What happens when you accidentally drop a coin on the ground? Do you pick it up? What if it rolls behind a piece of furniture or falls into the grass? Is it worth the trouble to pick it up? Some people will always say yes, but many people choose not to, especially if we're running late. What's the value of picking up something that might be worth only one cent?

Things are different in Japan. We'll get to coins in a minute, but first, I want to talk about the currency. In Japan, the currency is the yen. When I visited Japan, one US dollar was equivalent to approximately 108 Japanese yen. But to make calculations simpler, it was easy to think of 100 yen being the same as a dollar.

In Japan, there are coins with the following denominations: 1 yen, 5 yen, 10 yen, 50 yen, 100 yen, and 500 yen. And there are banknotes with the following denominations: 1000 yen, 2000 yen, 5000 yen, and 10,000 yen. So the smallest banknote (1000 yen) is worth approximately ten dollars. And the largest coin (500 yen) is worth approximately five dollars!

Sample Problems

1. If you have one of each of the Japanese coins (1 yen, 5 yen, etc.), how much money do you have?

2. If you have one of each of the American coins (1 cent, 5 cents, etc.), how much money do you have? Remember that a quarter is not the largest denomination coin that we have in the US.

3. If you have a pocketful of US coins (pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters) and you happen to drop 10 coins on the ground, what is the maximum amount of money you might have dropped?

4. If you have a pocketful of Japanese coins (1 yen, 5 yen, 10 yen, 50 yen, 100 yen, and 500 yen), what is the maximum amount of money you might have dropped? Convert this to US dollars.

5. If you bought something in a store in the US, what's the maximum amount of change in coins you'd get back? (Assume that the cashier gives you banknotes when appropriate. So if you were owed $1.50 in change, they would give you a dollar bill and two quarters, not six quarters or fifteen dimes.)

6. If you bought something in a store in Japan, what's the maximum amount of change in coins you'd get back? (Assume again that the cashier gives you banknotes when appropriate.)

7. If you dropped a random handful of Japanese coins, is it worth chasing them down? How does this compare to US coins?

An interesting note: coin purses are more popular in Japan than in the United States, and this is likely due to the higher value of coins in Japan!