After two months living here, I've found I'm finally starting to feel comfortable with RMB currency. At first it felt like we were spending Monopoly money, especially since for every 1 dollar exchanged you receive almost 7 Chinese Yuan (Renmimbi, aka RMB, and Yuan are two words for the same thing). 6.8 is more exact, although China made a formal announcement early this week that they will allow their money to float a little more freely in the market. Experts predict the exchange rate will be closer to 6.5 to 1 US dollar by the end of the year. It's been steady at about 6.8 to 1 for the last two years.
The feeling of knowing what the money in your hand is worth is really nice. I mean, it's something I took for granted at home, and found really challenging when we first arrived in China.
It seemed no matter what we paid for something, my coworkers were always telling us it was too much. How were we to know though? And who's to say what is really too much - it varies by person and by the situation. Some things cost less here than they do back in the U.S., and others are the same price or much more.
Even though we're more comfortable with the money values now, we still judge everything by what it would cost to buy it back in Atlanta. Maybe over time that will change?
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