Tricks for Travel in China

Travel in China is trickier than most people could imagine. First, there is the language barrier. By that, I am not referring to the fact that everyone speaks Chinese but, instead, to the fact that everything is written in Chinese. That is a big difference to begin with. If I travel in Europe, I can still decipher signage, like "le tren" or "policia", because they are at least written in the same alphabet that I use, in English. Even Russia and Eastern Europeans, while having a slightly different alphabet (I always see people saying See See See Pee when they see CCCP, th old abbreviation for the Soviet Union, in Cyrillic, which is properly pronounced SSSR), are accessible because the alphabet is, like our, limited to a few dozen characters). Not so, with Chinese calligraphy. When I was first working on our website, www.redhillchina, I wanted to include tips about customs, like and language, and I have been adding words and phrases, but I though that I might add the basic phonemes, as well, but even the first one had so many variations that I gave up.

In my previous travels, I drew on my abilities to be a "natural local", which is more difficult, in China, because I do not look Chinese. Even over the last eight year, during which I have been living in various cities, in various countries, which I can do because the internet gives me freedom to work anywhere, I would move into a town, even if it was only for a few weeks, and I would tell people that I just moved to town. Thereafter, they would tell me all of the secrets to living there, which was very useful because many of the places that I lived were also resort/tourist areas. There are many secrets of traveling, in China, that you will never know about (until now) unless you are a local.

Of course, even in China, I have been able to use my abilities as a natural local. I came here on an expert visa to teach finance and econ at a university, outside of Guangzhou, which also provided an apartment. I first mapped out Zengcheng, which is fairly large city to the east of the university, and they have not seen too many foreigners. I found places in that town that no one at the school had ever heard about. Next, I attacked Guangzhou. I could have stayed in a hotel that caters to Westerns for around ¥1,000 (around $135) per night, but I found a large old Chinese hotel by the river (great views). Rooms there were ¥400/night, but even that was a Westerner price. Ultimately, my local skills ferreted out that there are nice rooms, in the original section of the hotel for as little as (my friend Peter took those, later, after I told him about the place) ¥150, and even the bigger double rooms were only ¥250 ($35). I have continued to find interesting, out-of-the-way places in Guangzhou and in the other cities that I visit.

The next trick that I learned is that all of the Chinese use booking services to book hotels and flights. I thought, oh gee, how nice! In the U.S. and Europe, it's nice to use booking services, just for the convenience and timesaving. However, in China, this detail is of greater importance. By using a booking agency, I will end up paying, for example, ¥250/night for a suite in a major city, but if I just walked in off the street, I would be quoted ¥700. Of course, you might say to yourself, "but everyone knows that booking an airline or hotel, in advance, might save money." You would be wrong to jump to that conclusion. When my partner and I recently went to Xian, she booked a room on the internet, as described above, but when we got there, the 360 degree webcam view showed an entirely different room, so we left. We walked across the street to Starbucks, got out one of the computers, and booked a suite at another hotel, across the street, for ¥300, and the price shown in the lobby when we got there was around ¥600. Moreover, energy prices are susidized by the government, so, although flights within China are cheap, to begin with, they are up to 60 percent off advertized airline price, through a booking agent. So, wait to book internal flights, in your city hopping, until you get here. Thus, in China, if you can access the booking agent network, which is mostly in Chinese, you can get substantial discounts. We have even added a service on our website to help people book more intelligently, in China, by either using our Chinese contacts.

This is all part of a larger lesson about traveling in China, which you should know about and understand. First, you might say that travel in China is cheap enough, already, so why bother, but that is just silliness. I met a man and his wife who were in China for an extended stay. He, being the smart guy that he thought he was, got the expensive Western Hotel to give him a monthly price of only ¥20,000 (less than $3,000), which he said was cheap for his suite plus an extra room for the nanny. I told him that he was missing the point and that he was being snookered. The next week I saw him, and he told me the good news that a guy was going to give him a 3-bedroom apartment, south of the river in the older part of town, for only ¥12, 000 per month. Again, I told him of his foolishness in that a 3-bedroom apartment in my part of town where there are also many Western-oriented conveniences was only about ¥3,000 per month ($400).

The thing is: this is an ever present game in China. Because the Yuan is purposely keep at a low rate to the dollar to encourage export of Chinese goods, Westerners are lulled into thinking that everything is cheap, even when they are still paying an exorbitant price, in term of local buying power. On the other side, every Chinese person thinks that all Westerns are rich and should pay more. Then, they will raise the price for a Westerner (most items in stores, in China, do not have prices on them), even as much as ten-times the normal price or more. That actually happens to me every day. In our recent travels to Xian we saw two items that we offer for sale, in the art section of our website, priced for me at 20x the price that we pay for them. What we usually do is for my partner to go ask the price, first; then, I join her. It is a ubiquitous practice, everywhere, by everyone, in everything, even the export markets, but, again, it is based on the misunderstanding of currency gymnastics.

That is the real point! Money is worth its buying power. In China, I can buy a homemade noodle dinner for around ¥10. Or I can go to a Western restaurant and pay as much as several hundred Yuan. In the U.S., I can spend over ten dollars for at a pizzeria for dinner. Purchasing power builds up the whole system of prices, from wages to dinner. So even though you think that things are cheap enough, in China, don't be a sucker, no matter how rich or not you really are. You can read more about: how to be a local in China, business in China, and traveling in China, on our website incountry-china. At this point we even have international research and consulting firms who check out countries for corporations, asking us for information about living in China, so decided to annex a business of helping people to book smart, in China, which is also discussed on the website. Travel and buy smart: in China.