A monthly headache with which I must contend is my depositing my housemate Paul’s rent cheques.
They’re drawn from a U.S. bank in U.S. dollars, so I can’t simply deposit them into the nearest bank machine — I need to stand in line at the nearest branch of my bank, which also happens to be one of the businest: the Royal Bank at Dundas and Spadina, deep in the heart of the downtown Chinatown.
This branch’s services are geared towards the neighbourhood — a lot of the signage is in Chinese, and most of the tellers are fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin. The clientele seems to be made largely of people who own businesses in the area, and naturally, they make heavy use of teller services, spending up to twenty minutes at the teller. The lineups are long; the monotny is broken only by the reading material I usually bring when I go there and the occasional Chinese old lady who says to me “You look like nice Chinese boy. You come to my store, meet my daughter.”
(When they find out I’m Filipino, most say “Ay-yah. Too bad.” Let it be known that “They’re okay, but you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry one of them” isn’t solely the province of the round-eyes.)
I have three problems depositing Paul’s cheques. One is that the Royal Bank has a policy of holding cheques drawn from U.S. banks for twenty-five business days. I’ve had relationships that didn’t last that long!
The second problem is that Paul’s cheques have the name of his bank printed on them. That may seem perfectly natural, but the problem is that his bank has such an embarassingly dorky and incredibly fake-souding name: “The First Internet Bank“. The tellers always do a double-take when they see this, and some have made a phone call just to verify that a bank that sounds like it belongs in a bad sci-fi TV series really exists.
The last problem is cultural. Paul makes out his cheques, quite naturally, to “Joey deVilla”. Of course, my bank account is in my “real” name, Jose Martin deVilla. I never have any trouble depositing cheques made to “Joey” in the ATM, but with the tellers at the nearby branch, it’s another story. Here’s my last encounter with a teller:
Teller: This not your name on the cheque.
Me: Yes, it is.
Teller: No, this say “Joey deVilla”, but account holder name is Jo-say deVilla.
Me: It’s pronounced “Ho-say” [actually, the really proper Spanish/Filipino way is “Hoh-seh”]. It’s Spanish for “Joseph”, and you get my nickname “Joey” from that. “Pepe” or “Pepito” are also acceptable nicknames for Jose in Spanish.
Teller: “Jose” not sound like nickname for “Joey”.
Me: Um….[getting an idea, looking at Teller’s name badge] — Edwin, right? That’s your English name?
Teller: Yes.
Me: What’s your Chinese name?
Teller: Wing Tak.
Me: How do you get “Edwin” from “Wing Tak”?
Teller: It make sense to me. Ed-WIN. WINg Tak.
Me: I think that’s a bit of a stretch.
Teller: It sounds okay to me. But “Jose” and “Joey”? No.
Me: You get the internet on that other terminal there?
Teller: Yeah. That’s just PC.
Me: Could you do me a favour? Do a Google search — use “Jose” “Joseph” and “names” for search terms.
Teller: [Thinking about it] Okay. But only if it make this quick.
The teller Googles and finds this page.
Teller: Ay-yah! “JOSE: Spanish form of Joseph, ‘God increases.'”
Me: So can I deposit the cheque?
Teller: Sure. Let me put note in your file so this problem not happen again.
Me: Thank you.
Teller: You know, this cheque will be held by Royal Bank for…
Me: …twenty-five business days. I know.
Teller: Oh, and tell your housemate to get bank with name that not sound like bullshit.
I just got a PayPal account — I think I’ll have Paul pay me his share of the rent that way.