What happened was:
I took out 2 bills, one was a red HKD100 bill and the other was a dull bill that, in the dark, looked to be either HKD or MOP50.
I then gave the 50 bill to cabbie who should give me HKD/MOP20 change. Instead he gave me 3 or 4 MOP20 bills.
As I got out of the cab, I thought it was strange, so I gave him back the money, telling him he should give me only MOP20.00.
He then gave me 2 MOP20 bills. What? I thought. This driver can't calculate. Knocked on his door and gave him back 1 bill.
As I walked away, it suddenly hit me. Did I have a 50 dollar bill in my pocket? Or was it HKD500? In the dark, I saw a 5 and 0 and thought it was 50 but I don't remember stuffing a 50 into my pocket...
The last I remember is putting a HKD500 and 3 MOP20 bills into my pocket, thinking that I would get the cafe to break the bigger note while grabbing lunch. As it turned out, lunch was exactly MP60 so I didn't need to break the note. The HKD100 was slipped in later when I accidentally found it in my notebook. Yes, I have a terrible habit of stuffing money all over the place. So far, in the past 3 months, I have dished out some USD, some RMB from pockets of jackets from my days in Beijing long ago (somehow they've survived the washer's).
So logically, that would be a HKD500 bill. But at a glance, my eyes saw a 50 bill. And since I don't keep track of the bills in my wallet, I guess I will never know...
Note I: MOP is Macau Patacas and used interchangeably at 1:1 exchange rate with the HKD in Macau although the official exchanage rate is 1:1.03, with MOP as the weaker currency. And yes, very very many people lament and wishes that the Macau government would just get rid of the MOP and switch to HKD totally. Especially when some places accept only HKD, such as property rental which must be paid in HKD and the casinos where bets must be placed in HKD...
Note II: HKD bills are issued by banks, meaning you can get 3, 4, 5, 6 different designs for one denomination. Bank of China has its own design, HSBC has its own design, Standard Chartered has its own design... and while they almost always have the same basic colour, there are the odd ones of different colours from different years.
Labels: macau
