Cash Society

China is a cash society. Checks do not exist and only high-end places accept credit cards. Everything is done on a cash basis.

This is made more complicated by the quantities of bills. They have the following RMB bills:
1 RMB - although the coin is more common
5 RMB
10 RMB
20 RMB
50 RMB - although this seems quite rare
100 RMB

That's it. As far as I know, they don't make a bill larger than 100 RMB. If they do, its not in regular circulation.

100 RMB is about $14.

So imagine if the largest bill in America were a ten.

This leads to some rather absurd scenarios.

Today I bought plane tickets for an upcoming flight to Japan. The tickets cost 13,020 RMB. Remember the largest bill is 100 RMB. I needed to hand a stack of 131 bills to a courier.

What's more, I had to retrieve this number of bills from a cash machine. This is necessary because as far as we know, our account can only be in one person's name. Dave's office set up the account, so its in his name. I cannot withdrw at the bank, but I seem perfectly able to use the atm and debit card. The ATM at the bank only distributes 2,500 RMB at one time - I realized because it can only handle 25 bills at one time. So I made 6 separate withdrawals, carried a wad of cash down the street, and then handed it to a complete stranger who spoke no English when he appeared at my door.