Mongolian money is color coded. Bills range in value from 10 Tugriks to 50,000 Tugriks, but the design for the bills between 500 and 20,000 is pretty much the same. The only difference is the color of the bills and the number showing the value.
This poses a bit of a problem for me. I'm color blind, so when I look at the carefully organised chaos in my wallet, it takes about 10 seconds just to figure out whether the order is ascending or descending. After that I have to leaf through the bills to find the desired note. There are numbers on each corner, but for some reason the Arabic numbers are always upside down, torn off, or otherwise obscured. The Cyrillic numbers all seem to be exactly the same for all values. It's really confusing actually.
I went to the store today, and as I saw the total adding up on the register I tried to anticipate what it would be. I guessed that it would be 20,000, and selected a 20,000 Tugrik bill. The last item pushed the total over 20,000.
DANGIT!
The cashier turned her zombie like face toward me and asked for the money. I tried to dig through my wallet for the correct bill, but I couldn't seem to find it. Finally, I grabbed another 20,000 in frustration and handed her 40,000. She asked me if I had anything smaller. I told her (in English) that there was no way I was going back down into that pit of chaos to find the correct bill, and that she would just have to give me change for the 20.
She nodded, her blankly polite face betraying a bit of annoyance. She then began counting out my change, in tens.
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130...
Several minutes later I left the store with a carefully counted wad of bills the size of a softball. Never, ever, ever take your annoyance with the world out on a store cashier. They practice these things in their heads.
While we're at it, I should probably mention that it's wise to not take your annoyance out on the world in general. If you're going to blow up at something, blow up at something that doesn't have any say in the matter, like a tree. Things that can move away from a rant usually do, unless they are people listening to talk radio. Trees, while they may be more cognizant than talk radio listeners, are firmly rooted to the ground. They are therefore a captive audience for you as you scream about how much you hate your life.
I observed the consequences of not heeding this advice a few weeks ago. Mongolians have tried to apply capitalism to every area of their lives. The only problem is that the ideals of free-market capitalism simply don't apply to many things other than markets, hence the term free MARKET capitalism. Free road capitalism is amusing at best.
Free road capitalism works thusly: if you have a big car use it as a shield to block traffic, thereby creating a path for yourself. If you don't have a big car, give your car a really loud horn so that you can deafen the person in the big car and slip by as he slouches, drooling and dazed, over the steering wheel.
There are two intersections near my house. One of them is a free-for-all, the other has a policeman who stands in the center blowing a whistle constantly. As far as I can tell, the only purpose of the whistle is to make drivers aware of the presence of the policeman so he doesn't actually have to pay attention to traffic.
Traffic slows to a crawl around these intersections as drivers attempt to apply free-road capitalism to the best of their ability. I observed one interaction in particular that demonstrated this.
Cars had formed a line several hundred yards long going up a hill towards the intersection. There was a snarl at the top, so the line wasn't moving, and the opposite lane was completely empty. One of the drivers at the bottom suddenly had a bright idea. He pulled into the empty on-coming lane, and gunning his car, headed to the front of the line. He then turned on his blinker and waited for someone to let him in. Several other drivers decided that this was a very good idea indeed, so they too drove to the front of the line. Just as they got there the snarl at the top was sorted out, and cars started coming down. There were two lanes, but when the cars tried to go around each other they managed to clog both of them. Then then sat there, angrily honking at each other with no particular objective in mind other than to tell the world what they thought of it.
See? This could all have been avoided if the policeman hadn't had a big fight with his wife this morning. As I said, don't take your anger out on the world, because the world isn't in the mood to deal with it.
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So help me, I will belong.
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