Tips for Travelling/Visiting China~

HELLO THIS IS MINT 

I just wanted to start a topic about travelling, general tips, problems and their solutions, and hacks regarding travelling. I am going to mainland China over the summer, so I was wondering if anyone has any tips for me? Like what websites are blocked by the Chinese government and things like that lmao. 

I am also visiting Shanghai for a tour. What things should I do there, what should I eat, etc etc? 

Thanks in advance!! 

From my own experiences visiting China and advice from friends who have lived in Mainland for a while, expect a lot of things to be blocked. One of my friends is there right now and apparently you can use Skype, but it's a very limited and monitored Chinese version you have to download separately or something. Facebook being blocked is a given, and you can't use Google (and by extension, Youtube). I've been talking to my friend via e-mail, and I suspect Outlook must be blocked or something because she made a new one to talk to me.

Otherwise, try to keep to the more tourist-y areas, keep all your belongings close and in sight. Watch out for traffic, because the driving in China is horrifying compared to North American driving, do not trust the walk signals or traffic lights telling you it's safe to cross (it usually isn't), and run for your life when you need to cross the street. I am completely serious about this. 

Be aware that it might be hard to find a public bathroom, and any bathrooms you come across will probably be the ones with holes in the ground and won't have toilet paper. Bring packs of tissue with you everywhere. Restaurants typically won't give you napkins either, they only give you a wet napkin for wiping your hands. If there's a plate and a bowl on the table (assuming you're eating at a Chinese restaurant), the plate is usually pretty dirty because it's actually meant for putting your bones and other unwanteds on, not for eating with.

If you're already with a tour for Shanghai, you should be pretty set. Shanghai cuisine is delicious in general, but I think it's impossible to go wrong with xiaolongbao. Mm soup dumplings, be careful when you bite into them.

Aw thanks so much <3 The only person who replied and it's a very elaborate answer. Thanks!!! 

I might have to get WeChat and make all my friends get WeChat or something so we can communicate properly. 

I have also heard that in Asia countries, driving is super dangerous lmao. ALSO THE POLLUTION my uncle told my family to bring face masks and things like that.  sounds mad scary.

Haha, no problem. I was looking at the forums while procrastinating and thought I'd say something since I actually did have tips 'n such. Just glad it didn't come off sounding too intense and scary. I have a bad habit of walls-of-texting and generally sounding too serious on forums which is why I prefer live chat setups.

And if you don't want to make a bunch of people get WeChat when they don't already have it, you could try e-mailing them like my friend did? She made a QQ email and gave it to me before she got on her flight.

Anywho, you'll probably be fiinee. I know I couldn't stand the heat when I was visting in winter, but depending on where you live it might not be that bad for you? I suppose pollution would be a bigger deal in the summer, though. *Can't help you there*

Nahhh, thanks for the immense amounts of info, itll be super helpful!!! 

About the email thing, I can't use a gmail, right? Maybe I'll make a yahoo email or something?? But can I still converse with people with gmails? This internet/media ban thing is getting on my nerves lmao. I know a lot of youtaites from China, they use proxies but that technology is too complicated for me lol.

THE HEAT AND POLLUTION ARE SCARING ME THOOO

I think yahoo might work, not sure. You can definitely still talk to people with gmail and whatnot, I use gmail myself.

Hey, what's up? I'm currently living in China for my uni years. I'm not living at Shanghai though so maybe some situation that I wrote below slightly differs from Shanghai.

Regarding blocked sites, gmail is apparently blocked too. Anything from google is blocked, mail, hangouts, youtube. Yeah anything. It sucks. Blocked sites: google, youtube, twitter, facebook, 4shared, mediafire, wordpress, blogspot, nnd, soundcloud, instagram, deviantart, line (the chatting app), and those captchas that you have to enter before downloading. (they're from google so you pretty much can't download the file even though you can access the page)
You can still access these pages: reddit, tumblr, hotmail, yahoomail, aol, skype, vine, pixiv (although it doesn't load properly), ytc (most forum is okay), livejournal, zerochan, fanfiction, whatsapp, etc.
Oh yeah, you can open the chinese version of youtube, youku. There's a lot of western movie, anime, tv series there. They're pretty lenient about movie/music distribution online.
Just be creative on where you spend your online time and you won't be bored.. much.

As epoxy had said, cross the street carefully. They use electric motorbike here and even though it helped with pollution, the bike doesn't make any noise and it's quite frightful when people speed over you with those noiseless bikes.. Some people is horn maniac, they push their car horn even though they're speeding so far away from you. Watch out your belongings. Definitely bring some tissue packages everywhere you go. You can't count on public toilets for tissue and soap.

Things to prepare/take notes:
- Prepare/keep your small changes because public bus doesn't prepare changes if you pay in 100 bill. 
- Prepare alternative e-mail (hotmail/aol/yahoo) to keep in contact. Most people use Wechat/QQ but you can still use whatsapp in China.
- Download/search for VPN for your phone before leaving to China.
- You can haggle in the market.
- My city is still quite rural so there isn't many shops that use spoon/fork, most restaurant use bamboo chopsticks. Learn to use it if you can or bring a small set of cutlery.
- Know some basic numbers: 1 to 10 so you can pay for drinks/so on easily. For example: yi kuai (1 RMB) san kuai wu (3.5 RMB, if they said number after kuai, it means cents), etc. Kuai is like bucks, yuan is like dollar.
- Most of the convenience store doesn't give you plastic bag after your purchase. You have to say that you want the plastic bag (我要袋子 wo yao dai zi) and pay additional cents.
- Standard line of questioning when you pay in a supermarket (有会员卡吗？要袋子吗？you hui yuan ka ma? yao dai zi ma? Do you have the membership card? Do you want the plastic bag?) Most chain store have member cards that you can get by fulfilling criteria, it's like gotta catch 'em all, but for member cards.

- Wear a backpack and comfy shoes for long trip.
- Keep your passport and wallet safe.
- Get the metro card if you plan to visit many places. You can also use the card on public bus.
- Visit these sites to plan your free time/ask some questions, these guys know more about Shanghai than me XD: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g308272-Shanghai-Vacations.html http://www.reddit.com/r/shanghai
You're going to be alright, you can ask your tour guide if you have any questions. I didn't mean to scare you away from visiting China, I just want you to be prepared. Despite all of that, this place got good food (if you know where to find it), cheap things and awesome online shopping website. Have fun! :D
Feel free to ask me questions if you want~ and my post turned to another essay lel

KURAWAL, THANKS SO MUCH <3 

This is so helpful omg. I can use tumblr in China, which is pretty good news lmao. I'm mostly worried about contacting my college in the U.S., cuz I have to choose classes and stuff during my stay in China... Does anyone know if .edu websites and @___.edu emails work?

You're welcome, MiNT! Just glad to help, haha.


The site availability depends on where they're hosted, I suppose. What's your uni website? I can check it for you if you want to. You can still send e-mail to google mail, even if you cannot open the site. So I suppose you don't have to worry about sending the e-mail.

thanks so much omg 

heres my uni website: here

THANKS AGAIN <3

First time I opened the site it leads to "Firefox cannot access the server" but after I refreshed the page, it works just fine.
I guess you don't have to worry about anything, hahah.
Sure, no problem! Thanks for putting up with my long post lel

Have a safe trip! Hope you have a blast at Shanghai :D

THANKS <3 <3 <3 

And nahh your posts are super informative. I'm so pumped to go to Shanghai!!!!

You're welcome! Just ask me if you have any questions again, I'll be happy to help~
Have fun and stay safe!