Fear of Money

I went through the horrifying experience of wiring money out of China. It is not possible for foreigners to buy dollars with Chinese Yuan, unless you can provide 5 various types of documents to prove that your Yuan deposit comes from a earning, paid by a foriegn company. I then asked help from my Aussie colleague who needs to convert the dollars to Yuan.

I know the exchange rate is less than 8. I said I should buy the dollars with this exchange rate. She suggested otherwise but I declined her offer as the token of my gratitue. I then went to check the real exchange rate and found that I am losing almost 100 dollars in this deal. If I should be cool not to care about this? But that's a lot of money! I went to her, fully embarrassed and expressed my will to adjust the exchange rate. I felt like a complete idiot! Luckily for me, she didn't mind at all.

Man, this is really a good lesson for me. I guess sometimes I am too eager to express a good will money-wise. Nevertheless, I sometimes find myself being trapped in a very ackward situation by my not-at-the-right-time-and-right-place generosity. Perhaps I should just smile and geniunly say "thank you very much". And find some other opportunity to repay the favor. I am just too impatient.

With USD cash in hand, I was so shocked to realise that I can only deposit and wire 5,000 dollars maximum a day.