necessarily on the procreation wish list is deeply rooted in Chinese culture and tradition. In Germany whereas a woman's name can be assumed as a surname, in China, only men that can use surnames. Traditionally girls have no inheritance rights.
It is boys who get the assets, but the tradition is slowly fading out.
With all this knowledge, I am grateful to my in-laws, for embracing modern efforts to fight for gender equality
On the last day of our holiday, we drove back to Taicang. We stopped at a local bank in Suzhou, to open a fixed-rate deposit account, to transfer my salary from ICBC Bank aiming at earning a reasonable interest rate. Because of the bureaucracy of the Chinese banks, there are several forms I must sign in Chinese language to confirm that I have taken note of the final print. Cash withdrawals from other Chinese banks with foreign names, cannot easily be made from that bank. The machines were designed differenty. It was better to withdrawal cash from the bank next door which were compatible with various features, and then deposit cash in this one.
Oh God! I said to myself, this is too complicated, I remember doing this twenty years ago.
“At that time, online banking was not yet operational. Hasn't the world changed here?”
Hong said that withdrawing cash from one bank and deposit it into another was possible, if it could help you save on transfer cost and avoid bureaucracy. By the time we did all that, it was three o'clock in the afternoon, no bank was open, so I did not have a chance. I thought of using a cash machine, but with ATM, the maximum amount you could withdraw is RMB 20,000, the equivalent of 2,750 Euros, on the exchange rate of the day. So, I rightly abandoned the idea. I then opted to use online money transfer.
The problem is that in China, all online transactions go through the Bank of China in Beijing. Hong looked at me and wondered why I wanted to transfer the money in a hurry.
"Tomorrow is the first official working day after the New Year, what is it that cannot wait till tomorrow?" she asked, shaking her head in disbelief.
It was still cold outside. We had nothing to eat except for the hard Chinese kiwis that were given to us by Hong's parents. We decided to go to a Chinese barbeque restaurant. Such restaurants are often crowded, making it hard to get a place where to seat. We had to wait. I needed to use a toilet, when I went there, I met a man who told me that he had come from Australia, specifically for this Chinese New Year celebrations.
I grabbed a raw fish to put it on the grill plate. As soon as I did that, Hong hurriedly pulled the fish out of my hand; she believes that women were the masters at this work.
"You don't know anything. What men can do is to eat, sleep, and snore, no more," she grumbles provocatively. I look at her thinking of what she had just said about men not being masters at cooking when she knows full-well that at home, her father is always in the kitchen. I murmured without finishing the sentence.
"A fish in the morning dispels sorrow and worries, but a fish in the evening..."
Oh goodness me, I did not know that Hong had heard what I said.
She retorts inaudibly, grabs a small piece of paper, writes something and passes the note over to me, it read.
"Yaaa right… when the time comes, sleep well."
I read the note and wondered why she should have written that, but she looks less bothered, for her, it was business as usual. It was now time to pay. I pulled out my bank card, entered a PIN, protecting my details with a palm of my hand.
"Let them see the PIN, why are you hiding it?", she rebuked.
"Well, I am sure you know that banks always advise us to protect our details to deter probable fraud, forgery and the like. When the waitress gets hold of my PIN, for example, the next thing you know is my account being emptied", I replied.
It at all it happened, by the way, it would be a big problem for me. Since I do not have an online account yet, it would take me time to sort it out. In Germany it is different because the option of changing bank details online is always available.
“Anyway, it is time to let go of the talk of banks and online accounts, let us enjoy our food”, I said to Hong.
After eating, we continued our journey home.
When we arrive home, the apartment is dead quiet. Before we left, Hong had turned off the air conditioning system. I wondered whether that was a smart move. I thought it would have been a sensible thing to keep the heating on before we left since it was a cold season. As if she knew what I was thinking about, she replied that it would have been much expensive to leave the heating on.
Hong reasons that it is better to succumb to the first few minutes of the cold while the heat was gaining momentum, than paying vast amounts of money in gas bills.
“You can still learn a lot about savings from us the Chinese”, she retorted.
“In China, everybody is a saver; even hot sewage sells for recycling. It can be ordered directly from factories such as steel mills.
They use them as water coolers for their machines”, she explained to me that even hot water could sell to the public, for bathing, washing, and many other benefits.
It could be true though because I observed that this scheme is cheaper, affordable and profitable too, for the end-user. However, what I am sceptical and doubtful about is the health and safety of this brackish water, which I have used many times in China. I wonder whether it is not radioactive. As I am still thinking about savings, Hong proposes that if I wanted to save money, I would turn off the heating, and put on warm clothes instead.
I spared myself the burden of arguing about saving money.
Women would always have the last say anyway, especially in China.
The mentalities between East and West are too different. Yes, I would love to save money, also, but not at the expense of our health.
The first night on returning home from the New Year's celebrations, we could not sleep because of the heartburn. Was it because we overate food or too much glutamate?
On the second day it rained cats and dogs. Unfortunately, on my side, I had no choice but to dare the torrential rain to go to transfer the money, as my wife had advised me. Hong picked up the driver, he sat on the steering wheel, and we set off to town. We arrived at the bank just in time. It was still early in the morning; we did not have to join long queues in the bank. We picked up two large bundles of banknotes and went to deposit them in the other bank.
Were the counting machines on holiday too! They were not working correctly. The bank employee in the counter had to count the notes manually. It was followed by many papers that I had to fill and sign before depositing the money, here China is the same as Germany.
When it comes to interest rates for new customers, today's rates are a little bit higher than in recent days.
After coming from the bank, Hong quickly prepared herself to go to the Thai Embassy in Shanghai, to apply for a visa for our joint holiday. I do not need a permit. As a German citizen, I can go in and out of Thailand, as many times as I want, if I have a valid return ticket on entry. The visa offices are closing at half-past twelve; we have less time left, so Hong must hurry up before they close. I go to office and driver and Hong go on.
I arrive at the office at half-past eleven in the morning. It is on the twenty-second floor; it is cold. I am told by my colleagues in the office, that the central heating system in the entire building was still switched off, and that the canteen on the fifth floor down, is also still closed. It could not make sense to me. What is the point of paying rent then? Are our landlords only interested in collecting rent to save operational costs, instead of providing better services to their tenants!
Most employees here are not going back to work, until the following week on Monday, others maybe a little bit later than that.
My American boss is also present in the office. We are discussing the budget and other cutting-costs measures. At noon we go to the restaurant next door with my American boss, he pays for our meals,