One of the most beautiful sounds in the world is the whirl of an automatic bank teller machine in the ears of an expat.

Many times in my years of ESL I have waited white knuckled for that sound. If it comes, the local currency issues out and life is once again a rose garden. If the machine stays silent, life can be hell.

In 2001 I on an impulse took the hovercraft to Japan from South Korea.  This was my first expat year.  I went complacently looking for a money exchange at the Japanese port. I was stunned to discover no place in Japan outside Tokyo would exchange the Korean won. Korea lay just across the horizon. Yet now their national currency in my wallet might as well have been straw. I had not thought of bringing any other currency. A port official gave me some coins and I took the bus to the nearest hotel. The hotel management would not accept the won under any terms.
 

The hotel receptionist rang up the Korean Consulate. She got instant short shift. She checked my visa card. She told me there was only one ATM in the city that would accept the card. That was at the international airport.

I walked in a state of growing anxiety through the gathering dusk back to the port. I couldn’t even afford to use the internet and had no cell phone.  There were hobos drinking around a small fire at a street corner and I actually considered I might have to join them.

I found a taxi driver who agreed without a fee to take me to the international airport. He tested my card in his cab and glumly predicted it was not going to work even at the airport. I crept into the international airport and found the ATM.  A telecom officer gave me directions over the phone. People gathered around. It didn’t work. I tried again under a completely wrong code and I heard that beautiful sound. I would sleep in a bed that night.

Japan a year or two later opened its money exchanges to the won. The Korean complaint that the Japanese practice bad neighborliness is not always without foundation. However expats might take note never cross into another country without its national currency. If that is not practical, at least always take with you a substantial number of American dollars. The American dollar can be exchanged in every country in the world at least for the rest of this year.

The ATM is a marvelous invention. But unfortunately it is owned by the worst kind of people. A dry economist recently on the BBC called all trading banks wolves. Like all wolves, ATMs have voracious appetites for swallowing what comes into their mouths. A horror for the expat is when the bank card is ‘detained’.  That is always a headache to retrieve it. The supreme horror is when the ATM chews it up and the card’s
bank has no offices in the country. That act seems incomprehensible but it happened to me in Thailand. Many weird things happen in Thailand.

I had been desperately looking for an ATM in Thailand that had sufficient money to draw from my New Zealand account.  The fourth ATM machine swallowed the card. The end consequence of this vandalism was a week of semi starvation and I had to return to New Zealand.

That brings me to my final ATM sorry story. This is what my father has just today called the fiasco with K.B. bank. Before I left Korea to Iraq, I consulted the K.B. teller. She assured me my K.B. Debit Card would work in all countries with ATM machines. She even rang up to check the card would work in Kurdistan Iraq.

I found out that was not the case in Turkey and in Iraq. In Kurdistan Iraq every bank assured me my cards would work in another bank not theirs.  I found out it was all a mirage like almost everything else to do with Kurdistan Iraq. The bank officials explained they had the ATM machines but no one had taught them how to make them work. I had to sleep under the stars that night.

My fellow ESL teacher had been caught out the same way.  Our University employer advanced us our salaries. I rang up the K.B. branch but could not understand their officers. The K.B. internet site did not reveal its email address. I found it out from a helpful K.B. official in London. I faxed bank and identification documents to my K.B bank branch in Korea. They sent me a dear customer email and refused in their tortured English to wire me my money. I googled South Korea bank ombudsman. But it seems no such office exists. I searched for K.B.head office. But the K.B branches appeared to be franchises. My ESL colleague was luckier. The Bank of Palestine in Nablus wired him his money.

I took the card to a Post Office to post it to New Zealand where my father could try to use it. While I was waiting, I read in microscopic letters a message at the bottom of the card.

Foreigners and non-residents are not allowed to use this card overseas.

That’s right guys. Not content with testing our blood and our police records in Korea, Korean racism now blocks our money entitlements in any place outside Korea. K.B can now play with my one million won until at some remote time in the future I return to their benighted country.

I will do it in ten years time to collect my one million won with its interest if KB bank or its successor still exists. The lesson there for expats is always wire all your money out when you leave a country. Never rely on what a bank teller tells you. And always read the small print even if you need a microscope.  

Goethe