Xu Yin starts work at 7 am, taking her place at her desk and turning toward a metal basin filled with small-denomination bank notes.

She picks up a spray bottle, squirts a little water over the cash, and then picks out a 1 yuan ($0.16) note, unfolds it, flattens it and lays it on the desk.

Within three minutes, she has counted 100 yuan. The burst of spray makes the notes easier to handle.

She picks up the stack of notes and ties it with a slip of paper bearing her name. It takes her five hours to count 15,000 yuan in small notes.

Xu is a cash counting clerk at the accounting center of the Lianying branch of the Dalian Public Transportation Bus Group in Liaoning province. Forty-five people work at the center, and a third of them count cash. The center counts all the fares from nearly 700 buses.

In the winter, the team counts 160,000 yuan a day on average. In the summer, when tourists flock to the city to enjoy its coastal setting, the daily total reaches 240,000 yuan.

"The first time I saw a bag of small-denomination bank notes being emptied out, I felt totally lost," Xu said. "Dust floated in the air and it smelled unpleasant. I said, 'Don't give me this pile of money, I won't take it - it's really dirty'. Besides, I doubted I could count it."

Xu taught herself to count quickly by practicing at home.

"Practice makes perfect," she said. "When I drag coins across my desk very quickly with my fingers, I can distinguish the fake ones by listening to the sound."

She often comes across 1 yuan notes that have been torn in half - usually the missing part has been replaced with a scrap of newspaper. Slot machine tokens, pieces of metal, bottle caps and anything else resembling coins are mixed in with the money.

Gong Xiaodan, the head of the center, said Xu is the best clerk because she counts quickly and accurately.

"You may feel dazzled seeing her handling money," said Gong. "Though she is fast, the money she hands over is seldom wrong."

Xu has a strong sense of responsibility and dedicates herself to her job.

She started working at the center when it opened in 1996.

"At that time, I was single," she said. "Now, my daughter is 17 years old. I can say that I left my youth here."

To help the center run smoothly, she voluntarily does not take leave - she has not had a single day off in the past 10 years.

Xu admitted that the job is boring. All the windows in the room are closed to keep out gusts of wind that could disturb the stacks of bank notes.

Additionally, everyone works quietly. No one talks.

"We must give all our attention to the money," said Xu. "Any distractions could lead to mistakes.

"But all the workers get along well, so I am happy working here."

Many of them started working at the center at the same time as Xu and have become used to the working environment.

However, newcomers are making some changes - they wear face masks and rubber gloves.

Li Li, 28, worked as a nurse for eight years before becoming a counting clerk five months ago.

She found it difficult to adapt to the environment at first.

"The air was filled with dust. Though the senior staff do not wear masks or gloves, I did so without any hesitation," she said.

"Even so, my face and hair get covered with dust, and my fingernails are grimed with dirt. Every day when I get home, the first thing I do is take a shower."