First, the Asians pursue oneness: one heads to Asia; the other turns to quintessentially Asian pastimes. Ducks may or may not be involved. Then they turn to the thing Asians are said to seek even more fervently than real estate: money. Is money the opposite of failure, or a well-funded route towards it?

They unpack the easy associations between Asians and money, along with the assumptions about money that can shape the stories Asians tell about themselves.

They ask the uncomfortable (though not unreasonable) question on whether Asians need to express love in any other way if it is expressed with a dollar sign, before moving onto the more uncomfortable question: has money become synonymous to one's interior life, whether one is Asian or not?

This then opens the door to exploring the inner substance (if any) of money itself. Does money have a spiritual language, and can it even hide a promise of salvation?More uncomfortably still, if money DOES have a spiritual language, has it also become the mother tongue of Christians?

From “cold hard cash” to exam results and prayer lives, the Asians follow money’s historical, political, philosophical and theological baggage into some rather personal territory.Ultimately, they are explore whether the size of your emergency fund is also saying something about the state of your beliefs, and whether your belief rests on something solid or on shifting sands.

Resources

Philip Goodchild: Why Study Money & Theology