Currencies of Imagination: Channeling Money and Chasing Mobility in Vietnam
Ivan V. Small
Cornell University Press: 2018
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When the lunar new year rolls around, across large parts of Asia, little red packets — known as li xi in Vietnam — get passed to the young, typically containing some newly printed money. Crisp two-dollar notes, bearing the image of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, are deemed particularly lucky, largely because few are printed each year. (In fact, no two-dollar notes at all were printed between 1966 and 1976.) One can understand the logic, as good fortune itself is scarce and may well be a finite resource, like gold, so a premium on luck should exist in this realm.

As Currencies of Imagination by Ivan Small illustrates, there are lots of different meanings and interpretations bundled up in the giving and receiving of money. Much of the analysis and insights that emanate from this study are intriguing, and for millions of individuals, the topic is hugely important. Remittance was a means by which whole families were able to stay afloat during the hardest of economic times and were able to remain connected across vast oceans after the most traumatic of dislocations.

Remittances are also big business. In April, the World Bank released its latest figures for global remittances and migration. As a large proportion of such flows — both capital and human — occurs under the radar, the numbers are informed estimates. The World Bank guesstimates that in 2019, remittances worth US$714 billion will flow around the globe, of which US$149 billion is destined for East Asia and the Pacific.

• Tags: Issue 16, Ivan V. Small, Nick Freeman, Vietnam