Bank of China sucks!

So, like many Chinese banks that are threatened with foreign banks entering the market (or just want to tap expat customers), my local bank, Bank of China, has set up an English language website for online banking.  It sucks in so many ways.  The cursor not changing to a different icon when you hover over something clickable, the fact that passwords using capital letters mysteriously freeze the system, the bad English translation, etc.

The last time I was on, I noticed that some hacker had apparently felt the same way as me and took out his frustration by adding a little bit of editorial comment to the landing page after log-in.  I had a good laugh and then forgot about it.  Tonight, about 2 months after seeing that, I logged in again and IT'S STILL UP THERE!  The funniest thing about this is that someone's job is to watch this site or maintain it.

Oh well, here's the screen shot for sh*ts and giggles.

Some of the worst offenders of being "not global"

Are "multinational" banks headquartered in the US.  No joke.  You would think that Citibank and Chase Manhattan, multibillion dollar financial institutions, could get their act together and support customers that don't live in the US.  Nope.  It's taken 5 calls and 3 months to get a replacement card and I still don't have one yet.  For Chase, I've been trying to get a replacement refund check since they sent one to me while I was deployed last year.  

The problems?  

1. Legacy computer systems that don't allow you to update with addresses that have a foreign country (no foreign country dropdown box) and make you call in

2. In-house database systems that don't have sufficient fields.  With both systems, they kept running out of space or told me that if I wanted a zipcode, I could only use one street address line

3. Call center people who don't know where or what Shanghai is and how to take dictation when a romanized Chinese street name is spelled to them.  I swear, I was so hoping that an Indian call center guy would answer my call

4. Stupid fraud detection process that automatically flags and freezes your card when you make online purchases.  This happens regularly no matter how many times I call them and tell them that I am living in China and frequently traveling in Asia.  Their systems are set up against the average American who never leaves the country.

4. Ok, this one's not their fault.  Either the US or China postal system sucks when it comes to receiving foreign mail.  1 month is average, and success rate of arrival is about 50%

So, these "multinationals" actually are only global in the sense that they have presence in multiple locations.  If you're looking for consistent service or portability of your account, etc.  they suck.  Sorry, America, but you're really not helping yourself out here -- I think the international banks (HK, UK, etc) are much better at dealing with customers that actually move around the world.

Thanks for listening to my Monday suck.

Kitty is loud

The new kitten went through 4 days of being called "kitty" until we settled on "Chloe".  She's really skittish, not as playful as kittens usually seem to be, has this soulful look about her, and meows loudly at nothing all the time.  Based on that, she didn't really fit any of these other candidate names: Anya, Bella, Kasia, Makita, Rina, Sloggi, Sydney.

Although I still like Sloggi.

Danger of pet stores

It's a well-known rule that you never go grocery shopping when hungry.  Well, there is a similar rule that I should have known about.  Never go shopping at a pet store with a wife or girlfriend.  My goldfish started going tits up, so I went to the pet store to find out what I needed to do and buy some replacements for the floaters.  While I was discussing pH levels, air filters, and aquarium vs. household salt, Sarah wandered off and I find her minutes later with a grey hairball with huge eyes.  Price is 4500rmb, which is pretty high, but then when you compare to prices in the states, is not actually ridiculously high.  This is actually quite a good pet store with employees who really know their stuff and actually seem to care and enjoy their jobs and helping customers, which is really hard to find in retail in China.

The next day we're back in the pet store to buy some other fish stuff (having already dropped over $100 the prior day on 6 fish).  I make an offer on the kitty.  The store seems to give its employees significant control over pricing, and the 4500 rmb drops to 3500.  I counter with 3200rmb, feeling a bit guilty because this isn't an air filter we're talking about, but after all, it is China.  He thinks about it, then, says ok because he wants to see the kitty go to a good home.  I'm a bit jaded, but then I see him go over to the kitty later and seem to say goodbye to it and he seems a bit sad.  The kitten had been in the store for about 2 months (it's almost 5 months old), so I guess he did get attached to it.  The store only had a couple kittens and puppies for sale at a time.

The good ones always die young

It's possible to find almost everything you might want in Shanghai, from western food, to Skippy peanut butter, to Marmite to El Paso Taco Shells.  Strangely though, good Vietnamese food, namely a decent bowl of pho, is nearly non-existent in Beijing or Shanghai.  Start a conversation with a foodie in either of these two cities and inevitably  the topic will turn to Vietnamese and the lack of genuine places.  

In the past, there have been a couple okay places -- Pho 54 in Beijing, Bamboo in Shanghai, but nowhere really good, even at inflated prices.

About a year ago, we stumbled across Pho King, a little place that we found through ShBite.com, a local food delivery company.  Aside from having a kickass name, they had great pho -- good amounts of thin sliced rare beef, tasty broth, and plenty of the fixins -- lemon, bean sprouts, Thai basil...

Nothing good lasts.  I just found out that Pho King closed down, victim of some landlord lease dispute.  There are plenty of bad restaurants in this city, why this one???  Looking for new suggestions