Shanghai for 2 months
 

I'm living in shanghai on business later this summer for two months and have a
list of questions if anyone can help me out:

I'm staying near Shanghai stadium, which from what i can tell is in the Xuhui district.

-How well to US ATM cards work? Any suggestions for prepaid credit cards to
use as ATM/Cash cards?

-Any problems with GSM mobile service, or Skype? Any suggestions for prepaid
Sim cards or cheap local mobile service?

-Any can I still access my online banking, bills and business accounts via internet?

-Any do's/don't with locals and police?

I'm always looking for good restaurants, bars, nightlife and shopping

Any ex-pats on this forum? Interested in playing tour guide for a day?
I'll cover expenses..

Mb

First of all, welcome to China! Shanghai is a great city, and I'm there regularly from my perch up in Beijing. Just to answer some of your basic questions:
-VISA/MC, and in some cases AE, will work in most ATMs carrying the respective logos/trademarks of the creidt-card companies. For dedicated ATM-cards, some ATMs display a "Cirrus" logo or similar. If your bank in the US is part of this, your cars should still be useable.
-GSM and Skype works just as well here as anywhere else. There are two main companies selling mobile services, and the largest is China Mobile. They cover all of China and have roaming-agreements spanning the globe. One thing to be aware of though is that you can always send SMS out of China, but getting one into China is much harder. Having been here for 18 months, I have yet to receive an SMS from family and friends and always end up getting a frustrated call asking why I never reply to their SMSs.
-Internet banking should still work, subject to your bank not limiting the IP-addresses you can use when claiming to be you.
-Do's/Dont's much like anywhere else. Be polite, a smile will always solve more than fury, and with that in mind: Sharpen your elbows, as queing-cultire in China leaves a lot to be desired.
-When going out, if you are placed in a separate "VIP"-room in a bar together with a few ladies, leave immediately. People have been known to be charged astronomical amounts for two beers and a drink for the ladies. When protesting that they have only been drinking, they have been told that this is their own problem and not the bar's!

Enjoy the bustle of the place!
Enjoy Shanghai,

A few tips...

When you buy a GSM sim card make sure that a) works throughout China and b) can be reloaded anywhere in China. Otherwise you might find yourself with a China Mobile SIM in Ningbo, or wherever, unable to reload.

In terms of your interactions with the police...my experience is that they generally try to help foreigners unless you are being disrespectful. It would not be a good idea to wear t-shirts with bible versus, or something else that might be considered protected speech in China.

When using ATMs, I'd encourage you to stick to machines with attached banks. Very occasionally the machines have eaten my cards and getting a replacement to China can be a bit of a chore.

Once your body acclimates, do not be afraid to eat the local food. One of the best meals of my life was eaten sitting in the middle of a Shanghai street eating fresh crawfish fried in a wok and drinking cheap beer.

Remember...have fun! And report back with your stories.

My Chinese friends have always adviced to stay clear of street food near railway stations. Due to some of the recent news coverage I'd extent this to most vendors apart from known restaurants setting up street stalls. There is no need to "slum it" pricewise.

I recommend that you sign up for a post-paid SIM card, China Mobile, Unicom, and Shanghai Mobile all offer these.

The new rate plans are all quite attractive. IIRC, I pay ~140 per month and get ~1000 minutes plus free incoming. The really cool thing is that IDD calls are now dirt cheap (~y1/minute to the US and even less to HK and Taiwan).... so I don't need to bother with Skype or IP cards. But, in Shanghai (but not Beijing?), you need to register and pay y10 per month to get the good rates on China Mobile. On the plus side, IIRC Shanghai IDD rates are among the cheapest around if you register.

If you decide to go the prepaid route, avoid Shanghai Mobile (and some Unicom cards) because you won't be able to recharge outside of Shanghai. Unforunately, the prized 138 numbers all appear to be Shanghai Mobile.

I live in BJ and have a China Mobile prepaid card, works countrywide and with 20Y per month I don't pay for incoming calls.
Do you think I could pass to the 140Y/month card without to change my number? I'm interested for the international calls (Europe)

As far as ATMs, we use Bank of America here in the states. They are affiliated with China Construction Bank...the CCB ATMs worked great in Beijing, with no fees, etc. But we could not get ATMs from the same bank to work in Shanghai, and had to use HSBC or another bank and got charged fees.

I have no problem using the CCB ATM in Shanghai without fee. The branch I went to has several ATM machines and there is only one would accept BOA.

You definitely have to pick a new number. And, if you're a vanity number person, be prepared to pay a lot more. The good news is that you'll still have around 5000 (WAG) numbers to choose from. Plus, after I made the switch (new business cards and all other related annoyances), my monthly spend dropped from y600 to y300 (this is more than y140 because of the roaming and long distance charges). The main advantages to postpaid are: 1) cheaper; 2) you never need to worry about shopping for recharge cards --that may or may not work-- at 1a in strange cities.... or bothering friends in your home city; and 3) you can make local calls guilt free as long as they fall within the parameters of your rate plan.

Regarding #3, before I made the switch, I used to look up numbers in my cell phone and key them into my home or office phone, simply because I felt cell phone calls were excessively expensive (let's set aside the fact that their cost relative to other daily expenses is trivial). Now, I take full advantage of my cell phone's functionality without thinking twice. And, I only give out my home number to a select group of people so that when it rings, I have a pretty good idea about who's calling (I don't have caller ID at home).

In short, I encourage you to spend an hour (maybe only 30 minutes, but allow for an hour) at your local China Mobile office and get onboard. Unlike in the US or Europe, you won't be locked in to a burdensome contract (unless you take one of their "free" phones in the process); whenever you leave China for extended periods of time, you can simply drop to a y5 plan that will preserve your service or cancel altogether.

Shanghai tips
 

I bought a China Mobile prepaid sim with a Shanghai number from unitedsims.com and an unlocked quad-band phone on e-bay. Worked faultlessly, and having the card in advance saved dealing with paperwork in China. I don't have voice mail, but most people in China use SMS instead.

Be sure and let your bank (and other credit card companies) know in advance of your trip to Shanghai. B of A and Amex both have been known to freeze accounts when China charges appear. It's no fun calling a US bank from Shanghai to unfreeze your account - especially because of the time difference and the potentially high cost of the call while you wait on hold.

Smartshanghai.com has a reasonably complete listing of restaurants and bars. It is a handy web site because you can print out the taxi directions in Mandarin, so if your Chinese speaking skills are poor you still can make your way. "That's Shanghai," a local expat magazine, also has a web site with restaurant listings and taxi cards. Shanghai is a fantastic restaurant city; I'm especially fond of Lost Heaven (Yunnan cuisine), South Beauty (Sichuan cuisine), Haiku (California style sushi), and People 6 & 7 (fusion). The bar/club scene, well, that's hard to describe. It can really be over the top. For a quick glimpse, go to youtube and search for "fire drink at bar rouge" ...

Shanghai is an amazing place. Enjoy.

There is no paperwork required to obtain prepaid sims in Shanghai (or Beijing for that matter), though some cities (Tianjin comes to mind) require a passport scan. Buying a SIM on the street is easy as pie. My post upthread about spending 40 mins at China Mobile was in regards to post-paid cards.

As I mentioned in that post, IMO postpaid cards are absolutely worth the wait for people that spend more than 30 days per year in China. You don't need a residence permit or a Z visa to qualify; a passport and a local bank account will get the job done.

For those of you that absolutely have to know your phone number before you touch down (e.g. maybe you want to print business cards), my advice is to ask your hosts to pick up a card for you and email you the number. If that isn't an option, aside from sites like the one pseudocrow mentioned, eBay is an excellent place to shop.

Switching topics here, I'm personally not a fan of Haiku/Hatsune, it spite of its popularity. I like Japanese food quite a bit and there are a number of less famous restaurants in both Shanghai and Beijing that deliver a much better (and fresher) product, albiet without the snazzy interior design and romance factor. In Shanghai, I like the place in the Ruijin office tower and Suntory (at the top of the HSBC building). In Beijing, Yotosuba(sp?) reigns supreme.

Post paid card
 

Moondog

Since your original Aug '06 post re above and the shanghailist link (http://shanghaiist.com/2006/07/31/ask_shanghaiist_6.php), has anything changed or been updated?

I've been using a prepaid for years, and top off every visit but as you noted calls can add up when out of home area (I have Bj number) and of course IDD calls hurt. Thinking of making the switch next visit.

Thanks,

I don't think I've ever posted to that website (but, I could be forgetting something). What I can say is that in some cities (Shanghai and Guangzhou come to mind), you need to pay y10 per month in order to receive the good IDD rates. I don't think this is the case in Beijing because I called and visited China Mobile after the new rates came out and they told me all was good.