Has anyone been to China?

I am visiting Harbin for three weeks in July. Quick, tell me everything you know about travelling in China.

Don't eat the chicken.

If you are traveling on business, your PC and/or cell phone will be infected with high-grade malware within a day of arrival. This is not a rumor, I am not scandalizing anyone--it's a fact. Your best bet is to bring a clean laptop, imaged, and store all volatile data on an encrypted USB storage. Don't plug that laptop back into a home/work network until it is re-imaged. If you are bringing a phone or tablet, use iOS over Android.

Eat the chicken, don't eat the dog

I've been to China. The chicken is delicious. The fish is delicious. Even the dog is delicious.

If you are planning on checking out the Great Wall, try to get to a non-restored part. It's less touristy and feels awesome to climb up the original stonework. Emphasis on climb.

In Beijing (and therefore I assume everywhere else) the taxis all have their rates printed on the window. Don't let the driver tell you it's anything other than that.

Also, it's REALLY helpful to go with someone who is fluent in Chinese.

jeb wrote: If you are traveling on business, your PC and/or cell phone will be infected with high-grade malware within a day of arrival. This is not a rumor, I am not scandalizing anyone--it's a fact. Your best bet is to bring a clean laptop, imaged, and store all volatile data on an encrypted USB storage. Don't plug that laptop back into a home/work network until it is re-imaged. If you are bringing a phone or tablet, use iOS over Android.

I have anecdotal evidence of this shit, kind of. The director of our company went over and the day after he arrived, we all started getting mass spam in from smelters in China. I still, to this day, get that spam email from the ChiComms. And they ALL have attachments.

www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/technology/el....html?pagewanted=all

Seriously, take the threat as real.

You can drink the coke. No joke.

I was there in Jan 2010. Had a great time. Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen. Plus Hong Kong. I went in winter and it was cold, certainly not tourist season. So things might be more crowded than when I was there.

Go with someone who speaks Mandarin. That will help a lot!

Went with cel phone - nothing untoward happened to it there or back.

Beijing: find a good peking duck place and have the peking duck. Find the street with the food vendors and try deep fried scorpion. Visit the Great Wall - I went to Mu Tian xx (I forgot the last word). It wasn't crowded and I heard it is usually not the tourist favorite being a little further outside Beijing.

Visit summer palace and forbidden city.

I had no issues with food and in fact I think every meal was fantastic, even the simplest dumplings. And I am not a food adventurer at all (friends still can't believe I tried scorpion).

Visit the olympic sites if you like that stuff.

Grab a few Buisness Cards from your hotel, you can just hand them to the cab driver.

The places to go listed above are all great, if you can.

The teracotta (sp?) warriors are awesome if you can get to that.

Be mindfull of the Tea house scamers.

We did not have a guide for good chunks of our trip, was not a huge deal in the big cities. But we were just wondering around.

I'll be teaching English to academics most of the time, and I won't be seeing other parts of the country outside of Harbin. So I don't know about the Forbidden City. I'm looking forward to hitting some street markets because we're close to the Russian border and there should be a little overflow. There are supposedly giant airsoft factories in the city, but airsoft itself is illegal so I can't enter that particular candy store. I do know that I can probably score a netbook for about $150.

Although I have not been to the NE where Harbin is I spent the summer of 05 in China.

I was based out of Shanghai where I went to school, but traveled all over the place. I'm happy to give you some quick info here, but if you want more depth just TM me.

My favorite experiences in no particular order:
Traveling to Tibet - Pretty much everything in Tibet
Climbing many of the Sacred Mountains (Mt. Hua Shan was a favorite)
Visiting the Wall (Spot on don't go to the touristy spots, the travel is worth it) Its amazing how different it can be depending on what part of the country or region you are in.
If you go to the forbidden city, take some time to stand in the middle of Tiananmen square and let that place soak into you.
Temple of Heaven in Beijing
Terracotta Warriors (Although the town of Xi'an has some sketchy spots)
Mogao Caves and Crescent Moon Lake (you can ride a camel to the oasis) near Dunhuang
Take a night boat trip to see the Bund in Shanghai
Walking around the cities in the wee hours of the morning
Travel by Train
Eat in alleys and from vendors, don't be boring! Also eat with big groups, hopefully with people who can share stories of the region. Try to each regional foods Spicy stuff in Sichuan province, etc.
-Also try food from Minority Groups: Dapanji is off the chain.
Meet people everywhere you go, listen to what they say and try to see and visit the non-tourist places they mention.

Honestly I could keep typing for days. Quick tips: Don't carry around too much cash in the big cities, but always have some because likely you'll find lots of stuff you want to buy from touristy down to simple bottles of water (if you buy stuff around any tourist place haggle or you will spend 100 times too much, I purchased a set of Terracotta figurines for 10 yuan after they had been asking 150). Also I always carried around tootsie rolls to hand out to kids who were begging, since I was told they are often times hired by others so the money doesn't stay with them anyway. Be friendly and interested in the culture you are visiting and don't be afraid to try to speak some Chinese even if you flub it up, people generally were receptive to my early attempts and it really added to the experience once I started to understand some things on my own.

"Wo yao pijiu" means "I want beer". You're all set.

Pick me up a fake iPad!

I'm hoping for some super advanced, underground, Neuromancer-style implants in honor of the re-release of Netrunner by FFG.

i was in China last october, went to Shanghai, Beijing, Xian, Nanjing and Hongzhou.

top tips:

Haggle for everything and go in at least 25% of the original asking price.

Buy a sword ( I did), you can find some fairly decent blades if you know what your looking for and postage isn't extortionate. Also Airports are cool with them as long as you use their oversize baggage packing facilities and pay the excess.

Eat Hot pot. Lots of hot pot.

Learn the basic rules to Chinese Chess and challenge some of the old dudes you'l find playing in the street. Possibly learn Mahjong too.

Check out some of the fabrics, you can get dirt cheap Pashmina and Cashmere in some places.

Generally the best shops are off the main streets. They will sell the same stuff as the main street shops but can be haggled down more easily.

If your at a business meeting and your asked what Tea you would like, as for Long Jin (Dragon Well) tea. Its pretty good, but most Chinese people view it as the refined taste.

Take some gifts with you. Chinese people exchange gifts alot when they give hospitality. If your expecting any sort of hospitality of the locals give them gifts, its good manners. Since they have sod all dairy in China, Chocolate goes down pretty well (im speaking from a UK perspective here, we have good chocolate). Whiskey can also make a good gift if its elderly academic men you will be meeting. Also any goods that are 'authentic to your home country, I took lots of english tea and some china ware.

Get locals to take to restaurants, they will know the best local dishes.

If your taking travelers cheques, exchange them all at the air port. Chinese banks will change them if they can work out what they are. I spent over an hour in a chinese bank in Nanjing whilst they tried to work out whether travelers cheques were real.

thats all i can think of for now

Yes hot pot. good stuff.

Also, regarding shopping. If you really don't want to be bothered use "boo-yow" (yow as in cow). It means No Want! very emphatically.

But if you do shop, as D.Chutney says - haggle like a mofo.