Coins

A couple days ago I traded coins with one of the chinese teachers. They are leaving for home in a couple weeks and we both needed a good memento I suppose. She gave me 1 Yuan and in exchange I gave her a dime and a penny. With current exchange rates, this made for a five cent profit! Now I am completely out of American money in Korea.

It wasn't until coming to Korea that I realized just how useless pennies are. I have a coin dish on my cabinet that for many months had four 10 won coins in it. They sat and sat there because it is extremely rare that anything in Korea can be bought with them. Very recently I received another 10 won coin from a friend and was secretly excited to have enough to equal 50 won. Why, now if I only get a 50 won coin then that will equal 100 won, and finally my money will become remotely useful again. Generally I save up my 100 won coins and when I get ten of them I trade them in for a roll of kimbap.

The annoyance with small change in Korea has lead me to create a new rule that I follow: only pay in cash when guaranteed to not get change smaller than 100 won coins back. This is fairly easy to follow in Korea, but it does result in me using debit on small items from time to time. Of course, this rule only works because tax is already added into the value of the purchase. I know exactly how much something will cost me before I go to the register.

In America, I always had a fondness for the penny, but my experience in Korea further cements what anybody that has studied the subject knows: pennies need to go. They cost far more money than they are worth and are a huge hassle. I have no emotional attachment to 10 won so, being almost equivalent to the penny, I can finally see the uselessness of the coin for what it is.