HOW TO Beijing

HOW TO Send Money From China

If you’re trying to wire money overseas from China, you have a few options. The most important part is changing your money from RMB to another currency.

The easiest and most painless way to transfer money is to have a Chinese friend do it (now that I think about it, I could say that for 99% of the articles on this site. but anyway). Your Chinese friend needs to have an account with one of the big banks: Bank of China, HSBC, Standard Chartered, etc. The rates are better and the chances are higher that the tellers have done this before. My experience is that English at these banks is also better.

Get your friend to convert the RMB using their account. You can either hand your friend the money in a sack or wire it to them (safe and cheap, but can take up to 2 days). 

If you are a foreigner, you can convert the money yourself but the process involves a few extra steps of paperwork. You’ll also need passport/ID.

Unless you are changing to an obscure currency, this part is pretty smooth. Once the money is converted, you now have two choices:

Bank-to-bank wire transfer

Bank of China has a form called “Application for Funds Transfers (Overseas)” (jìng wài huì kuǎn shēn qǐng shū / 境外汇款申请书). Other banks have similar forms.

Bank of China charges 150 RMB for the wire transfer service and a 0.1% commission on the transferred amount.

Make sure you have the address of the receiving bank, swift/routing codes and the recipient’s account number. 

Your Chinese friend fills out the rest as it will pertain to his or her account. Thankfully you don’t need your passport, blood sample or your grandfather’s birth certificate.

The teller will say to expect it in 7 business days. I’ve had the money send as fast as 48 hours.

Western Union/MoneyGram

If you aren’t sending to a bank, you’ll have to go through money transfer services like Western Union or MoneyGram. The recipients can pick up your transfer in cash, but you will pay a premium.

For Western Union, go to a China Post or Agricultural Bank of China. Transaction fee is 17% of the transferred amount.

You can do MoneyGram at Bank of China, China Citic Bank, ICBC and Bank of Communications. Transaction fee is 10% of the transferred amount.

Make sure that you have the EXACT spelling of the recipient’s name and address as it appears on the ID they carry, otherwise you could experience some delays.

Once you’re finished, you’ll get a transaction number that you can send to your recipient. There is also an option for filling out a security question.

HOW TO Take The Bus in Beijing

Learning how to take the bus in Beijing and learning Beijing bus routes are two entirely different experiences. Indeed, both require lots of patience. However, you need more than patience when riding the bus in Beijing, especially if you’re new. Here’s a few things you need to know:

How to pay

There are 3 ways to pay on buses: public transit card, cashbox, or pay cash to the bus conductor. For most trips, bus fare is 1 RMB (0.40 with a public transit card). 

If you board a bus with a bus conductor, you’ll need to know where you’re going as the fare depends on how far your destination is. You should know how to say your destination or at least make sure you have it written down.

How to get on

There are 2 kinds of buses: 2-door and 3-door. If it’s a 2-door bus, you board at the front. For 3-door buses, board using the middle door.

This is important because the method of payment is near the boarding door. Also, this helps you avoid the stream of people exiting the bus.

How to keep your sanity despite the crowd

Just make peace with the fact that at some point in your Beijing bus-riding career that you will get elbowed in the spine; that some lady’s purse will hit you in the face; that someone will sit in a seat that you were clearly about to sit in.

I’ve rode some buses that were so crowded that when I got off, I noticed I had at least 4 different sweat stains on my shirt, none of them being mine.

So how can you deal with it? You either get used to it, or take a taxi that costs at least 10x as much. It’s that simple.

How to get off

On your first few bus rides, you should be constantly looking outside the window to familiarize yourself with landmarks. This is important because for newcomers to Beijing, it is difficult to know where to get off. The announcements are in Mandarin and English, but the station names are always said in Chinese. Eventually, things will click, but it’s always good to have a visual picture of your surroundings.

Also important is how to politely get off the bus. Use the phrase “xià chē ma?” which means “are you getting off the bus?” if someone is between you and the door. They may respond with “xià”, which means yes; in which case just stand behind them and follow their lead.

HOW TO Learn Beijing Bus Routes

The bus system is Beijing is pretty good. Convenient, expansive and cheap (generally 1 RMB per ride; if you have a public transit card it’s usually 0.40 RMB).

However, if you’re new to Beijing and have no Chinese language skill, learning the bus routes quickly becomes an ugly exercise of trial and error. I’ve been to a few “tourist centres” around the city and none of them have any Beijing bus maps (probably because they would be thick as a bible).

If you’re going somewhere just once, forget about the bus and just hop in a cab. However, if you’re looking for a more efficient route to somewhere you regularly go, like your job, favourite restaurant, etc, you need to do a bit more work. 

First, you need to know what bus routes go to your destination. Google Maps is a big help in learning Beijing bus routes. Type in where you want to go, then zoom in closely to see small clickable bus icons that give you a list of bus routes for that stop.

Alternatively, you could find the route numbers yourself. Chances are, there’s a few bus stops around your destination. They’ll have something like the picture on the left. Go to the bus stop and write down all the bus route numbers.

Then go to the Beijing Public Transport website for bus routes in Beijing. Unfortunately, the usability and speed of the site is terrible. But it’s better than nothing!

On the front page, enter the bus routes in the search. You’ll be given a list of bus stops (in romanized letters so you can read them!) overlaid on a map for your reference.

The longer you live in Beijing, your Chinese reading skill eventually improves and you learn to identify key bus stops and terminals, so getting around isn’t as painful. You’ll make a few Chinese friends who somehow seem to have the entire Beijing bus system memorized. Just make sure you know how to take the bus in Beijing.

HOW TO get a Yikatong Transit Card

Getting a Yikatong (Yī kǎ tōng / 一卡通) is an essential piece of living in Beijing. It allows you to use the huge public transportation system for a substantial discount over paying by cash. A few convenience stores also allow it as a method of payment.

Getting these Beijing metro pass cards can be tough if you don’t speak any Chinese. I just assumed you could buy them at any subway station. Most subway stations have service counters, but sometimes all they do is sell single-use tickets or provide coin change for the ticket machines. This can be maddening for people who have experienced the foreigner-friendly simplicity and ubiquity of Hong Kong’s Octopus cards or Seoul’s T-Money cards.

What I did was I went to several subway stations and just said “Yikatong” until someone nodded their head. For the record, I got mine at Sanyuanqiao (Sān Yuán Qiáo / 三元桥) station, but quite a few others sell them as well. I haven’t found a list of Yikatong vendor stations anywhere, so you might need to do a bit of legwork until you hit one.

The card itself costs 20 RMB and you need to put at least 10 RMB on it.

HOW TO get a Temporary Residence Permit

There’s something about getting the TRP (Temporary Residence Permit) that I find both annoying and endearing. It is annoying because (to me) it is such a mindless piece of unnecessary paperwork. I find it endearing in a strange way. Since it is one of the first things you must do when you settle in China, it gives you an introduction to the stifling levels of bureaucracy that exist everywhere.

You need the TRP  for many reasons. First, it is technically illegal for you to live in China without registering at the nearest police station (if you stay at a hotel, they do the TRP for you). Second, you need it for any visa extensions or changes. Third, it is so that the government can send secret agents to bug your evil foreigner apartment when you’re at work.

Anyway. The easiest way is to go to the <b>nearest Public Safety Bureau office with the titleholder</b> of your home, or at least someone who has the authority of the landlord by proxy. Reason being, is that you likely need all sorts of documents (i.e. rental contract, paperwork from your apartment building, etc) to prove that you live where you say you live. Some areas in Beijing require nothing more than a contract. If you’re new to Beijing, just trust me and get your landlord or a suitable proxy to accompany you.

This bureau is usually the biggest police station in your neighbourhood, but not always. Ideally, meet your landlord somewhere beforehand then go there together. That is, unless you want to do what I did and wander in futility around Beijing looking for police stations, asking strangers in broken Chinglish, only to be pointed to the wrong police stations and getting yelled at by the “customer service” officers. Ah, first month in Beijing, so many memories.

If you get “caught” without a TRP, fines in Beijing can range from 200-500 RMB.