1 YUAN FROM CHINA

This note is the 1 yuan note from 1980. it has youth from the ethnic dong and yao peoples on the front and the great wall of china on the reverse.

The official name of the currency is Ren Min Bi Yuan  or  "the peoples currency " Yuan.

FROM ONE COMMUNIST TO ANOTHER

We move from Ho Chi Minh to another famous communist, Chairman Mao, who was the 1st chairman of the central committee of the communist party of China. Here he is represented on the 1 Yuan note from 1999. The reverse has "Three Pools Mirroring the Moon" which has temples on the west lake in Hangzhou. This is a bit strange to put them together on a note as Mao is noted to have said "all religion is poison" a more direct version of Marx's quote " religion is the opium of the people"

More Chinese Notes HERE  or click on china on the right of this post.

THE 2ND BATCH - CHINA NOTES

The next two Chinese notes from the new batch are above and are both 10 Yuan Notes.

The first one was issued by The Bank of Communications in 1935. The bank still operates to this day. It has electricity pylons on the front and what looks like a fortress temple on the reverse.

The second one above is from 1940 and was issued by the Bank of China . It has  Sun Yat-sen on the front and the Temple of Heaven in Beijing on the reverse.

This one stumped me for a while but it just took a bit of reading up to get the details. This note was issued by the Central bank of China in 1945. It has Sun Yat-sen on the front - apart from the photo and the numerals 500 it is in chinese script which made it more difficult to research.

The notes above are the 1 and 2 Jiao note from the 1980 issue described here

THE 1ST BATCH - CENTRAL BANK OF CHINA 1930 AND 1940'S

 I managed to get a pile of Chinese notes from an antiques fair at the weekend and so there are a lot of them, some of them quite interesting, so I will split them up over 3 or 4 posts.

This first lot are all from the Central bank of China and are from the 1930's and 40's. They are all pre - the people's republic as it came into being in 1949.

The first note at the top is the 5 Dollars and was issued from Shanghai in 1930, with Sun Yat-sen on the front and a chinese temple on the back.

The next one is the 10 Yuan from 1936 again with Sun Yat-sen and a temple on the reverse.

The third note is the 20 Yuan from 1948 with Chiang kai-shek on the front and a building on the reverse.

Finally, its the 100 Yuan with sun yat-sen on the front and this is from 1941.

TAIWANESE BANKNOTE WITH SUN YAT-SEN

Here is a 100 Yuan note from Taiwan (Republic of China) That was picked up by my friend Gillian on a brief stopover on her way to Australia. It has Dr Sun Yat Sen co-founder of the Kuomintang. on the reverse , I think, is the Sun Yat Sen memorial hall in Guangzhou.

More Taiwanese banknotes here .

TAIWAN (REPUBLIC OF CHINA)

The Republic of China, commonly called Taiwan, is a country made up of a group of islands off the coast of the Peoples Republic of China. the capital city of Taiwan is Taipei. After world war II, the Chinese civil war restarted between the Chinese nationalist, Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-shek and the communist movement led by Mao Zedong and by 1949 the nationalists had been beaten and Mao had set up the Peoples Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek evacuated the Kuomintang to Taiwan. Martial law was declared and kept in place until 1987. This time was known as "The White Terror" and many people were treated brutally for being perceived as anti-Kuomintang or pro- communist. Although liberalised in the 1990's, there is still controversy over who has the right to both the name and territory of china ( republic of china or the peoples republic of china) Taiwan is sometimes referred to as "Chinese Taipei" and was also previously known as "Formosa". Taiwan is not formally recognised by the UN but 22 UN states recognise it.

Monetary unit: 1 Yuan = 10 Chiao = 10 Fen

The polymer note above is the 1999 commemorative issue 50 Yuan note. it has a picture of two previous notes - the 1983, 100 Yuan note and the 1967, 50 Yuan note - on the front and the central bank building on the reverse.

CHINA

The People's Republic of China, in terms of banknote history, is a subject in itself and could fill this blog and more but I will concentration on the notes I have. china's capital is Beijing (formerly Peking)

The monetary currency is:
1 chiao = 10 fen ( cents)
1 Yuan (dollar ) = 10 Chiao

The two notes above are  are the one fen (brown with a lorry pictured) and the 2 Fen ( green with an airplane ) the third in the series, which I don't have is the 5 Fen ( dark green with a ship)

This rather colourful note is the 1 Jiao (chiao ??) from 1962 depicting happy workers going to work. notice the serial number is in western script .

 these notes are from the 1980 issue and all depict the ethnic costumes from across the country  they are as follows

5 Jiao, purple with Miao and zhuang children
2 Jiao, green with Buyi and Korean youths
1 Jiao, brown with a gaoshan and another ethnic man

Here is the reverse of the 5 Jiao above, the reverse sides are similar for all the above but with different colours. Notice also the different languges written along the bottom of the note.

These above are not technically banknotes as they are foreign exchange certificates which some countries used to regulate where foreign nationals spent their money or where the national currency is not convertible outside the country.