Banking in China: An Adventure

Banking in China: An Adventure On the way to work today, I stopped at one of my bank’s branches to get money out of the ATM. Well, as soon as I put my card in, the screen changed to tell me the machine was out of order - it said I should take my card back. But, no card. It didn’t give it back! I told the guard that was standing at the door, he told me to stand in line to tell a teller. So, I waited… and waited… soon enough, someone else went into the bank, almost yelling, he told everyone the atm machine was broken and that it took his card. I decided to get out of line and wait with him by the machine for the attendent to take care of it - as it was useless for me to wait in line any longer. Well, probably after 5 minutes, the teller went to the machine, found both of our cards, but I had to show my ID. Dang! My resident permit (which I usually carry) was with the driver’s license agent, and my passport was at home! So, I had to go home, get my passport and return to the bank. Long story short, I got everything back, left the bank without money, only to realize that fact when I was almost at the office - I went to another bank and tried my luck with my ATM card - luckily this time it worked.