Off to Hong Kong with some other friends from China for a conferenceduring the Chinese New Year holiday... I'll be around from 28 Jan to 4Feb -- anyone in town and up for meeting up? =)
I was looking over my stash of HKD from my last trip there, and noticedthat all the banknotes of $20 or more have the inscription that "so-and-so bank promises to pay the bearer on demand at its Office here X Hong Kong dollars". Ummm... so if the cold hard notes I'm holding in my hand aren't actualHong Kong dollars, then what are? What else would the "bearer" get paid in? I wonder what would happen ifI actually went to the bank, showed them the note, and "demanded" I getpaid. =)
I pretty much know nothing about the ways of banking and currency, so anyone know the real meaning of this?
Random.
Comments (3)
Have fun in HK, I wish I could be there! Yeah, those notes are weird, reminds me of the boardgame "Life" where you had these promisary(?sp) notes. Funny money!
Posted by ShanghaiRon | January 8, 2006 12:52 AM
Posted on January 8, 2006 00:52
i've used hkd before, but i never noticed that. interesting... have fun in hk!
Posted by sojink | January 8, 2006 6:39 AM
Posted on January 8, 2006 06:39
there is no central bank in HK, if i remember correctly... so banks issue their own notes. it says something along the lines of : if you present this note at XYZ bank headquarters, we'll pay you the same amount. i dunno how it works actually, but ppl seem to live just fine using them.
Posted by soogebear | January 18, 2006 9:37 PM
Posted on January 18, 2006 21:37