Sounds very cool! Is it fast access from residential areas?

You can definitely transfer more than US$500 at once. If you have people you can work with in the destination country, Bank of China can send thru MoneyGram which is a lot less than wire transfer US$14-21 -ish depending on how much you’re sending.

I was thinking to try PayPal bc convenience and I thought fees might be comparable to MoneyGram but I haven’t gotten it set up yet - is it worth it?

had not heard there was one here - how's the food?

yes - I bought my latest kindle from amazon.cn and it was no problem setting it to English and connecting it also with my US amazon account

I wasn't able to get mine to work either and finally asked at the bank lobby desk - a very persistent helper there figured out that I needed to have the bank add my phone number to my account. after that it worked without a problem. Not sure if yours is the same problem, but it's worth a try.