5 Shi Jin - Food Stamp Chengdu City, Sichuan

China's nationwide food rationing system, in place since the mid-1950s, required urban residents to present grain coupons alongside cash for any purchase of staple foods. These were not currency — they had no monetary value and could not be exchanged for anything other than the specific commodity and quantity printed on them. Crucially, most were issued at the municipal or provincial level and were non-transferable outside their issuing jurisdiction, which created a rigid geography of daily subsistence.

By 1981, the system was already fraying at the edges as agricultural reform accelerated under Deng Xiaoping's policies, but local bureaus continued issuing coupons for several more years before the national phaseout concluded in 1993.