Don't let the title fool you. This blog is for light entertainment, not some MBA case study (ah, good old time at IMD). I just want to share an interesting story with you, especially for those of you living outside Taiwan.
With the new party (KMT) in power, the Taiwanese government has been trying to normalize its relationship with China. There will be the first regularly scheduled direct commercial flight between China and Taiwan commencing this Friday. In addition, you can now buy RMB in Taiwan starting TODAY. Since Katy and I are going to spend the next two months in China, I figured that it would make more sense to change our money in Taiwan to 1)save the hassle of changing RMB at the airport in Beijing, and 2)save the exchange commission fee (no need to do Taiwanese dollars to US dollars then to RMB).
So we promptly went to the bank this morning. The process was straight-forward, and we got our RMB relatively easy. As we started driving away, we got a call from the bank, asking us to go back to the bank because they need to "record all the serial numbers of the RMB notes." "But there are 200 notes?" we exclaimed in surprise. "Yes, and the notes are not sequentialized" said the bank teller. The thought of simply driving away did cross my mind since we are leaving the country soon anyway. :) But as two lawful citizens, we obediently brought our stash of RMB notes back to the bank, and watched them write down the serial number of every single RMB note.
Despite this hassle, the bank teller was courteous and apologized for the inconvenience. We were still pleased to be the first people to change the RMB at the bank. So for those of you wanting to get some RMB in Taiwan, ask them about the serial number!
