Today held many interesting and fun activities for me in Taiwan! We visited a local bank and a pawn shop, and queried about anything we did not know and wanted to find out about these places. Honestly, I did not know that we were just going to be standing at the 'entrance' of the bank and just be asking questions, but it turned out to be okay. I have always wondered how the banks determined the amount of money that is supposed to be exchanged for a fixed unit of foreign currency, and why this amount fluctuated at times. I learnt it was because of demand in the international market, something we did learn about recently in economics. The question had been on my mind a while, and I was glad that I finally realized why.
The pawn shop and the bank I visited, had quite some similarities and differences. The first similarity was that they both needed a permit to run the bank or the pawn shop, according to the laws. And to do that, first, they have to have respectable records, and not have gone bankrupt before. However, in the bank, there is no real need to have a lot of capital to start the bank, but opening a pawn shop requires a large amount of starting capital. Permits for banks cannot be transferred from one party to another, but owners of pawn shops can sell and buy permits from other owners.
In Taiwan, it seems like the banks is very very similar to in Singapore. They have a head 'bank' in both Singapore and Taiwan that regulates the money going in and out, and that also checks and ensures no fake money in the transaction.
We also visited the coca cola plant and the robotics company today. It was a very new and enriching experience, and I especially love seeing in real action the robots move and dance. Technology has progressed a lot and it'll continue improving itself. I enjoyed myself today.
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