Again, she runs to and fro. She smiles and holds up two cupped hands full of black coins dripping with water. The waves are washing them up and the sea is full of them. The name pis bolong, means money with a hole. They are punched out of sheets of bronze or copper, and usually have four Chinese characters on the front, and two ideograms in an old form of Javanese script on the back.
Old money is better than new money.
These coins can t buy anything, but are still a necessity in Bali. They are used in many offerings, ceremonies and ritual objects, and are sold at markets for about 10 US cents each. New ones tend to be crudely made locally, from sheets of brass or other base metal. The old ones are more highly prized. The appearance of Chinese coins in Bali dates back at least a thousand years.