Miscellaneous Money Matters
One of my lower level classes today started a lesson that introduces the numbers 11-20. Included in this unit is the format to ask about a quantity of something ("How many ______ do you have?"), and while the students didn't have any problems reading the examples from the student book they also didn't sound very enthusiastic. But oh, how the mood changed once I pulled out some money for them to count. It was mostly a collection of Korean coins that have been accumulating in my laptop bag, but I also had an old Sino-Korean coin (the mun, used from 1633-1892) and a 1905 pressing 1₣ (1 franc) coin from French Indochina which caught their attention. The exotic currency seemed to be a hit, and since this class is full of good students who actively participate in class I gave each of them a 100원 coin.
Moving to another country involves adjusting to a number of different changes in how things are done. Ritualized affairs such as how people exchange greetings over the phone or conduct business meetings are obvious differences, but there are also smaller details as well. One in particular is how money gets counted. Despite trying on a number of occasions I still have serious problems when trying to count bills the Korean way. There's a video on YouTube that claims to document the ways people count money in different regions of the world but, if the comments from international members are to be believed, it seems to be somewhat inaccurate. Instead, here's one focusing on just Korea:
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