared with several papers and motioned me back to the window. She asked me to sign a paper and to also give her my account PIN. Within ten minutes she had opened a new account for me, transferred my money to it and gave me a new card. I reimbursed the young teller his 50 RMB and thanked them all profusely and left, greatly relieved. Life was returning to normalcy.

In China, it is very common to either threaten someone or make a big show to get anything done. The complacency is evident everywhere. The mindset in middle management on down to the lowly sales clerk believe in doing as little as possible, especially when something goes wrong. In some ways I understand it, only because I have a foreigner's understanding of "face"--a major stumbling block for all of China when dealing with people in business. One of the most frustrating things are the department store girls. They will often tell you, mei yo (don't have) even if you can see what you are asking for directly behind them, displayed in four blazing neon colors. Although this can be attributed more to lack of initiative than anything else.

Although I had lost a small fortune in the robbery, I still had 12,000 RMB in my account. Because I had not rented an apartment after my return from An Wei, thinking I would soon be living in Hong Kong I had to do the next best thing. I went immediately to my hotel where I had been staying and paid for another two weeks. I showered and took a very long nap, overcome by the entire process of returning my life to some sense of normality. Later I went to a KFC and gorged on very greasy, artery clogging American fried chicken, American mashed potatoes and American cold slaw and a large American Pepsi, I needed an American transfusion! Feeling grounded once again, I walked down to the street to Friends Daily, a unique coffee house and wine bar, with a very decent western deli, complete with an assortment of cheeses and meats, imported from Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Australia. The place is owned by another Chinese designer and her mother. There I could relax in a high back Queen Anne chair, sip a decent latte and read a paper. It was here I began preparing for the near future.

Now that I felt more stable with a new bank card in my pocket, I should have felt more at ease, but I was floundering. Feeling secure money wise, I still was without ID. I had no way to travel to Hong Kong to renew my visa, so I weighed my options. I needed to get an emergency passport from the US Consulate very soon. I would also have to place a call to my sister and explain, and I did''t look forward to it because she would berate me for carrying all that cash on me in the first place. My parents had recently died and the estate was being divided up and funds were doled out every so often, my older sister being in charge of it all. I postponed contacting her and felt an anxiety begin to coil within me, realizing the stolen passport was going to cause me even more of a headache than the bank card. I should just get on with it, as my Brit friend would say. Have to love the Brits--they continue on in the face of the worst tragedies: No butter you say? Use that American stuff, what is it? Margarine? Out of tonic water? Oh bloody hell, guess I'll have to suffer my gin with lemonade.

For the next few days I slept late, rising at noon only for the excuse to shower again and find a place to eat. Then I would end up at Hill, or Sleeping Wood, or E&C and begin my routine drinking. In the late afternoon I would hold court either in front of Hill, or on the third floor balcony of E&C. I and a dear old friend named RK were the very first to christen it the year before at the request of E&C owner Clement. Even though there were numerous regulars and "hostess girls" about, I just couldn't pull myself out of my funk. I had put so much hope into my planned trip to Hong Kong that the aftermath of the robbery left me feeling adrift in mainland China. I was now technically an illegal alien and I didn't seem to care. By Wednesday morning I realized I had to do something. I planned to go to the Consulate that day and apply for my emergency passport, and hopefully then, I could get right with myself and the world. Nice plan anyway.

Brawl With The Money Machine     April 19, Wednesday

Now Wednesday, five days had past since my grueling experience of being laid bare and near defenseless in the urban sprawl of Guangzhou, and I wasn't going to take it any more. Not exactly sure where I needed to go to acquire my emergency passport, I went to Hill Bar after a breakfast of bao dze and do nai; pork-stuffed bread and soybean milk. I sat at my regular spot, a small table located just outside the front door, where I watched the streaming traffic on Huanshi Dong Lu flash by. As mentioned before, a small group of regulars used to pull these tall and ludicrously heavy bar tables and their equally tall and heavy stools out in front of the place a few years before, much to the chagrin of the owners. Finally they realized that perhaps it was a good idea for the foreigners to sit in front. It just might attract others to come in, so they invested in some smaller, lighter tables and chairs and low and behold! Our mutiny against sitting inside the bar was thwarted. The manager conceded and now our shifty band of ne'er-do-wells had permanent residence outside, a small victory for the local riffraff.

The late morning came and went and I had yet to find anyone who could tell me what to do. I had called the listed number for the American Consulate on a friend's phone, but all I got were recordings and nothing about replacement passports. Morning bled into afternoon and six beers later I remember looking out onto the traffic as the dull red taxis zoomed by like dusty frantic beetles. The lethargic buses lumbered on like tired pachyderms, the constantly moving scene became a hypnotic caravan of buzzing steel insects and lurching metal mammals and I felt as if I could simply fall forward in my chair and become a bus-elephant or taxi-insect and blend into the urban jungle before me. Even the beautiful Kapok trees above seemed to languish in the thick, cloying atmosphere. Its blooms were strewn all about the sidewalks and streets nearby, crushed underfoot, leaving burgundy blood-like stains behind.

I wondered off mid-day to the corner store and bought twenty yuan worth of spicy fish balls on skewers and broiled sausages, returning to the bar and giving away most of it to the wait staff. I ate a little and continued to drink. By then the day was over and I was pleasantly polluted and my plan of getting another passport was a lost cause. I moved inside and sat with some friends, unhappy with myself that I hadn't accomplished anything other than spend a 150 RMB on beer. Yet another Filipino band set up stage and howled away, or perhaps that was me and my equally sloshed friends who were howling, I wasn't sure. Sometime near midnight I was getting hungry again, so I started to go to the same place I had eaten the night of the robbery, but a friend stopped me and recommended I go to another place not so far away. Perhaps it being the middle of the week, or the police in one of their rare moments were actually enforcing the law regarding street vendors, I couldn't find the place my friend told me about. Frustrated with my misfortune, I decided to withdraw some money using my new bank card, having spent most of what I had taken out several days before. That was my undoing.

I began looking for an ATM in the area and I had to mill around a bit, having never needing to use an ATM in this part of the city before, and eventually after walking to and fro I found a 24 hour ATM spot, next to a bank. I entered the small, brightly lit, glassed-in room and tried the first ATM before me, with no success--the card slot wasn't even open, so I moved on to the next machine. It took my card greedily. I entered my PIN and then my transaction amount. A few seconds passed, then I distinctly heard the whirring noise that ATM's make when the mechanism inside is counting the cash out into a tight bundle of bills. A small door to the bottom right abruptly slid open and I stood there, staring for a few seconds at the empty hole where the money should have been. The compartment was empty. I looked at the screen to be sure. In bright green glowing letters it spelled out very clearly, "PLEASE TAKE YOUR CASH". Suddenly the door slammed shut. The screen, once a brilliant neon green, was now a dull gray, not a single electronic blip on its smooth, cold surface. Absolutely dead silence. I thought of that moment in the film "2001" when HAL the haywire ship computer gets shut down. No whirs or lights blinking. The seconds ticked by and I began poking at the buttons, ENTER and CANCEL. Still nothing. The entire weight of the past weeks' frustrations crashed down upon my mind. No money! No card! No ID! How was I to retrieve my new card. No hope. No luck. I yelled at the machine with all the fury I could muster. I pounded the button panel with the palm of my hand, staring at the dead thing. Then it seemed as if I had been transported in a time machine from one point to another in a millisecond--ZAP! One moment I am in a glass room with ATMs, the next I am standing before the mamoth Garden Hotel, about a mile away and no clue as to how or when I got there.

Feeling extremely disoriented, I shuffled along the street now, not having a plan or a single idea in my hollow, clueless head. After zombie-walking half a block, I found myself standing before "E-Dragon", a 24 hour Internet Cafe that I frequented. With no more than 20 RMB in my pocket, I went in and paid for ten hours and found a quite, secluded computer/couch combo in the back and sank into a different oblivion from the night of the robbery, and this would turn out to be the last peaceful sleep I would have for the next three days.   cont. | prev. | main