Money

Today I learned:

Each culture is distinguishable in the way that they count money. In the West, money is counted as though gently separating the individual cards from a deck one bill at a time. In Taiwan, money is placed in the palm of a hand all together as though trying to hide it and each top edge of the bill is pulled upward toward the face revealing the next. Another way – used in Pakistan by the man who owns a burrito stand in the center of Kaohsiung City is to place the money sideways on the palm all together and count each bill pulling it away. How did the language of money counting take such subtle but different shapes in each part of the world?

~ by globalciti on February 14, 2009.