So this happened at the bank...
Saturday, 6 August 2022 11:35![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elusivekBut 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)
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)
no subject
Date: 2022-08-06 22:30 (UTC)Delosreyes (this was common because of the character limit but meant it was super hard to get into systems)
Del os reyes
De los Reys
no subject
Date: 2022-08-07 11:47 (UTC)I'm a bit touched that my mom did not give me a second and third name like most Portuguese seem to have (Ana Maria Joao de Silva Smith) because my first name in itself is pretty long too LOL LOL