Saturday, August 26, 2006

Gimme Mao Money

The highest denomination of Chinese Renminbi is the 100RMB note. This note is equal to approximately US$12.50/AU$16.50.

This means that a relatively small amount of money in US/AUS dollars translates into a sizeable wad of cash in Chinese RMB- a fact which can make you feel rich on pay day, but results in troubles when it comes to fitting the money safely in your wallet. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most shops only accept cash payments, especially for expensive items.

Normally if I have a bit of money to carry around I will shove it in my bra. It's a habbit I developed while living in rural Nepal, as all the women in my village would carry their money like that.

Yet when Phil came home from the bank yesterday with enough money to buy his new camera I realised the old 'money in my bra' thing wouldn't work. He's a professional photographer and his cameras aint of the 'point-n-shoot' variety, so it was a sizeable amount of money. But really it looks like MUCH more when it's in RMB.

But that didn't stop me from trying to fit it in my bra-


I imagine Mao never thought his head would be resting in the white bosom of an Aussie chick.

Needless to say we put the cash in a money belt.

6 comments:

Mia said...

It could've been worse thank gravy it wasn't in coin form. That makes for a lumpy bra.

I knew a lady once who used her bra as a wallet on a regular basis. One time she lost $300.00 (American money) and went a little nuts looking for it. Okay she went "alot of nuts" she finally gave up and thought it had fallen out of her bra while she was shopping. Many, many months later she pulled out a chicken from her deep freezer for dinner. Once it had defrosted and she took it out of the aluminum foil she had wrapped it in she found her lost money. It seemed it had fallen into the bag of chicken while she wrapped it up. It was wet,and smelly but she was a happy woman that night.

Mignon said...

I think that's EXACTLY what Mao was hoping for. I like imagining his face snuggling the asses of poor working-folk across China as well.

(What a pretty milky-white chestal region you have! You look like some Jane Eyre heroine.)

verniciousknids said...

Ha ha ha...now I definitely want to visit China!

Louise said...

LOL, mignon my boobs are so "milky white" that phil couldn't use the flash to take that photo- when he did it was like the camera had been hit by lightnening.

The sentence: "look at my fabulous tan" has NEVER been uttered by my lips. I really should have lived 200 years ago....

Jenny Wynter said...

Wow, you lived in rural Nepal (sorry, just side-stepping the mind-blowing vision of a wad stuffed down your shirt for a moment)?? I have been DYING to go to Nepal since I can remember. I'm so jealous!!

Louise said...

Yep lived in rural Nepal- I wish I could say I lived in a quaint mountain village full of smiling Tibetan-looking people and rolling green hills, but actually I lived in the steaming hot Terrai Plains, on the Eastern border with India. The closest town to my village was memorably described in the Nepal Lonely Planet as: “not much more than a glorified bus-stop, and it is difficult to imagine that anyone would want to stay longer than the time it takes to make a bus connection”. Ahh good times.

I'm kidding, It was actually the best year of my life, but at the same time it was the absolute worst year of my life too- life there is just so extreme.

I am half-way through writing a book about life in Nepal, but got stuck after about page 250 when the horror of finding publishers, etc, dawned on me.