Thanks jiejie! Only have apartment for a couple fo months. And yes, I have a Chinese techie friend! So hopefully should work out. I will just limit my use towhat i am allowed. And haveing just a little will be better than nothing at all!

The prices for the USB modems themselves range from CNY 663 to CNY 1140 (look for where it says "价格: 720元" for instance; 元 is the character for "yuan" and 价格 is "jiàgé" or "price").

The plans are as follows (prices are per month):

• CNY 80 for 1GB
• CNY 150 for 3GB
• CNY 200 for 5GB
• CNY 300 for 10GB

All the plans are listed at http://3g.10010.com/3gindex/card_money.html.

If you're only doing e-mail and text-based news, 3GB should be plenty. You can pay by charging your account with prepaid cards, or 充值卡 (chōngzhíkǎ).

Your other option is to get an unlocked 3G phone that supports tethering, such as the HTC Desire, and just use that with a China Unicom SIM. That way, you only have to carry around one device. You can get plans that range from CNY 66 a month for 50 minutes of voice calls, 240 SMS, and 300MB of data to CNY 886 a month for 3000 minutes of voice calls, unlimited SMS, and 3GB of data. All these plans are listed on http://3g.10010.com/3gindex/money928.html.

I'm not sure where in China you'll be staying or how you're arriving, but I know that there is a China Unicom shop in T3 at PEK that sometimes has English-speaking staff who should be able to help you get set up. If you're not at an airport location, though, try to bring along a Mandarin speaker or you'll be spending the better part of the day trying to get things set up. Just as a note, if you do things at an official China Unicom store rather than buying from a random vendor, you'll have to show your passport or residence permit and let them photocopy it.

Hope this information helps!

Edit: One word of warning that I just thought of is that the software/drivers for using the card will almost certainly be in Chinese only, and may require you to set your computer to Chinese language to use (because Chinese software rarely seems to use Unicode, all the text in the software will appear as mojibake/garbage characters if the system language is set to something other than Chinese Simplified [PRC]). If this will be an issue for you, you may want to either go the tethering route or buy an unlocked USB modem with English drivers and bring it with you.

While I've never shopped for phones there I find just the 元 character is fine for recognizing prices. What else besides a price would be expressed in yuan in a store?? It's also easy to remember--it's pi with a line over it.

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Power Plugs
 

I have blown a power supply (luckily with no computer damage) using a two-prong plug in Asia, apparently due to some grounding problem. Except for dire emergencies, I would always use a three-prong plug. The standard Chinese three-prong has three flat prongs, with two being angled to one another. Get one before you leave!

FWIW, I have never experienced a similar problem (and spend quite a bit of time on my computer wherever I am). I actually only bring 2-prong adapters to China, when possible, because they can be used in almost all outlets/power strips. Naturally, I make sure that they are rated for 220v, but most laptop/phone adapters are 110-220 these days.

^^ thank you! It was very helpful!

There's just ONE THING to be careful about in China. Nearly EVERYTHING you get in the form of DVDs, CDs, memory sticks, etc, will be FULL of viruses. I bought several low-end camera devices (a little camera hidden in a pen, and one in a "car remote") a few months back in Beijing, and when I plugged them into my computer, it tried to run an "autorun" that would have installed all sorts of nasty things.

Good think I try these things out in a scratch virtual machine that I can delete and re-copy from a read only device....

An adaptor to convert 3 prong into the standard 2 would be helpful (not sure of grounding issues). I didn't have one and, in about half the hotels I stayed at (all 4 and 5 star) they didn't have the "right" plug for me in my room. In one hotel, a Chinese managed "5 star," they couldn't produce an adaptor when I asked for one (crazy, right?). I only stayed a few days at each hotel so I relied on battery power when I couldn't recharge, but I could see this being an issue. So get yourself a plug.

Also, I was a bit surprised that wired access was much more common than wireless in Chinese hotels (both Western-run and Chinese-managed). They always had a cord available, though. But maybe it would also be a good idea to bring one if you have one.

I brought a netbook, everything was fine. Yes bring a plug adapter.

Wireless is a bit stricted at hotels, but if you ask at front desk, everything goes fine. Well I was at 4* hotels.

skype in China
 

On a related note, I'll be going to Beijing for the first time in the next month or so. Will I have free access to skype whilst I'm there? Keeping in touch with my wife and especially my little daughter will be rather important to me.

thanks,

tb

Skype works fine on reasonably fast connections.

Skype is useable in Beijing, but there are some caveats. The Skype available in China is in conjunction with Tom Online, which provides access only to a Chinese-government monitorable and censored version of the Skype software. For various reasons, I suggest you not use. You can Google for more on this if interested. You normally cannot get to the regular USA-based Skype.com website directly from most Beijing ISP providers--you'll get bounced to the Tom version. So here's what you do to avoid the website access issue, assuming you bring your own laptop:

Make sure before you head for China, that the regular Skype program is downloaded onto the hard drive of your machine. The key program is the skype.exe file. Once in Beijing, access the internet connection, then from the Run menu, browse your drive until you get that skype.exe file up, and run it so it opens. Check the Skype menu on your desktop to make sure you are online, and then use as you normally do.

If you are not bringing your own laptop, you'll have to deal with the Chinese version. In which case, whatever you are discussing, assume Big Brother has Big Ears.

This link looks like it will get you the international version:

http://www.filecluster.com/downloads/Skype.html

If not, since the file size is less than 25 MB, anyone with a gmail account could chop of the .exe and email it.

You can get to the regular global Skype site at https://secure.skype.com/ from within China. Just be aware that clicking any links that redirect you to the non-https skype.com will bounce you to the skype.tom.com site.

I've never had to do any of this: if you already have the regular, non-tom.com version of Skype installed, you can start it and use it as usual. There's no need to dig around for the exe file instead of just running it from the Start menu.

In any case, if for whatever reason you do find yourself having to use the Tom.com version (perhaps because you don't have your own computer with you), it really isn't that big of a deal. It's no less secure than making a regular telephone call or sending an unencrypted e-mail from China. The vast majority of people use Skype because they want to call people back home for free, not because they're paranoid about government spies and need foolproof encryption. Trust me, the Chinese authorities really don't care what you talk about with your brother or your girlfriend on Skype...