It's the little things.

Sometimes it's the little things here in Korea that make you glad it's impossible to get a gun. I work at Chungnam National University. When I started here, the university said that I HAD to use the Hana Bank on campus for my account. This was a bit inconvenient since I already had an account at another bank and liked the service I got there. However, this wasn't so bad because the new bank was more convenient to my house. Then I figured, what the hell, since I have to bank here, I'll get a credit card from here and cancel my card from the other Korean bank. No dice. Hana Bank won't issue credit cards to FOREIGNERS (even though I'm an employee of the university where the bank is located and have an account there). Definitely more annoying, but since I didn't cancel my other card, not a real problem.

Every month, I send money to my mom. The first time I performed this transaction at Hana Bank, they asked for my passport and residence card. No problem, I expected it because it was my first time sending money at a new bank. After that, every month, they simply ran the transaction with the paper work I brought; no ID needed other than my bank book. I'm thinking great, this is very convenient. This went on for almost a year, and then they started asking me for my residence card with each transaction. Not a problem. I always have my card with me. Today I go in to send some money and all of a sudden I need both my passport AND residence card. Of course, I don't have my passport. I hate carrying my passport because I don't want to risk losing it somewhere, and I also don't see the need for it because the residence card has all the pertinent info. I'm a university employee, the bank has all my info (hell, they probably have more info on me than the US government does at this point), and I have an account there. What's the deal?

Maybe this doesn't sound like such a big deal, and in the grand scheme of things, it's not. However, this just really annoyed the hell out of me. It meant I had to go home, get my passport, go back to the bank, wait in line AGAIN, and finally get to do what was so seemingly easy before.

It's the little things.