Anyone who travels knows that dealing with money in another country is a tricky business.

Trying to figure out what is a good price and what is bad, by U.S. standards, doing conversion rates in your head. That’s challenge enough.

Then there’s the physical reality of someone else’s money. Size, shape, weight … dealing with the heft and feel. Picking out 70 cents in coins in less than five minutes.

Hong Kong and its currency is a challenge on both levels. For Americans, anyway.

Let’s start with the conversion rate.

Some conversion rates are fairly clear-cut, easy to remember. In Canada, for the past few years, a Canadian dollar pretty much has the same value as an American dollar. In Europe, a euro has been about $1.40 (give or take) for several years. In England, the pound has been about $2 of late. Simple.

In Mexico, whatever you are trying to buy … is however much you bargain it down to, so knowing the exchange rate only in the most vague terms (“what is it, 15 pesos to the dollar?”).

But here … one Hong Kong dollar is about 13 cents. To flip it, one dollar U.S. is 7.8 Hong Kong dollars.

Seven-point-eight is not an easy number with which to deal. Quick, that meal costs 500 HK dollars. How much is that in U.S. dollars?

For simplicity sake, I have been rounding down to 7.0 HK dollars to the U.S. buck. Everything thus seems more expensive than it actually is, but I think that’s a good thing, thinking things cost more than they really do. Leah, meanwhile, divides everything by 8.0 — which makes them seem a bit cheaper than they really are. Not as good in a world-wide financial crisis.

Anyway, it’s awkward. Standing in the grocery and trying to figure out if a 35-dollar box of cereal is a good buy, and whether you can afford a 60-dollar cab ride or 15,000 for one month of rent.

I suppose if I stay here long enough, I’ll know a bargain when I see one. Even in HK dollars. And won’t have to do the conversions.

(And an aside: I find it interesting that HK money is “dollars” … when China uses the “yuan” and HK’s former colonial masters, the British, use the pound. Like, Hong Kong wanted neither one. Hmm.)

Then there is the matter of the physical dimensions of the money.

Coins range from 10 cents to 10 dollars, with coins in between worth 20 cents, 50 cents, 1 dollar, 2 dollars and 5 dollars. (I’m always amazed so few countries have the 25-cent “quarter,” which was the go-to coin in the U.S. for a half-century or so. I’m not sure I can think of another country with a quarter-whatever coin.)

HK’s coins are a bit confusing in this sense: Size doesn’t matter. Which is also true in the States. (The dime is smaller than the penny.) The most valuable coin, the 10 HK coin, has a diameter considerably less than that of the 1, 2 and 5. And the 5 is the same size across as the 1 and 2, just thicker in a sandwich sort of way that more than once has led me to think two coins are stuck together. The 2 is at least semi-easy to pick out because it has wavy edges. Anyway, you’ve got to look hard at your coins before you start chucking them around.

The lowest denomination of paper money is 10 dollars, and HK also has bills worth 20, 50, 100 and 500 dollars.

In practice, most merchants here seem to want to deal with money only in forms from 1 to 20 dollars. They will wince if you give them a 100-dollar bill (about $13) for anything that costs less than 50 HK … and no one wants to make change for less than 1 dollar — or to be paid in the little coins. (Admittedly, the tiny coins are almost useless, and you have to make a point of carrying them around, plotting how many even dollars you’ve got in 20-cent pieces and have the mental and physical dexterity to produce them, quickly, while people behind you wait at the grocery check-out stand. Most visitors don’t want to deal with that pressure and, thus accumulate 10- and 20-cent pieces by the score.)

The bills also are different sizes, unlike the U.S.

Lots of countries like this “bigger means more” thing. As opposed to the States, where $1 is the same physical size as the $1,000 bill.

The HK 10 is smaller than the 20 (and both are slightly smaller than a U.S. dollar bill) which is smaller than the 50 which is smaller than the 100. (I think the 500 is slightly bigger than the 100, but I don’t have one at the moment.) The 50 and the 100 are slightly bigger than U.S. bills because they are taller, even if they’re not quite as long.

I’ve never liked this different-size thing because it’s too hard to keep them organized and in some sort of order in your pocket. If you fold them in the middle of each one, they have ragged endings at both ends of your folding money, and if you arrange them so that they all square off at one end, then the little bills end up being folded something like 60-40, and that’s lame, too. It’s just a mess. I always fear dropping a 100 out of the middle of a bunch of 20s that get turned this way and that because your folding money doesn’t fold neatly.

OK, the two weirdest things about the paper money:

–The 10s all have a sort of plastic “window” in them. You can see through them. I have no idea why. I think it’s just for fun.
–Money here is not issued by the government … but by local banks. This is very retro, but it reflects Hong Kong’s neither/nor political and economic status. It is not a British colony, but it’s not quite totally Chinese, either. It’s an SAR — a special administrative region of China — and one of the big differences is in matters financial. Anyway, HK banks print money. Standard Chartered prints money. Bank of China (which isn’t from China China) prints money. And HSBC.

A little odd, to have a currency not printed by the government.

Oh, and one more thing:

No Mao anywhere!

In China, Mao’s fat face is on every bill. Every single one. They won’t throw a crumb to Zhou or any other heroes of the revolution. Everything is Mao. Who was a bad man, and maybe the Chinese government will admit it, someday, and we won’t have to look at him every time we buy a pork dumpling.

In HK, all coins have a local flower on them (except for really old coins, which have Queen Elizabeth on them).

Paper money has lions on it. Or buildings and bridges. Or flowers. (Depends on which bank printed it.) And the same denomination bills might be different colors, depending on the bank. (Though the sizes, among denominations, are standard.)

Anyway, no Mao anywhere. That’s good. I like that. When I think about it, it makes me a lot less put-out about having to divide every price tag by seven to see how much it really costs, and then fumbling through an even wad of bills and masses of coins to pay the merchant what he or she is asking.