The Man in Won

Korean currency is weird. Or maybe it is their counting. The Korean currency is called Won and is differenciated from other Won around Asia by saying, Korean Won. KRW as the abbreviation goes. USD is U.S. Dollar.

The coin values are pretty much 100W, and 500W. There are smaller values, but those are pretty irrelevant (generally). The lowest bill is 1000W. Then there's 5thou, 10thou and 50thou. 50,000W bills are pretty uncommon on the streets. Mostly a person deals with 10's, 5's and 1's (and of course those common coins: 100 and 500).

To give a bit of perspective for value: 1,000W at the moment is worth about $0.84. Two thousand Won makes about $1.60. I talked a bit ago about how my local coffee shop sells a cafe latte for about 2,700W which is roughly: $2.30.

But enough about numbers. Well... almost enough. Last week I went to buy something from a local shop and they didn't take card (debit card) so I had to go to the bank and withdraw some money. Sounds normal enough, and the bank is actually really close by. What makes this a story is the word "Man" which is pronounced much more like "Mon." Koreans count by 10 thousands. "How much does it cost?" "Three man won." This makes three times ten thousand = 30,000W. Even knowing this, it can still be confusing.

At the bank I wanted to withdraw 80 thousand Won. The question presented, "How many do you want to take out?" 80. Whir. Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir, thip thip thip thip thip thip thip thip thip.... 80 MAN WON. Chunk. Wow. I just made the equivalent mistake of taking out eight hundred dollars instead of eighty.