Why not just walk into a bank or two here in town before you go to the airport? Everyone here seems to always say you can do it at any bank.

I need to change some to U.S. dollar in about 3 months, pm me your guy!

Not sure what the limit is exactly, but I am sure it is relatively limited.

Your best bet is to have a few Chinese friends give you a hand and buy your dollars at a nearby bank.

Although the RMB is not supposed to be freely tradable, I know you can walk into a highstreet travel agents in England and change RMB into pounds sterling. It might be easier to exchange RMB abroad than you think.

They treat RMB like Monopoly money abroad.

Looks like you're sorted out, LK, but I'll go ahead and second the recommendation that you just have a Chinese friend or two exchange the money for you as the best way to avoid the daily exchange limits for foreigners.

You don't even need to be coy about it. You both go to the counter, you hand your RMB to your friend, he/she hands it to the teller.

I guarantee the teller won't blink. Kind of ridiculous really.

Wrong.

You must exchange your RMB into foreign currency before it can be sent abroad. Even if PayPal would work -- which it will not -- they charge not only the normal margin for currency exchanges, but also an approximately 5% cross-border fee.

You suggest exchanging RMB into RMB? Brilliant!

You can exchange upto USD5,000.- at the airport ( equivalent RMB approx. 30k).
If you have exchanged USD into RMB ( upto USD50k in a year ) you can use the exchange receipts and buy Usdollars ( equivalent of RMB exchanged earlier )at any Bank Branch which is authorized for Forex dealings.
To avoid lines at Big four, you may try China Postal Savings Bank which has a separate counter ( and token number ) for forex dealings.

Hope it helps !