A Broad Reference

Outside every convenience store and supermarket you'll find a drop box filled with receipts.
At first I thought it was just a way of cutting down on litter. But no, it's part of a larger system at work. People are donating to worthy causes. "And why would said lost cause want your moldy old proof of purchase?" you ask. Each transaction is documented with a receipt so that the shop must declare their sales accurately for tax purposes. (Apparently tax dodging was pretty popular- and may still be!) In any case, each receipt has a number printed at the top which is entered in a national drawing once every 2 months. As soon as I heard there was a passive entry to this chance to win NT$2M dollars, I started saving receipts.

Rather than reiterate the possibilities of winning I'll let you read up on that. My roommates think it's a hoot and have started donating their stubs to my cause. I guess they just don't feel lucky. But I feel hopeful, in a way more than I every had with the California Lottery (maybe coz I actually have some bits of paper with numbers?) and will continue to collect for the duration of my stay. It would be too cool to win some cashola just for picking up litter.

Tomorrow's the big day, the numbers are published and then I have to write some conditional searches in excel to see if any of my numbers match. Wish me luck!

Ps yesterday at a souveneir shop in the Taipei Main Station, one of the girls leafed thru a stack of receipts to find one that matched my purchase amount rather than print me one from the till. So my feeling is, tht sometimes even with this new system, transactions aren't being logged. But hey what's this girls time worth, compared to what the owner saves in taxes?

Ps2 I won! 2 tickets matched the last 3 digits. which means I won a whopping $400 kuai (almost US$12). not enough to retire on, but certainly good fun