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- |
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Source: |
http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/32598 |
Collection: |
Indiana State University Archives |
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