Chinese people uphold the good character of “shi jin bu mei” (拾金不昧- return the things you found to their owners instead of keeping them to yourselves). However, living up to this age, the biggest amount of money I have ever come across outside my territory of possessions was ￥5.00 RMB, so I never had a chance to show the goodness of my beautiful mind , or say, I never have had that good luck to show it.

Believe it or no, my luck must have had shifted its direction since the beginning of year 2008. On the first day after the New Year, I came across $50 AUD note on the floor at the Riverside Plaza, right in front of a hangbag shop. At that moment I was just muddling around without any particular purpose. Then, I saw something looked a bit green and yellow on the ground. When I approached closer, I realised it was a crinkled 50 dollars note probably had just dropped by someone else.

My first instinct was to pick it up, hold it high in the air and ask “who dropped the money?” But I walked fast, and in a flash, the moment of thought had gone and I kept walking straight ahead, thinking a lot. “How come no one had noticed it? It was averagely crowded over there…”, “who would have had dropped it? and would this person still be around?” “What if I picked up and no one claimed it’s his/her money? Should I just keep it or throw it back to the floor? It would be awkward…”

Seconds later, I was already at least 20 meters away from there. I guess the main reason that I didn’t want to pick it up was I felt like there was something else in the whole thing, not in a good way. I felt that I just couldn’t keep the thing that doesn’t belong to me to myself. It was like an alien in the body and to my belief, it might bring me a bad luck.

Well, the Chinese saying maybe can be modified a bit now. I call it “Bu shi jin ye bu mei” (不拾金也不昧 ——not even picking up the things you found).