The bill came and I paid for my meal. When the waiting staff came back with my change, she asked, “Can I ask you something? Why do you still use cash?” I looked up at the Gen Z, who was genuinely curious about this stranger who had made the strange decision to eschew the several cashless payment options available.
Despite them hosting more bacteria colonies than a toilet seat, there’s something exhilarating about the feel of banknotes and coins in my hands. But the main reason why I avoid payments by plastic or QR codes as much as I can is because I don’t want my spending habits tracked.
I’m not paranoid, but how many times have you bought something at a shop using your credit card, and shortly afterwards you’re inundated with online ads featuring that same shop, or its associated brands?
And don’t get me started on the technical glitches, which always happen to the person in front of me at the supermarket line. I’ll be fuming as they fumble with wonky phones, rejected cards and malfunctioning card readers.
“Just pay cash. It’s quicker!” I imagine myself shouting at them, but of course I never do because I’m Asian and don’t like confrontations.
Like so many other civilisations, the very first type of money that the Chinese used were cowrie shells, which have been unearthed in tombs dating back almost 4,000 years.
The shortage of real shells vis-à-vis population and economic growth, along with advances in Chinese metallurgy, resulted in the minting of copper money that resembled cowrie shells.
By the Warring States period (476–221 BC), multiple currencies were legal tender at the same time, with copper cash in the shapes of shells, beans, knives and farming implements.
When the Qin dynasty unified China in 221 BC, a new standard coin was issued and all other currencies abolished. The new coin, weighing half a liang (around three grams), was a small round disc with a square hole in the centre.
For the next 2,000 years, the coins of China and neighbouring nations including Japan, Korea and Vietnam took this form, albeit in different weights and sizes, and with different metallic content and inscriptions.
Today, the Bank of China uses a stylised form of this coin as its brand logo. In Japan, the 5-yen coin with a round hole in the centre is still in circulation.
During the Song dynasty (960–1279), paper money began to be widely circulated and accepted, though promissory notes specific to certain trades and merchants had appeared centuries before.
In the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties (1271–1912), paper money and copper coins were the main legal tender. However, a new type of money emerged during that period: silver in the form of portable ingots. Silver was used in transactions that involved large amounts of money, while paper money and coins were reserved for everyday use.
In the early 20th century, China started using a combination of banknotes and coins as money, which by then had become standard across the world. It remains the standard today, although electronic payments are threatening to make banknotes and coins obsolete.
I remember a taxi driver in Shenzhen refusing my 20-yuan banknote and insisting that I paid my fare electronically. We’ve heard about Chinese beggars with QR codes, though I have yet to actually see one.
For Zoomers such as that restaurant waitress, using cash is probably as familiar an activity as writing with a pen or pencil. So, why do I still use cash?
“Someone has to,” I said as I pocketed my change.
