Monk goes shopping with 200,000 coins
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 21 May, 2015, 4:35pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 21 May, 2015, 4:35pm
Celine Sun
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A monk in Shanghai paid for new water heaters with a load of 10-fen coins that weighed nearly three quarters of a tonne. The nearly quarter million coins took shop staff and bank clerks 13 hours to count. Photo: SCMP Pictures
A monk in Shanghai used more than 200,000 coins, each worth 10 fen, to buy water heaters for his temple at an appliance store, online news portal Xinhuanet.com reports.
Counting the coins took 13 hours, and they weighed 716kg in total.
“The monk from the temple said the coins were donated by visiting pilgrims. They had been accumulating for many years,” a store manager was quoted as saying.
The monk, from Xingjue Temple in the city’s Jinshan district, contacted several appliance stores asking whether they would take the pile of coins, but they turned him down. When he finally found a willing outlet, the store management had to ask a local branch of the Agricultural Bank of China to send over employees for help in sorting the 223,840 coins.
He bought 16 water heaters and was so pleased with the service that he told the store he would be back to buy air-conditioners and other small home appliances.
