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The China Travel section of this website is devoted to helping you gain the resources you need to have an amazing trip to China. I hope that if you have plans to travel there the books, links, and tips I have included below will be very helpful.

• Excellent Books that Travelers in China should have

• Good Books to read before Traveling to China

• Excellent Websites for those Traveling to China

My Advice for Traveling to China

There are a few tips that I have, based on my experience, regarding traveling to China. I think they will vary in practicality depending on how long you plan to stay there. These tips are fairly Beijing-centered, since that's where I spent the majority of my time, but I did travel around quite a bit within China, so I hope you will find them useful.

Pack Very Light

Most airlines allow for two suitcases and a carry-on. If you're planning to stay for a while, I wouldn't bring more than one suitcase and a small carry-on, since most people tend to do a lot of shopping over there and you will need extra space in your luggage for all of the things you will likely buy. A lot of people pack as much as they are allowed, and then shop like crazy, never considering how they will get everything back home with them.

It's important to know that you can buy everything you need over there (with the exception of a few things like deodorant). This is especially true of things like T-shirts and sweatshirts that take up a lot of room in suitcases. You can get a T-shirt in China for around $2-3, and another really nice suitcase to bring all the things you bought home in for less than $20. So I recommend erring on the side of packing too light.

Shopping

You can haggle over prices when shopping in China, particularly at large markets designed for foreigners like Silk Street or Ya Xiu in Beijing. Everything varies, but as a rule of thumb, if you pay about a quarter to a third of their initial asking price, you probably got a good deal. They will usually hand you a calculator with their initial price on it (I have no idea why) and it's not a bad idea to divide it by five, hand it right back to them, and go from there. It's a laborious process, loved by some and hated by others. There's always Wal-Mart if you really just don't want to do it.

Another important point is to build a relationship with the shop owner. If you have friends you can bring back with you next time, tell them, and they'll usually give you a better price. If you ever actually do bring those friends back with you, they're going to remember that and hook you up every time you come back to see them.

I also want to write a quick note recommending caution in making purchases. This especially applies to electronics. Hong Kong is known for having quality electronics at cheap prices. In Beijing, however, I wouldn't go near anything that has the potential to break like electronics do. In the US we can pretty much take return policies for granted. Not so in China. What's more is that the electronics you can find for cheap tend to be fairly shady. A friend of mine bought a memory card for his digital camera in Beijing. It said 1GB on it and again when he plugged it into his computer, but only held 512MB worth of photos (half of what it was supposed to).

Finally, I'm not exaggerating when I say literally anything in China could be (and therefore usually is) counterfeit--this includes alcohol, baby formula, condoms--anything. It's an important thing to keep in mind.

Citibank

I had really good luck with opening a Citibank account before I went to Beijing. They had many branches there and even more in Shanghai. Also, when I used my Citibank debit card at Bank of China ATMs I wasn't charged a surcharge, unlike friends of mine who had to deal with enormous ones. Whichever debit/credit card you plan to bring with don't forget to let your bank know you're going abroad so they don't suspend your card after the first time you use it.

Another good point to make is that China is still mostly a cash economy. If you are staying at the Grand Hyatt in Beijing, don't worry, they'll take a credit card; but otherwise you shouldn't count on it. The average Chinese restaurant, travel agency, cell phone dealer, etc. will only take cash.

The Lonely Planet

These are great guide books that you can purchase before you go to China. When I was there I had one for all of China, and one just for Beijing. If you don't speak Chinese, it's important to keep in mind that cab drivers who speak English are very rare (if they even do exist). With these guidebooks you can point to the Chinese name of your destination and they'll take you there. This is a must if you are traveling to China, and I had friends who lived by them.

Read the Expat Community Magazines

Beijing, like any major city abroad, has a large community of expatriates living and working there. These people know their city well, and can be a great resource for finding good restaurants, bars, and everything else worth seeing. Beijing is amazingly international in terms of restaurants. I, personally, got hooked on sushi and Indian food while I was over there. What's more is that these places are really cheap. You can get what would be a really expensive sushi dinner in the US for around $10. A lot of these places are kind of hidden, and those magazines (such as That's Beijing) are your guide to finding them.

Elong.net

If you are planning to travel within China, as you definitely should, Elong.net is your best friend. It's like Orbitz or Expedia, but with a Chinese twist (ex. Instead of E-tickets, they had someone ride an hour and a half on a bicycle to deliver the tickets to me). They have really cheap flights on Chinese airlines within China, as well as internationally.

Black Cabs vs. Legit Ones

Black cabs are people with cars who make their living by working as unlicensed taxis. If you see a bunch of people with cars lined up outside of where you're staying or working, just hanging around, that's probably them. There's no meter, they aren't licensed to work as taxis, and they aren't affiliated with any kind of a company. That said, they can be much more or much less sketchy than the real taxis. So it comes down to what your situation is.

Black cabs are a good thing if you need them for an entire day. They will take you where you need to go, wait for you there until you're ready to leave, and maybe even act as a tour guide in the mean time. It's not a bad idea to build a relationship with one that sticks around where you are staying. Get their cell phone number and give them a call if you need to go somewhere. They'll love you for it, and treat you very well.

I wouldn't recommend black cabs as much if you don't plan on building that relationship, unless you know how much it costs to get to where you want to go in a legit cab and can bargain with them. Without a professional relationship that could suffer if they do a poor job, there is no accountability for black cabs; unlike legit cabs who have ID numbers and a company you could potentially call to complain (though they may not care).

The Most Practical Advice I have

Pack a lot of Immonium AD, and bring toilet paper with you every where you go. It's a horrible thing to have to recommend, but a lot of people have a hard time adjusting to the food and aren't prepared for the (sometimes devastating) consequences. Most public restrooms in China don't have toilet paper in the stalls, so you have to bring your own small amount with you whenever you go out. You might be grossed out right now, but you'll thank me later.

Don't Touch Me

Ok, this is the last tip that I have, and I think it's a useful one. The Chinese have a somewhat different concept of personal space than we do in the West. When I got there for the first time I had no idea how to say "don't touch me". Somehow, it had simply never come up in class, and I can't imagine it being a phrase that most pick up when they glance at a phrase book (which I definitely recommend getting, Making Out in Chinese and the Lonely Planet Phrasebook are both great).

When shopping in markets, if you say something is too expensive and start to walk away, it isn't uncommon for the shop keeper to grab you by the arm and try to pull you back into the booth. This can be very uncomfortable to those who have spent their lives in western countries. In such cases you will wish you knew how to tell them in Chinese not to touch you, because even if you think that the angry expression on your face should be getting the point across, it may not be because they haven't done anything weird by the standards of their culture.

Also, there are a lot of homeless people who beg in areas frequented by foreigners. Their tactic is typically one of grabbing at you until you give them money just to get them to go away. It's crude, but very effective. "Don't touch me" is pronounced: "bieh pung wo" (when properly transliterated, it is written "bie2 peng4 wo3"). This isn't a polite way to say it, but it gets the point across when you need it to.

I hope you will find these tips to be useful. I don't think I've ever spoken with anyone who hasn't really enjoyed the time they spent in China, and I hope you have a great time if/when you go. If you have any comments or questions about what I have written here, please email me at MarkAnderson@translatechinese.org.