Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

Chinese, like most people worldwide, like to throw coins into water for luck. In temples, you'll often see statues of lions or other beasts in the middle of pools, which pilgrims try to hit with thrown change.

Water is a source of life everywhere, and making a symbolic offering to it a common practice. The tradition goes back at least a couple of millennium. In Rome, the bottom of the Trevi Fountain is always covered with coins that tourists threw in the hope of having a wish granted and nearly $1 million is collected every year, which is then used for charity.

However, it's hard to make sense of the behaviors of some tourists who recently found to have thrust money through the tiny space in the showcase of a Lotosaurus skeleton in Beijing Museum of Natural History.

Even the staff members of the museum feel confused. But netizens can be of help as they joked that people who dropped the coins and notes may have made wishes that the dinosaur, which became extinct hundreds of millions of years ago, could save them from osteoporosis.

Throwing money regardless of how appropriate it is is in fact nothing new. It happened at cases displaying copies of the statues of zodiac animals in the Old Summer Palace and Ming and Han Dynasty tombs, with more probably yet to be reported.

Behind the somewhat ridiculous phenomenon is the conformity of the Chinese mindset. After one person throws or drops a coin, or stuffs it into a crack, other people love to follow suit to get some luck or at least not to be left out and risk misfortune.

After all, doing what others do is cost-effective since it takes little money but won't bring any harm. As a netizen joked, one can make a fortune simply by putting a box with some notes inside at a tourist destination.

More importantly, this reflects utilitarian thinking and an overly inflated pursuit of good fortune. In this country with more than 1.3 billion people, just over 100 million are officially recorded as religious believers. The majority of people don't seriously practice any religion. But what people seriously believe seems to be that luck can be traded everywhere with anyone, even deities and mythical creatures. Just put in some change.

These willful behaviors of tourists can sometimes bring damage to the historical relics that are constantly battered by an assault of small change and also much cost for the authorities to clean up the money that piles up. It's also unfair for other tourists when they have to see serious exhibits oddly and inappropriately surrounded by coins and notes.

The staff in these places need to caution tourists by putting some signs up or chastising them for their actions. But what's more important is for the visitors to be mindful of the occasion and their behavior. Money doesn't always make the world go around.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. sunxiaobo@globaltimes.com.cn