1 post tagged “money”

Oh Shanghai.  Thou art fully modern.  When the hell are you going to popularize personal checking.

I put down a deposit on my apartment today, equivalent to two-months of rent, IN CASH.  The highest paper denomination here is the equivalent of a twelve-dollar bill.

So there I was, withdrawing money five times from two different ATMs over the course of two days, nervously stuffing wads of redback into my laptop bag while people in line eyeballed me suspiciously.

Do you have any idea what it feels like, going down the street with that much loot on you?  Do you have any idea how many times I glanced nervously at my bag during soccer practice last night?

And here I am now, at a private, pre-arranged location, opening a briefcase with close to 150 Chinese Benjamins for you, my landlord, to count one by one.  How illicit does this feel?  I don’t know whether to expect your signature on the lease or a gunnysack of cocaine, fished out of your pajama pants.