I hope to give a very brief introduction to moving your way around China both for travel and work purposes. Although this guide isn’t comprehensive, it should give you the basics and a good idea of what to expect when you land in China.
General
**For more information on general world travel, have a look at my Resources for the Working Traveller to see other useful sites.
Wikitravel.com/China – Much more thorough than what you’ll read below.
chinahighlights.com – English website that details just about all aspects of living in China.
Publications
TimeoutBeijing.com, TimeoutShanghai.com – locally written monthly magazines are helpful in finding out what’s going on in the major cities.
City Weekend – Publishes monthly magazines for major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.
Transportation
qunar.cn – mostly for trains and all in Chinese.
12306.cn – All in Chinese, but you can book train tickets so ask someone to help you.
ctrip.com – available both in English and Chinese to help you book tickets and accommodation.
mafengwo.com – all in Chinese but can help you plan an itinerary.
Now, a little about what to expect when you travel in China…
Most large cities will have a well-connected transportation system of trains, buses and taxis. Any city with over 4 million people will have a subway system, even if it’s only 1 or 2 lines. Beijing has an extensive subway system supported by buses that seem to encourage standing rather than sitting and cheap-ish taxis (before midnight). The subway system costs anywhere from 3 to 5 RMB.
Buses are much cheaper at around 2 RMB or less if you have a transport card (20 RMB deposit required). These are an experience as some buses haven’t been upgraded in years. I have yet to use the long distance buses but, given the cost of train and plane tickets and the distances required, I can’t say I’m in a hurry to try them.
Taxis start their meter at 13 RMB and that seems to go on for quite a while before they start charging you per meter. There are such things as “black taxis” that charge substantially more and are often unregulated so use them at your discretion. The one downside to this is that the subway closes between 11 and 11:30 pm and there are limited night buses. After 11:30, taxis start charging their night rate (but they may offer you a cigarette if they notice you’re drunk, which is sweet of them.)
Trains – Intra-country travel along the coast is extraordinarily easy and relatively cheap. High-speed trains connect mot major centres and cost about 500 RMB for a one way ticket. We took the high-speed train from Beijing to Xi’an and it cost us 515 RMB each, but we got there in 5 hours instead of the 11 to 14-hour regular train. Search online for tickets and try to pick them up before you go to the station because, well, 1.3 billion people, how do you think most train stations look? Let me tell you: packed. However, most train stations have at least one window that employs an English-speaking employee so if you reeeeally want to experience a crush of Chinese people, you can book at the station (just be prepared to wait).
Flights – I prefer to take the train so I don’t know much about domestic flying in China. There are a huge array of domestic airlines, including Air China, China Eastern, China Southern, Xiamen Airways, Hainan Airways, the list goes on. Air China has bloody cheap fares, probably due to the increased competition form high-speed rail networks. There are quite a few domestic airlines that offer flights for about 300 RMB one-way. Tickets are much cheaper if you book them a month in advance. If you’re going to pay online, it’s better to use a foreign credit card because using your Chinese Unionpay card or other bank card requires setting up online banking and often requires a special USB hub to enter your PIN. It can get quite confusing. Despite the recent string of bad news hitting southeast Asian flights, I’ve never had any problems flying within the region. Air Asia is good for flights to South East Asia, but not so much within China itself.
Bicycle – China is actually very bike-friendly, even in the big cities. Beijing and Shanghai have rent-a-bike schemes but you have to register to use it, though you can buy or rent a cheap bike if you’re going to be in the same place for a while.
Accommodation
Hostels – I stayed in a few hostels in the summer of 2015 when I travelled by train from Beijing to Xinjiang province. I found them using hostelworld.com and continue to use that website. Most hostels I stayed in cost about 100 RMB and were quite comfortable. Staff were usually friendly but unless they speak really good English or you speak really good Chinese, you may be left to your own devices.
Hotels – The two that I’ve found I’ve stayed in the most are the Holiday Inn and Hanting Express, both of which have locations throughout China. Hanting Express can be hit or miss because some don’t actually allow foreigners. That being the case, the ones that do allow foreigners are usually pretty good. Book online and you’ll get a discount. Hanting usually charges about 260 RMB per night while Holiday Inn is much more at about 550 RMB per night (but includes breakfast!)
Drinking
Domestic beer (Yanjing, Tsingtao (pronounced “Ching-dao”), Snow and Harbin) from the store is cheap and you can pick it up anywhere. Purchased in a restaurant and those beers will cost around 30 RMB or so, depending on the establishment. Foreign beers (Stella Artois, Hoegaarden, Heineken, Budweiser) are usually around 40-45 RMB and are often sold in bottles, but some places have them on tap.
Beijing microbrews (about which I wrote a post a little while ago) will cost you about 50 RMB for a pint, roughly $10 Canadian. You might wonder about the quality of microbrews in China but I’m pleased to tell you that they’re actually really good. It’s a relatively new thing for the Chinese to embrace and each brewery has its own taproom where it offers their staple beers and seasonal beers. From IPAs to stouts to blondes to lagers, often the taprooms will have a selection of 20 or so beers available at any given time.
In regard to spirits, anything other than the local spirit, baijiu, will cost about 40RMB or more, depending on the place.
Eating
Western food is generally overpriced and can often leave you wondering if the person making it ever ventured outside of China. In major cities there is often an expat or a couple of young-ish Chinese folks who’ve lived outside of China and will surprise you with their culinary expertise. But it’s just that, you should expect to be surprised by finding good Western food outside of the major cities. Western food is often $10 or more per dish. All in all, dinner or lunch with drinks will be around 150 rmb, or about $30 CAD. This is all in Beijing of course and I found similar prices in Xi’an when I was there in December 2014. Smaller cities may be cheaper but will also require you to know more Chinese and have fewer Western options. Western foods that I’ve seen run the gamut of pub food (fish and chips, chicken wings and the like), pizza, burgers, some Slavic food is served in the area around the Russian embassy and German sausages also have a presence in restaurants. Mexican food is a little more difficult to find, although I’m told there’s at least one place that serves it (aside from churros which are often sold from mini stalls). My favourite so far: Ganges for Indian food, Sugar Shack, The Wood House and Hutong Pizza for pizza, Great Leap Brewing #6 and Slowboat for their blue cheese burgers.
Major cities will have all the assortment of any major city, including fast food and other Asian food, especially Korean and Japanese. Indian and Mexican is also available in most major cities.
In smaller cities, some restaurants will thankfully have pictures, but my fallbacks are “riu mian” (meat noodles), mian bao (bread), jiaozi (Chinese perogies), baozi (mini stuffed buns, often served in the morning), tang cu li ji (sweet and sour pork).
Shopping
Western clothing and electronics brands are available at surprisingly higher-than-Western prices. GAP, H&M and even Apple products are markedly higher than in Western cities. Why is this? It may have something to do with the perceived value and status that comes with such brand names, it may also deal with the fact that although the clothes are manufactured in China, Bangladesh or India, they are often exported to Western countries before being re-imported to be sold at these stores. I don’t actually know but it is a possibility that you are actually paying the import fees for goods manufactured re-imported by China. Kinda like how a table made in New Zealand will cost more than the one made in China despite both being made of the same wood. Not only are labour costs higher overseas but the country has to re-import the goods as well.
Finally, the websites amazon.cn, taobao.cn, jd.cn are the three major online websites that sell just about everything you.
Money
Some Mom and Pop shops might prefer cash or Chinese bank card. Mastercard and Visa are accepted at major hotels and often online, but I wouldn’t expect them to work at smaller restaurants. Unionpay is the Chinese interac system but Maestro and Cirrus may also be available at some ATMs. Changing USD and EUR are easier than changing CAD. Finally, the Chinese people are moving towards digital payment systems such as WeChat Pay and Alipay, and to a lesser extent, Apple Pay.
Working
Some potential teachers might be wondering about pay. As an English teacher, as a minimum you’ll be making usually about $1000/month USD, or about 6,000-7,000 RMB per month. The more qualifications you have and the better the institution (such as universities and international schools) and your monthly pay would be a minimum of about 12,000 RMB ($2400 CAD or $2000 USD). Contracts don’t often include accommodation (but they’ll give you a little bit of money for it and help you find a place) nor do they include insurance. However, they do offer round-trip tickets to your home country and visa support. Schools will not cover the cost of your visa. Finally, families with children older than 5 may find it difficult to find nearby schooling for their children let alone affordable tuition.
Your monthly income also depends on how much you want to work as an English teacher. Private tutoring rates are about 250RMB/hr; proofreading and editing services can fetch about the same. IELTS examiners make more than that (about 167 RMB per student) but China has recently changed the laws and now require you to be either an IELTS examiner or a teacher, not both. Reason? Taxes!
Qualifications range from ‘breathing and able to stand in front of a classroom’ to higher academic degrees and then professional training. My university required a MA and a CELTA before they would confirm my employment. Accommodation is covered if I live in the guesthouse and a round-trip ticket is given per term. Health insurance is given if you get hit by a bus/accidents (which is a concern given the Chinese manner of driving) but not if you have a heart attack or slip and hurt yourself.
Taxes – Generally the tax rate is scaled depending on how much you earn. 10% is a good number to work with. However, unlike other countries (Japan and South Korea come to mind), China doesn’t give you any pension nor does it reimburse your taxes once you leave.
If teaching English isn’t your thing, don’t worry, China has lots of other opportunities. Music, surprisingly, can pay well, but you’ll need to be both an ensemble member and a teacher to maximize your pay. Lots of foreign companies have headquarters in Beijing but often require their employees to at least be knowledgeable in Mandarin. Some companies, however, have headquarters in Beijing but bring in people from overseas as managers and those people often don’t know Chinese.
Visa
You will need a visa to enter Mainland China, but no visa is necessary for most people who want to visit Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan. For Mainland China you will need a letter of invitation from your employer or a tourist agency. Chinahighlights.com can help you with that.
For my job, I was given a temp visa which was converted to a “Z” work visa after my medical was approved by my school. The residence visa allows me to enter and exit China as I want but does NOT qualify me for resident bank benefits.