Mystery Money
November 25th, 2007 by Rose RosetreeEver collect coins when you were a kid? Not me. Being math averse, I was satisfied to tell pennies from dimes.Money handling has grown more complicated since I began to travel abroad. My first week in Tokyo, for instance, I realized that some of the coins I was carrying weren’t Japanese at all. Nor were they American. How was I to make sense of all those jangling round things? They should be taken seriously. Yet they were baffling.Yowza, could this be how singles today feel about dating?When in doubt about what to do, I don’t go for singles bars or personals ads. Preferably I will solve my problems by using paper. Stationery has always been my friend. It soothes me. And fortunately I brought plenty of extra envelopes when I packed for Japan.Sure enough, I needed several to sort out my loot, like euro coins in various denominations. These were left over from my recent trip to Germany. Or maybe that last venture to Ireland. Despite my previous efforts to organize money, showing respect to financial life of the European Union, somehow these coins had made it into my travel pack. No problem. Now they were organized.Another envelope was needed for my loose “Queenie money.” Yes, that’s my name for the British coin of the realm. Somehow a couple of pound coins (or were they pence?) had fallen into my travel pack. No problem, I always relish reminders of England. On bills, images of Queen Elizabeth’s face are stamped on one side, hence my name for all British currency. How regal! I definitely like this kind of money.
Of course, I was delighted to find some of it stowed away into my travel pack. Later, I would be able to sort out just how much it was worth. I still find British coins baffling. For now, it was enough to have solved the basic mystery. Into their envelope went my Queenie money. Now all I would have to deal with was yen.
NO MONEY LAUNDERING
Yen are going to be my good friends while I am in Japan. They must be my friends, the crisp bills, the huge assortment of coins. Before coming to Japan, I had heard that people here were so tidy, every major street had a money-cleaning machines. If these machines do exist, beyond urban legend, they must be in someplace very well hidden, comparable to those American streets you have heard about, the ones that are paved with gold. Japanese money is plenty clean enough for me. And, as the weeks here progress, I flatter myself with the thought that I am getting the hang of how to use it. Only one coin remains a mystery to me. It is coppery, but a different shade from the dull bronze 10-yen coins. And this coin is larger than the 10-yen, nearly the size of a shiny, silvery coin worth 500 yen. My mystery coin contains flowers in the center, just the same on both sides, with an extra ring of writing around the outside. Seeing Japanese writing, my eyes glaze over as usual. Most countries have writing, even entire alphabets, that I cannot decipher. But Japan, of course, uses three of them.
This undecipherable coin frustrates me. Still, I tell myself, “Rose, you don’t have to understand everything about Japanese money. Cut yourself some slack.”
Sure, I may be a really ridiculous perfectionist in some ways–okay, most ways–but traveling takes this out of a person. There’s nothing like daily reminders of complete ignorance, words that pass by me like tiny ships that pass in the night and every single day. And, to a writer, what an indignity to have this total illiteracy in all three alphabets!
It’s humbling.
It’s good for me.
My need to understand things can just chill. So what if I see that coin peeking out of my change purse, every time I reach for a coin? Some day I will find an opportunity to understand.
BUYING GADGETS
My last Wednesday night of this month-long trip, my friend Kaori san takes me shopping. My portable CD player broke the first day after my arrival, with the center popping out and depositing teeny little springs that were impossible to replace. Besides, what is more truly Japanese than a store specializing in electronic gadgets. Souvenirs are us! Kaori guides me through two different subway lines to Shibuya and a superstore chain called Bic Camera. Gadgets are everywhere, along with big and small signs containing words that, of course, baffle me totally. Chaos to me, no doubt these signs bring the thrill of the hunt to a Japanese bargain seeker.
Kaori leads me to an escalator next to a wall. As we as ascend, the mirror-lined wall reflects back the baffling array of products, but our own images predominate. Ah, this is how I like things!
“Hey, I recognize this place now,” I tell her. “This is where you took me last year to buy that thumb drive for my computer, right?”
“Not really.” Kaori laughs, in that loving way she has, which is one of many reasons why I absolutely adore her. “That was a completely different store.”
“Ah sooooooo.” I think, and, “Whatever.”
Once we arrive on the proper floor, I go wild buying gadgets:
- A new, blue CD player.
- A great set of headphones, nicely padded against my ears, and producing a sumptuous sound quality.
- I even spring for a beautiful cassette tape player, something almost impossible to buy now in America because America has moved on from this technology. I haven’t. I like listening to books on tape. I happen to like cassettes. No, I still don’t trust those new-fangled CDs, with their silly way they start skipping and ruining themselves. Not a single cassette tape ever has broken on me, and I’m loyal, okay?
Nonetheless, I also take a deep breath and have Kaori take me to the counter with Ipods. My husband just loves his Ipod. Should I try to act a bit more contemporary, more of a techno-hipster.
Like my slang, my gadget use is horribly antiquated. I pick up an Ipod, then shudder and put it down. I’m not ready yet, that’s all.
Kaori and I head for the subway at Shimbashi. At the ticket machine, I pull out my coins. The mystery coin falls into my hand. Aha, finally I can ask someone. Kaori studies it closely:
“It says ‘Chuck E Cheese. Where a kid can be a kid.’”
Well, well, this coin isn’t Japanese at all. It comes from the kid’s restaurant chain that has rides and pizzas and tickets and prizes and birthday parties. Parents exchange real money for much-more-exciting Chuck E money. Kids feed this into coin slots to pay for their rides and games, while entertainment blares incessantly and far too loudly.
Some parents will bring their kids for a festive afternoon out, but other parents are seriously engaged in birthday parties for preschoolers. Yes indeed, party packages are for sale. If you pay enough, “Chuck E Cheese” (a waiter dressed as an abnormally cheerful rodent) will bring out a birthday cake and sing for your group event.
Five or more parties can be going on at once. The noise sounds like elementary school recess on speed.
But get used to it, parents. Here is the restaurant-bar-cum-karaoke-parlor for America’s youth. Here, according to TV commercials, “a kid can be a kid.” Here is the place where over-stimulated preschoolers have large parties. And then, every time I have been there, kids have had large, screaming meltdowns. (Well, isn’t that the quintessence of what it means for “a kid to be a kid”?)
Yes, I have been to these Chuck E. Cheese parties, when my son was a preschooler. After one of these parties, my husband, Mitch, commented, “Now I finally have been to Hell, and it is called ‘Chuck E.’s’”
Just how, exactly, has a coin from Chuck E’s landed in my purse? This is quite some mystery. Could there be some international forger who specializes in exchanging these coins for Queenie money?
All I know now, putting on my glasses, is that those flowers in the center of the coin are actually images of Chuck E. And all around the edges, the letters are in English, not Japanese. Also, these coins read exactly as my friend, and interpreter, has said.
As for Rose Rosetree, Ms. Reading Life Deeper, this mystery money has brought me a gentle reminder. “Keep reading the innards of life, but for Heaven’s sake, pay attention to that outside part, too.”
Thanks for the smile, Rose.
I can resonate with an experience from my morning - walking my 4 dogs under grey skies this morning, a gentle rain began and I thought to myself, how lovely. Even the squish of the mud under my feet once we’d returned to the yard was delicious.
Then I arrived to work this morning with the same sweatshirt I’d worn while feeding the dogs post-walk, only to realize I was sporting two huge muddy pawprints on the back of my white shirt!
Okay, okay, so perhaps occasionally the “outside part” deserves some attention…
Although I can also cherish this reminder, this “hug” of unconditional love which has followed me to work today!
Me again - I just happened upon this link from an Illustration blog to which I subscribe… these manhole covers from Japan are gorgeous, and I thought of your money post when I saw them!