They really need to circulate some bigger bills

Or make it easier to open a Chinese bank account. In making my rounds every day to different ATM's withdrawing my daily limit this is what I've accumulated - baking soda box for perspective, not to show you I've accumulated a stack of RMB & a baking soda box although I am quite happy to be able to find that here since I couldn't in Germany, but I digress:

We've needed to stock up for payment on summer camps for the boys, an upcoming trip and oh, of course, our utilities now that it's hot. If you thought our compound's management would feel the wrath of Kerry with no internet in the event our electricity ran out, you haven't seen me without AC in the summer. This need for cash was what got me the "piss off" from Deutschebank I last wrote about. As you can see in this picture, it's not an outrageous amount of cash when compared to the equal amount in US dollars, it's just that Mao isn't worth a lot (probably gonna get banned for that one).

I got pretty used to living somewhere that was cash based, because although it's becoming more and more common to use credit cards in Europe it was still quicker, easier and more accepted to use cash. The big difference is that the Euro is worth more, so 100 Euro is worth a lot, unlike Mao (I'll let you know if I have to change my blog address).