K is robbed... again

Four days ago, I was at the bank cashing a cashier's check from my employer. I sat awaiting my turn and observed the middle aged Chinese men stroll to the counter to cash out. Each one seemed to consume an inordinate amount of time, I would hear the whirr of the bank teller's cash counting device run more than once and then the men would walk away with thick wads of cash stuffed into their bulging pockets. Here I was observing the traditional chinese way of conducting business in cash only, I suspected most of these wealthy yet unassuming men didn't have a credit card to their name. I wondered how they could leave the bank unmolested.

Just 10 minutes after that thought, as I had left the bank and was driving away my friend K called me on the phone sounding very distraught. Coincidentally, she too had just left the bank after withdrawing her savings but someone had just robbed her of the money as she was getting into her car. I was stunned by the synchronicity of the events plus the concurrence of my earlier thought. She tells me she needs $500 right away. I tell her to meet me at my workplace and I lend her the money. When I see her she is a mess, "why do these things happen to me? I am a good person!! I worked so hard for that money and once again I am robbed within 6 months". She was alluding to months back when someone had broken into her home and stolen her laptop and other valuables. I console her, "there is a balance, you will get this back someday, you're so young. One day a few years from now you'll be making so much money that this incident will seem like chump change".

I give her a hug and she breaksdown in sobs, clearly she is under quite a strain. I ask her why on earth she was taking so much money out and she replies that she had just decided to move to Australia and was withdrawing her savings. She has a place in Sydney and she's moving into it. She invites me to stay at her place in Sydney when I am passing through Australia enroute to New Zealand and I accept since my flight overnights in Sydney. I'll likely stay a few more days in Sydney actually.