I've now reached the mid-point of my stay here in Korea. I've hit the six month mark and thoughts turn to what will happen when I get back home. In addition to things that I miss, there are things that I don't.Coin exchange is one of those things.
Here, no matter where I go, whenever there's a transaction, coins are ALWAYS placed into my hand if it is outstretched in front of the cashier. I've never had change placed onto the counter.
Back home, it's a crap shoot.
I could have my hand ready to receive the coins and *ca-chink*, *ca-chink*. The clerk drops them on the counter while I stand there dumbfounded. I then have to 180 my open palm, come down onto the change, and swiffer it off the ledge into my left hand.
It takes seconds, but it's annoying.
Why was my hand dismissed I always wonder? Maybe the cashier doubles as a psychic palm reader and saw misfortune in my future. Taken aghast, the clerk accidentally dropped the coins onto the counter and is too speechless over my bad karma to apologize.
I'm reminded of one particular place where the change on the counter scenario happened frequently. It was a lunch spot near my last employment. They had amazing pita sandwiches, which kept me coming back. After getting my hummus pita, I'd sidestep to the cashier, hand her my money, then stand there with an open palm.
*CA-CHINK*, *CA-CHINK*. My hand was invisible.
How could she not see that by cupping my palm, I magically morphed into a change-holding vessel? Instead, heads & tales stared up at me from the glass counter. My brain went to Def-Con 1. If I had any psionic ability, my mind would've flung the cashier backwards into the dressing table, followed by a cool one-liner: "Keep the change!"
It gets worse.
For this particular glass counter, I couldn't sweep the change into my hand. There was a metallic strip at the edge of the counter with a lip that stopped all coins. I could zamboni-palm the change to the edge, but that's it. I'm forced to pluck each coin, one by one, off a sheer, smooth surface with my thick digits.
And as a guy with no elongated nails, this is a trying task.
I considered wrapping my hand with masking tape in reverse so that I could speed up this process. Or bringing a magnet. Instead, I meticulously try to retrieve each individual coin while the line behind me backs up, waiting to pay for their food and be victimized by the change-dropping cashier.
Why did I keep going back? Probably so I could write this story.
*CA-CHINK*, *CA-CHINK*. My hand was invisible.
How could she not see that by cupping my palm, I magically morphed into a change-holding vessel? Instead, heads & tales stared up at me from the glass counter. My brain went to Def-Con 1. If I had any psionic ability, my mind would've flung the cashier backwards into the dressing table, followed by a cool one-liner: "Keep the change!"
It gets worse.
For this particular glass counter, I couldn't sweep the change into my hand. There was a metallic strip at the edge of the counter with a lip that stopped all coins. I could zamboni-palm the change to the edge, but that's it. I'm forced to pluck each coin, one by one, off a sheer, smooth surface with my thick digits.
And as a guy with no elongated nails, this is a trying task.
I considered wrapping my hand with masking tape in reverse so that I could speed up this process. Or bringing a magnet. Instead, I meticulously try to retrieve each individual coin while the line behind me backs up, waiting to pay for their food and be victimized by the change-dropping cashier.
Why did I keep going back? Probably so I could write this story.
4 comments:
I've been to places - the U.S., for one - where they have change deposit trays. You MUST take the change from the tray. Hands must NOT come into any contact. I suppose it's some kind of misguided health precaution, preventing the spread of virus from touch. However, this is absurd. Do you know what's on a bill or a coin, how many hands its passed through? Have you ever read one of those studies that measures the microscopic contents of crud and e-coli that's on money? Or maybe I'm wrong and the tray is supposed to be for effeciency, speed up the lines at the register. Or maybe it's part of an active campaign to dehumanize the shopping experience even further. Just be glad you are not in Costa Rica, the Coin Capital of the world. YOu need a personal trainer just to develop enough muscle mass to carry the amount of coinage that country circulates. It's insane. I'd hate to imagine what your pet peeve would be like there! --pat
and what about when they do it at the BAR, and then you've got to drag your coins through the puddles of stale beer.
that's just nasty!
but what's even worse than the change on the counter is when they put the bills in your hand and then drop the change on TOP. i've already got one hand holding the thing i've purchased, so with several bills placed flat on my palm i've got to: a) keep the coins from skating off the edges of the bills, b) place my thumb "just so" across my palm so that i (1)trap the coins, (2)crimp the bills enough that i can then (3)fold my fingers in towards the palm to fold the bills in half—which never really works and i always just end up with a wadded up mess of bills, and which inevitably leaves my thumb trapped since if i pull it out, i'd pull out all of the coins as well, and then c) keep the palm clenched while i try to work an entire fist into the front pocket of my jeans, shove it down to the bottom, and then try to retreive my hand without pulling all of the bills back out again.
soon enough i'm pulling individually wadded up bills out of my pocket like i just got off my shift at the strip club or something...
As a sociologist who has had the unfortunate experience of being a research assistant for a study on social behaviour of cashier and customer interactions, i have to say of the 1,000 plus money exchanging transfers i had to observe, i never once saw a cashier drop money on a counter when a customer placed their hand out. Mind you this was in Victoria, where the customer could tell the cashier to go fuck themselves and the cashier would reply, "thank you, have a nice day" and would promptly place the change in their hand. Or maybe it is because T.O. is the SARS capital of Canada and people are afraid of catching something. Who knows?
One of the things that came out of the 1992 Los Angeles riots that I learned was that Korean culture seems to discourage, if not outlaw, personal contact. I'd heard it's considered rude to make eye contact with other people and even more unforgivable to actually touch someone else. That's why the blacks in LA seemed to target businesses owned by Korean people for destruction -- they felt that having their change dropped on the convenience store counter had racist undertones. It didn't, only cultural. So I heard on CNN.
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