Actually, it was Ben Wolfson who pointed out the list, I just praised it.

Don't know about the Japanese info, but for the Chinese info it's clear he's converted everything into US dollars. The "internal" denomitations are all of the 1,2,5,10 . . . type, very normal and reasonable.

The basic unit of currency is the yuan, and .10 yuan is one jiao, and .01 yuan is one fen. When I was there 1 yuan was worth about 1/8 of a dollar, and it looks like that's still true, hence all the .12 stuff in his list.

For the most part they don't use fen anymore, everything is just rounded up to the nearest jiao (i.e. .10 yuan).

To make things more complicated, China uses "measure words" for just about everything, and they have different measure words for different things. So you don't just say "seven cookies" or "nine people", you say "seven zhang cookies" (zhang seems to be used for most flat things), and "nine ge people" (ge is also a more all purpose measure word that you can usually get away with using if you don't know the specific measure word to use).

Likewise you don't just say "four yuan" or "eight jiao", you say "four kuai yuan" or "eight mao jiao", and often they drop off the "yuan" or the "jiao" on the end. So "kuai" and "mao" get used a lot instead of "yuan" and "jiao". It confuses big noses no end, especially those who only speak enough pidgin Chinese to buy a few things in the market. Many don't realize that the currency is the yuan because when they ask "this object how much?" the reply is something like "ten kuai".

One interesting thing is that they have paper money even for very small denominations, even down to one fen notes (although these are rare). It would be like having penny, nickel and dime notes here in the states. The paper quality for these small denominations is very very poor, after only a little use they feel like tissue paper and start falling apart. The trick is to pass them off to someone else before they disintegrate, but sometimes you get stuck with one that nobody will take (kind of like trying to spend Scottish bills south of Hadrian's wall).

The coins for the smaller denominations are also made of cheap material, some aluminum alloy I think, but they feel like plastic, and they're so light that if you're careful you can float a one jiao coin on top of a glass of water. Once you get to one yuan and above, though, the paper and metal quality is "normal".

As with a lot of currencies, the sizes of the bills vary, starting small and getting larger. The one fen note is tiny, about the size of a stick of gum. The 100 yuan note is about 1 1/2 times or so the size of US notes, and at least when I was there it was the largest denomination. 100 yuan is only about US$12, so to make the monthly payroll at the school I worked at, we were withdrawing and handing out huge bricks of cash.

Sorry to go on and on, but I'm hoping it will make up for, or at least distract from, the fact that the currency denominations are perfectly ordinary and indicative of nothing profound.

Actually, it was Ben Wolfson who pointed out the list, I just praised it. Don't know about the Japanese info, but for the Chinese info it's clear he's converted everything into US dollars. The "internal" denomitations are all of the 1,2,5,10 . . . type, very normal and reasonable.

Where am I? What's going on? Who's been typing on my blog?

Awesome post/site. I really want a comparison like that for every nation. The CIA factbook just does not get to the real, important, data like this (can you drink on the street).

That was really fascinating. I should do one just like it for Norway and the US (I live in Norway, grew up in Iowa).

I wonder if anyone would be interested in Smithfield, Durham, Chapel Hill, and Hillsborough, NC.

Not.

And here I thought the Sumerians had conquered China...

As long as we're discussing oriental things that seem indicative of something profound but actually aren't: in case you didn't know, the claim that the Chinese word for "crisis" is made up of two characters signifying "opportunity" and "danger" is, basically, bullshit.

The Chinese word for crisis is wei ji. Wei most certainly means danger, and ji is pretty darn close to 'opportunity. It is used in ji hui meaning opportunity, and shi ji, which means to lose a chance.

Yes, you're right, Karl, but ask any native Chinese speaker if they think of it that way and they'll tell you no. Which is why I used the qualifier "basically".

I should have been clearer, but I decided not to get into a full explanation, as it was off topic to begin with and I feel I've been squatting in Apostropher's comments sections too much. I should get my own blog if I want to go on at such length about my interests at the drop of anything remotely resembling or that might be mistaken for a hat.

But since you've opened the door (thanks!). . . saying that the Chinese character pair for "crisis" means both danger and opportunity is kind of like saying the English word pair "hedge trimmer" means both hedge and trimmer. Weiji is more accurately read as something along the lines of "an opportunity for or a risk of danger" (you know, a crisis), not as some mystical koan for entrepreneurs.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'some mystical koan for entrepeneurs', but ask any native English speaker if they think of the word crisis as derived from the Indo-European word krei, meaning 'to sieve' and they will tell you no. That does not make a statement to that effect 'basically bullshit'. Neither does it make such a statement particularly profound.

And now I'm just going to pull rank on you. When you have lived in Asia for 15 years, and have spoken fluent Chinese for ten of those, you will have learned not to ask just anyone about the more interesting or subtle parts of the language. Your average native speaker of Chinese does not know the classical roots of modern usage, nor does he/she know the historical character construction, any more than an average English speaker will know Latin.

Karl, I think we're talking past each other. I agree with everything you just said about etymologies and the average speakers of a language, etc.

What I meant by "mystical koan for entrepreneurs" is that the people one usually hears spouting the line about "the Chinese word for crisis contains both opportunity and danger" are not Sinologists or linguists or anything like that. It's usually motivational speakers and business consultants who don't really know the first thing about China or Chinese and it's usually presented in an "Ancient Chinese Wisdom" sort of way, i.e. "see, those wise and exotic Orientals realize that every crisis presents an opportunity!" That's the bullshit I was referring to.

It's as if, using your example, a Chinese Amway representative told his sales troops that the English word for crisis is derived from a root meaning sieve, which shows that those ingenious and industrious Americans realize that a crisis is really just a chance to sift through your options and choose the best one. Yes the etymology part is accurate, but the rest is, basically, bullshit.

Sorry for the lack of clarity, like I said I should have been clearer. But the weiji example, which for some reason I seem to run across at least several times a year, epitomises a certain attitude to (and ignorance of) "The East" in general and China in particular that is a real pet peeve pf mine.

On a similar note, I just figured out, don't ask me how for I cannot tell you, that the reason the laundry on the corner gets clothes so clean isn't because of an "Ancient Chinese Secret", as the proprietor has claimed. It's Calgon. Calgon!!

You do know that the Chinese character for Calgon is made up of two characters than mean "scrubbing" and "bubbles", right?

Thanks for the Oslo comparison! He is pretty dead on about most of that stuff. Although, I live in Bergen which is infinitely cooler (and a tiny bit less expensive).