The mainland Chinese drama series (set 1979–92) that I've been watching features a scene where the nephew (aged 11?) is visiting Suzhou (near Shanghai) from Guizhou (in S.W. China), which is a very long way away. (His mother went there during the Cultural Revolution [1966–76].)
His mother has sewn into a pair of his trousers some money for him to give to his [maternal] uncle and uncle's wife for all the expense that his visit entails.
It reminds me of when I first flew out on 26 December 1974 to Taipei to start a new job (with the American oil company, Conoco).
My mother's [younger] sister sewed a makeshift money pouch into the front of my trousers on the inside.
I was making an overnight stay in Hong Kong (half day Saturday, Saturday night, half day Sunday) to take advantage of not having to pay extra for the ticket.
This was how it worked in those days. I had to let the travel agency know in advance, because they had to add an extra page in the ticket, to be torn off for each destination. For example,
* Option A: Singapore to Taipei (via HK [no direct flights in those days] but not getting out of the airport) would be one page in the ticket, since I'd be transiting in HK, not getting out of the airport. That page would be torn off at the Singapore airport end when I checked in at the start of the journey.
* Option B: Singapore to Taipei but stopping over in HK (i.e., getting out of the airport, and returning the following day for the second leg of the journey to Taipei) would be two pages in the ticket -- one page to be torn off at the Singapore airport end when I checked in; the second page to be torn off at the HK airport when I checked in next [the following day in my case].
I wandered around the Kowloon area near my hotel on Saturday afternoon and spent all the money that I'd taken out. I was going to do more walking around on Saturday night, having been recommended a famous open air night market, 通菜街 / Tongchoi Street, by my RI (Raffles Institution) ex-classmate James.
To get more money to spend, I had to go back to my hotel, ask for my room key at Reception, go up to my room to fish out more money from the pouch sewn into the front of my trousers.
I know, I know, why didn't I go to the loo on the ground floor of the hotel, or a public loo even?
Well, my upbringing frowned on us using a public loo, and being a freshly arrived tourist, I wouldn't know where to find a public loo anyway. As for going all the way up to my room vs using the loo on the ground floor of the hotel, it was just that my room would be more private somehow. Since I'd gone all the way back to my hotel, I might as well go up to my room to fish the money out.
Anyway, this happened more than once, because I kept spending money faster than I'd planned to, e.g., buying a winter coat (not available in tropical Singapore, and probably more fetching than one in Taipei -- I couldn't take the risk of finding out only after I'd arrived in Taipei). So I had to make more than one trip back to my hotel for more spending money during that short stay in HK.
Reading this now in 2026, you'll probably be laughing your heads off: "How primitive a way of doing things! What a country bumpkin way of going about it."
Well, this was December 1974, and I was only 21 (young by the Chinese culture, especially for a female). It was the first time I was going that far away from home without people to meet me at the other end (vs Jakarta in December 1973 when my Indonesian student's family looked after me).
(China, 1980 / Hong Kong, 1974)
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