1 Shi Liang - Heilongjiang Province Food Stamp

Provincial grain rationing coupons like this one were a direct product of China's planned distribution system, under which urban residents received monthly allocations of staple foods through their work units or local grain stations. The Heilongjiang grain bureau network administered some of the largest cereal surpluses in the country — the province was a primary wheat and soybean producer — yet residents still required coupons to access their own allotments. That bureaucratic contradiction was the lived reality of the late Maoist period.

By 1978, the national rationing apparatus was beginning to fray at the edges. Deng Xiaoping's reform coalition was already consolidating power following the Third Plenum in December of that year, and within a decade most provincial food coupon systems would be wound down entirely. This particular denomination — one shi liang, a unit of approximately 50 grams — represents the granular precision of the rationing schedule, calibrated to the individual meal rather than the household week.