isa-normaladvance-1914-00142

Description:	142THE NORMAL ADVANCEfind a dozen horses in the city, except those of the English cavalrymen stationed here.See how the men fight to reach you. Surely there is much competition in the ricksha busi¬ ness. You step into one. How glad the man is, and he starts off so fast as ever you would have old Dobbin go—shouting for the other men to clear the way. He goes this way for perhaps two squares, when all at once he stops, turns round, laughs and says, Whereyou go? He understands enough English to show us the city, and to make us understand the different things he points out for us to see.After we leave our baggage at the hotel, he takes us about the city, travelling street after street. He shows us the clock tower, the queens statue, the kings statue—he takes us through Happy Valley, which is a fine park, through the Chinese district, and various other places, until wTe are tired of sight-seeing and return to the hotel. We have had him more than four hours, and, according to the scale of charges on the license plate of the vehicle, we owe him sixty cents Mex., or about twenty-six cents of our money.Among other things we did on our first trip about the city, was to get some money changed. This is apparently a simple thing to do, but to the uninitiated is quite a feat. Money changers are everywhere. The standard of money is the Mexican silver dollar, which has an ever-chang¬ ing value of from thirty-eight to fifty-two cents gold, according to the market. Well, for twenty dollars you get anywhere from forty to fifty dollars, Mexican money, or the same amount in bank notes on the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Association. The bank notes are about five by seven inches in size for the smallest de¬ nominations and increase in size with the de¬ nomination. Small change is issued by the dif¬ ferent provinces. Now a Mexican dollar is worth from one hundred nine to one hundred sixteen cents according to the market. You must get your small change at the money changers, too, for if you should present a dollarto a merchant, he would only allow you one hundred cents for it. If an article costs more than a dollar, say, for example, a dollar and a half, you are expected to pay one Mexican dol¬ lar or its equivalent in small change and the re¬ mainder in small change. And in buying a number of small articles, it is economical to buy just under a dollars worth, pay the bill in small change, and go elsewhere to complete the pur¬ chase. It is surprising how much you can save in China by looking closely to the pennies. Ten cast make one cent. A cast is the little brass coin with the hole in the center. Of course only the Chinese have use for such money, but most of their trading is done with this medium, or that still lower one whose name Ive forgotten, but ten of them make one cast. These are little pieces of bamboo stamped with some money changers name, and are purely for local use.As I said, there are money changers every¬ where, but one must be on the alert to avoid be¬ ing robbed. A tourist usually gets robbed about fifty per cent and is given bad money for the rest. Throw the dollars down on the coun¬ ter to see if they are all in one piece. The Cheno is such a skillful workman that he can take the face off of a dollar, dig out the silver, leaving the edge and face about as thin as tin, fill the space with lead, and put the face back on. It is really marvelous how nice the work is, and how they are able to take away all but the vary thin¬ nest shell of the dollar, but a trifle disconcert¬ ing to have about two out of five of your dollars flying in different directions when you test them. They do this even with the half-dollars, but the three-piece half dollar is not as common as the dollar. Then the smaller change must be tested. That issued by one province may not be good in another. You never know this until the mer¬ chant asks you for another piece of money. But if you get a pieceback, dont throw it away. Just keep it and give it to the next merchant. Often a merchant fears to lose a sale, and will accept the money rather than do so. And be-
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/32598
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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