All the buying, bribing and hoarding forces China to print a lot of paper money. China, which a millennium ago was the first government to print paper money, accounts for about 40 percent of all global paper currency output, according to a report published by the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation. Adjusting for the size of its economy, China has about five times as much cash in circulation as the United States.

In the United States, the highest denomination printed is $100; in Japan, it is the 10,000-yen note, worth about $100; the 500 is the highest-denomination euro note, worth about $650. No major economy has limited itself to such a low denominated bill as China.

By making the 100-renminbi note the largest bill, the nation’s citizens need more of it to buy a television or Swiss watch, never mind a car, home or a yacht, which China’s state-run media said was bought a few years ago by men bearing two suitcases filled with cash.

Following those paper bills as they course through this booming economy offers a fascinating glimpse into how China’s financial system works, and how parts of the country remain stuck in yesteryear.

“In large parts of China, it still looks like the U.S. in the 1950s: most everything is in cash,” said Jeffrey R. Williams, executive director of the Harvard Center Shanghai and a former bank executive who has worked in China for more than 30 years. “In the U.S., you might have one bill-counting machine at a bank, but here every teller has one.”

Although China’s coastal cities have flourished during the 30 years of economic prosperity, economists say the country’s interior remains poor and disconnected from the more modern aspects of the financial grid. As a result, the poor prefer to do business in cash.