Friday Five 5-August-2022

This week's questions from F.riday5.com

1. What’s the farthest you’ve ever driven in one trip?
I assume the prerequisite is I or what you mean my friends drive, so... I've only ever driven in Macau. With a total area of around 116 km.sq (45 sq.mi), I can't have gone far LOL. There was one time when I was in Austria with my Dad and Sis and Dad drove us to some salt mine. I have no recollection of where it is, I have no recollection of how long we've driven, but that would be the kind of "driving" the question is asking about, I assume.

(I'm ignoring all the bus tour trips because that's not "self-driving")

2. What are you very particular about when ordering in a restaurant?
I live in a place that's practically China. I've been conditioned to be immune with all the things that could go wrong LOL. I ordered a spaghetti yesterday and they did not swap the placement of spoon and fork, they set my table a regular fork on the left, spoon on the right, and I don't know why an Alfredo requires them to leave me with a knife as well. So yeah.

3. Which of your friendships goes back the furthest?
I've known my besties C & P since primary school but it's actually possible we've known each other since kindergarten. I am only sure I know a couple other friends since kindergarten, A, M, and my "Portuguese comrades" (long story short, we didn't have to take Chinese and instead we had to go to an alternate Portugese class, so the "Portuguese kids" would ALWAYS be placed into the same class. I'll write a more detailed thing about this later, if I am ever bothered to do so LOL)

4. How do you feel about romantic comedy films, and what’s your favorite?
I guess they are ok. I don't go out of my way looking for them, but if they sort of show up and I'm already sitting and watching, then I might watch. Though now with Netflix, it's more choosing what you really like.

5. How did you spend last new year’s eve, and how would you like to spend the next?
Definitely at home, with the family. Dad might have whipped up some snacks and we had either champaigne or Baileys. Probably much the same next year. I don't have the energy to actually go out after 10pm.

LJ thefridayfive  did not update yet, but since I missed last week's from LJ, here they are

1. Who is the messiest person you know?
Hands down my Sis.

2. What is the most useless talent you have?
I don't know. I can digress. A lot. Go off tangent. Amuse myself.

3. What is the most interesting thing you’ve read or seen this week??
I just came off an episode of a podcast (my new recent binge Fresh Hell Podcast) about the 6 wives of king henry viii and I can only roll my eyes (at the king, not at the podcast). I previously knew vaguely about his starting the anglican church because he wanted more wives but he's just a slimy old perv. So when the wife only gives him dead kids and daughters it's her fault, and when FINALLY there is a son it's HE's able to have a son?

4. If you could get a ticket to any show or event, what would you want a ticket to?
hm...... hm..... hm........ I'm not a big concert goer. Well, when concerts come by my way and I happen to like them I would go. I've been to 2 or 3 Suede's when they came to Hong Kong, The Cranberries when they came to Hong Kong... I think I so happened to get free tickets to the Beach Boys so took my Mom to it... But there isn't anything I'm particularly excited wishing to get a ticket of.

5. if you could live in someone’s head for fifteen minutes, who would you want it to be?
No thanks. I've found peace in my turmoil of a head, I don't want to assimilate someone else's.

So this happened at the bank...

But while I find this story particularly amusing, I need to explain a whole backstory so that you might see why I find it amusing.

So the people in Macau (and maybe in Hong Kong, I'm not too sure of it) can have 2 names. Two somewhat unrelated names.

Say for example, the usual "John Doe" name in Chinese is 陳大文. 陳 is Chan, the surname. 大文 is Dai Man (Portuguese transliteration. Whereas the Hong Kong transliteration would make it Tai-man, hyphenated). And then, they can have English name. So, let's just say his name is David. So, this guy is 陳大文 David Chan. On his ID documentation (in Macau), it would most likely show as 陳大文 Chan Dai Man. I've seen some people with names shown as 陳大文 Chan Dai Man alias David Chan. And some, if they choose to, would get both the Chinese and alphabet name together 陳大文 Chan David Dai Man (or David Dai Man Chan).

The summary is to mean that, people can have just a chinese name, just an alphabet name, or both.

So. At the bank yesterday. My debit card had expired so when I tried to deposit the cheque on the machine it wasn't working. So I had to go to the counter. The lady said my debit card had expired so meh. I deposited the cheque at the counter, then she sent me off to another machine to reissue a new debit card, because if I request for a new debit card at the counter it, it would take 2 weeks, but if I did at the machine, it will spit a new card out for me in 2 minutes. I really couldn't care less because... I hardly use the card (it's all electronic banking nowadays), I could have keyed in my account number into the cheque deposit machine, but I was lazy so I used the card and thus found out it has expired.

Ok. New debit card. Apparently I had to cancel the old one (despite it having expired already). That done, I request a new card. Error. Try again. Error. Another bank staff comes over, doesn't understand what's going on. Gets a manager. Manager looks, fills up a form, asks me to sign. I ask back, what is the form for? as I'm not just going to sign any forms. He says "oh your account didn't have your English name in it, so I'm just logging that name back."

Right?? I only have 1 name. The alphabet (or the English) name. I don't have a Chinese name, at least, not recorded onto my ID card. And I have had an account in this bank for... 15 years! What do you mean my English name is not on the account? So what name IS in my account?

I was in a good mood, so I didn't raise any hell though. I just looked at him. "Really?" I looked over the form, it is what he said it is, so I thought what the heck, I'm in for a long ride (yes 30 minutes), and signed it.

Cutting through the boring back and forth of the guy doing something and sending me back to the machine and the machine spitting out an error and my going back to this desk, back and forth, at least 4 times, 30 minutes later, I got my spiffy new debit card. The issue was: My name is too long. If he had asked me, I would have given him a nice shortened version of my name that another bank did (a Portuguese bank) and that was actually quite cool, I do like it. But essentially what they did was just stopping my name where it reached the character limit. So. Something like..... Williams, Alexandr. (i'm trying to think of a long name example haha)