Money in NZ and Japan②

2,In Japan
In Japan, there are 6 kinds of coins; 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 yen. 1, 50, 100, 500 yen are silver, 5 yen is gold, 10 yen is bronze. 5 and 50 yen coins have holes in the middle of the coin. The coins depict Japanese plants and traditional buildings, for example, cherry blossoms, chrysanthemums and so on.
There are also 3 kinds of banknotes; 1000, 5000, and 10000 yen. These are made of paper. Recently, various works are done to prevent camouflaged banknotes, and all banknote designs and the people on 1000 and 5000 bills were changed on November １st , 2004. 1000 yen’s old design showed Natume Souseki who was a Japanese novelist of the Meiji Era, and his famous novels are “Bochan”, “Kokoro”, and “I am a Cat”. The new design shows Hideo Noguchi, who was a Japanese bacteriologist. He discovered the agent of syphilis in 1911. As a medical researcher, he is a very well-known person. 5000 yen’s old design depicted Inazou Nitobe, who was a Christian, agricultural economist, author, educator, diplomat, and politician during Meiji period and Taisho period in Japan. The new design was Ichiyo Higuchi, who was considered to be the first professional female writer in modern Japanese literature. The 10000 yen’s design was not changed, and the person is Yukichi Fukuzawa who was a Japanese samurai, author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and political theorist who founded the Keio University.
Special technology is given to the money of Japan, and there is an empty lower right corner of the banknote which has a special pattern for each type of banknote, so that the visually handicapped person may easily identify the type of banknote by the sense of touch.