Luck-seeking Chinese tourists build mound of coins atop ancient relic

Chinese tourists have been making news again, this time for the long-held but illogical tradition of throwing coins and banknotes at auspicious targets for luck.

The Qianjiang Evening News in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou reported on Thursday that a three metre high cultural relic, the ruins of the millennium-old Leifeng Pagoda, now looked like a “money mound” covered in a vast carpet of one-yuan coins and banknotes, tossed there by superstitious tourists from across the country.

According to the report, nearly half of all visitors to the site make offerings of coins and notes.

On a day when the News visited the site, a young man asked his girlfriend to make a wish before throwing coins. Someone with no coins even asked a stranger nearby to give him some, promising to pay him back via the WeChat social media app.