jwb@csse.monash.edu.au wrote:
> Michael Cash <mikecash@buggerallspammers.com> dixit:

> >I went from bank to bank to bank trying to cash the damned thing. It
> >was always the old "Do you have an account with us?" routine. Having
> >just arrived in town, I didn't have an account with any local bank.
> >When I finally found a bank that greeted me pleasantly and cashed my
> >check with no questions asked and no service fee, I opened an account
> >there.

Last time I visited Cambridge (the other one) I went to 4 or 5 banks
trying to change yen (cash) into USD. Same "do you have an account with
us" BS. I'd only been in Sepponia 6 hours or so. Everytime I gets the
shits with the staff at UFJ I find the easiest way to relax is to
remember that at least it isn't a sepponian bank.

> A friend of mine (now retired and living in Niigata) tells the story
> of when he was working in the US 20+ years ago, driving a group
> of executives from a Japanese car manufacturer around to investigate
> possible sites for a new factory. A couple of them had to change
> traveller's cheques, so they stopped at the banks in various towns.
> They got the same runaround, but in their case had the bonus of
> xenophobic stage whispers from the bank staff. Finally they found a
> town with a bank that would change the cheques. Guess which town got
> the car plant?

Would that have been Honda?