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Chapter 7 Ghost Bills
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142 c h a p t e r 7 Ghost Bills In God We Trust —U.S. Treasury Note Elliot: He’s a man from outer space and we’re taking him to his spaceship. Greg: Well, can’t he just beam up? Elliot: This is reality, Greg. —E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope. —Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” The thing that makes ghost bills stand out from other items in the traditional corpus of paper monies is their likeness to real currencies, a mode of representing that I refer to as simulation (less exact likeness) and facsimile (more exact likeness). An important feature of this sameness is the absence of a shift in medium by which the replication is effected. In the other replications of money, there is an explicit shift signified in the term itself: “paper money,” or zhĭqián, a metallic currency (qián) cast in paper (zhĭ)—that is, a thin veneer of base metals glued to paper. With ghost bills, the replication is simple simulation of one paper medium in another paper medium. Another one of those deep ironies, ghost bills seem to defeat the conceptual power of a “paper money”—they are a paper simulation of real money made from paper. Thus, ghost bills appear more real than the other, older forms of paper money. ghost bills 143 The realism extends to the terms inscribed on the ghost bills, which never include “ghost bill” (guĭpiào) but do commonly include zhĭbì (paper note), a term used for real banknotes. The exactness of the simulation thus provokes questions about realism, questions that are new to the custom. The precision of the simulation forms a continuum from more to less exact. The more exact include facsimiles made by the most modern means of technical reproduction (Xerox machines) as well as ones made by the most primitive means of technical reproduction (contagious magic). Xerox technology and contagious magic both use real currencies to imprint or impress blank sheets of paper. The technique of impressing the image is different, of course, and the grades of paper receiving the impression are different too: Xerox paper uses a fine-grain white paper; contagious magic uses money paper, a coarse yellowish-brownish paper in which the natural straws are still tangible and visible. The Xerox leaves a visible image; the magic leaves no visible image, only an imaginary image, but infuses by hand the numinous and rarefied power of the ¥100 RMB to circulate wealth. Use of Xeroxed bills is rare: it’s pricey, it flouts the law, and it requires a machine; money paper impressed by the human hand with the power of the real RMB is cheaper and has a feel for tradition and the aura of authenticity. Images that are less exact because of either technology or creative fancy are made by industrial printing processes, while the least exact images, technically and creatively, are made for local markets or social networks by simple hand-carved woodblock or soap-block prints (figure 7.1). Each way of making ghost bills has its attraction . The most colorful and widespread are the commercially manufactured ghost bills, which make up the bulk of specimens that I describe and analyze in this chapter. Rarer are carved soap or woodblocks made and used within a local or domestic social network, such as one based on kinship. From a distance the manufactured ghost bills are hardly distinguishable from the shape, size, and formats of real-world currencies. Even up close, some ghost bills bear a remarkable resemblance to national currencies, especially the Chinese RMB and the U.S. dollar. There are instances where the real-world currencies and ghost bills are confused, switched, or mistakenly or deliberately substituted. These instances will be taken up in the next chapter. In this chapter, I describe the semiotics and use of ghost bills. At issue is the extent to which the ghost bills represent a paradigm shift in the paper money tradition. My thesis is that by adapting the paper money tradition to the forms of the modern monetary system, the ghost bills function to maintain a vestige of a charmed world in a system that is laying siege to it. Whether this [54.226.126.38] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 16:46 GMT) Figure 7.1 Woodblock-printed...