China

[Straef]

So I'm off to China for halfa year in september (woo-fucking-hoo, I probably won't be able to remember the FH url by the time I get back, so you'll be rid of me), and I've been looking up info about etiquette and general information and prices and what not.

Now, I was wondering whether any of you lot had any experience in China, as you might be able to tell me something new or at least give me something to read when bored shitless at work. My main concern, if I should call it that, are the prices in China (or Shanghai, to be more precise), as I won't be able to work once I get to China, so it'd be good to have somewhat of an estimate as to what I'd be spending when going out for some drinks or whatever, so I don't go there expecting to pay 10 cents for a drink and paying twenty times as much, or whatever.

Anyway, any random information would be appreciated, be it about the climate, prices for drinks/food/clothing, or whatever. And don't stop yourself from throwing in the ocasional 'Woo, good fucking riddance' or such comments :d

Oh, and I'll probably keep up some blog or some such once I get there, if anyone's interested. Might be nice if you're planning on a trip there yourself, or whatever.

[Ucallme]

Chinese girls are fit

Well for me anything with a skirt <drools>

Amphrax/Arauddry

[necromania]

I got a few IRL China Friends. i COULD Ask them for General info/advice.. but as its you?.......hmm....not really..

GL in china, i bet most people there will love u, as they Wont
understand a word of all the shit that comes out of your mouth.


/Freggy

[Straef]

Originally Posted by necromania

I got a few IRL China Friends. i COULD Ask them for General info/advice.. but as its you?.......hmm....not really..

GL in china, i bet most people there will love u, as they Wont
understand a word of all the shit that comes out of your mouth.


/Freggy

Thanks for the feedback, but I can't picture your friend's information to be all that useful, as they've got to be pretty daft to be hanging out with you.

Anyway, I've had pretty much every question that came up so far answered by friends/acquaintances, but I'm still unsure about how much I'd spend on a night out. So, basicly, I'd like to know how much you'd pay for a coke/beer/spirit in a pub/club. And I realise prices will vary depending on whether I go to some local pub in some alley, or to some major club, so either would be good to know, as I plan on going to all kinds of places. It'd be nice to have an idea of the price range, or even a minimum/maximum of what I might end up spending for a drink in some fancy place, as I've got no idea at the moment, and I can't be arsed spending twenty times the regular price on a drink just for being a foreigner, nor do I plan on going broke in my first month there. And it'll be hard not to go broke if drinks end up being ten times the price I expect them to be, as my budget is tight enough as it is

And I'd love to read about your personal experiences in China, be they from Beijing or Shanghai or wherever. And a nice reminder; if not for me, they might be useful to someone else, as I'm sure I won't be the only one flying over to China in the near future. So don't let your disliking me stop you from entertaining/informing other readers. Just be sure to include a good, subtle 'I couldn't give two shits less if Straef died in a planecrash' sidenote, or some such.

[Megarevs]

ive just been to Beijing, i think we paid £2 per person for dinner with lots of beer. If you order any thing in a restaurant you allways get lots of food.

£1 ~ 33 Yuan iirc

[Straef]

Originally Posted by Megarevs

ive just been to Beijing, i think we paid £2 per person for dinner with lots of beer. If you order any thing in a restaurant you allways get lots of food.

£1 ~ 33 Yuan iirc

Hah, those costs sound lovely, though I'm not sure about the currency. I think it was about 10 yuan per euro, so that'd be a bit over 30 yuan for those two pounds. Even I'll manage to survive with such prices
So that was two pounds for the food and the drinks altogether? Sounds really cheap

[kerosene]

Typical night out for me in Kaiping (near Guangzhou)

6pm - phone goes. Just making sure I'm going to be around if anything kicks off
7pm - phone goes. It'll be my only foreign friend saying we're off out tonight
8pm - I'll get something to eat
9pm - We'll go mess around for a while shopping, playing pool, whatever
10:30pm - We'll start hitting the local bar. Order maybe 6 bottles of beer. We'll start drinking them between us and invariably the barmaids and a few randoms will come along too to play dice and drink our beer that we paid for. The randoms will play 'Get the foreigners drunk!', fail miserably and just end up buying more beer. Free beer for us. Woo!
12am - We'll move on to the next bar. Repeat.
1am - We'll head to the nightclub. Women will be shitfaced and very approachable. Most people will be dancing, very few sat down drinking so make sure you're up for dancing and you'll pull.
2:30am - We'll ditch whatever hanger-ons we've picked up, exchange phone numbers with the nice girls and go grab some late dinner.
3:30am - We'll finish late dinner and I'll go home. Generally my friend will go get a prostitute. Get used to that btw. It's a very common activity for a lot of the people you'll meet. Just politely refuse and go home.

That's a 3-times-a-week occurance for me. Costs are generally...

10-30RMB - Early dinner. Usually something hefty. I generally order chow feng which is a guangdong dish. I might go for some curried meat with rice. Never drink beer at the meal. Too expensive. Accept the water and be prepared to pay a 2-5RMB service charge if you use the tissues that are provided in packets. One person pays for everything. You don't go dutch. If someone pays say 'I'll pay next time'. Make sure you insist next time and actually pay. It's quite a struggle to pay the Man before your friend.

6RMB - 1 large bottle of canoe-sex (fucking close to water) beer. Chinese people get hammered on it quite quickly. You'll want to make sure you buy the stronger stuff tbh or you'll just be peeing all the time and not getting merry. You buy rounds much like the UK. A round is generally 3 bottles at a time so 18-25RMB. Expect to pay upwards of 50RMB in a nightclub. The host (the person who invited you out) pays for the first round.

I hope this helps.

[Straef]

Originally Posted by kerosene

Typical night out for me in Kaiping (near Guangzhou)

6pm - phone goes. Just making sure I'm going to be around if anything kicks off
7pm - phone goes. It'll be my only foreign friend saying we're off out tonight
8pm - I'll get something to eat
9pm - We'll go mess around for a while shopping, playing pool, whatever
10:30pm - We'll start hitting the local bar. Order maybe 6 bottles of beer. We'll start drinking them between us and invariably the barmaids and a few randoms will come along too to play dice and drink our beer that we paid for. The randoms will play 'Get the foreigners drunk!', fail miserably and just end up buying more beer. Free beer for us. Woo!
12am - We'll move on to the next bar. Repeat.
1am - We'll head to the nightclub. Women will be shitfaced and very approachable. Most people will be dancing, very few sat down drinking so make sure you're up for dancing and you'll pull.
2:30am - We'll ditch whatever hanger-ons we've picked up, exchange phone numbers with the nice girls and go grab some late dinner.
3:30am - We'll finish late dinner and I'll go home. Generally my friend will go get a prostitute. Get used to that btw. It's a very common activity for a lot of the people you'll meet. Just politely refuse and go home.

That's a 3-times-a-week occurance for me. Costs are generally...

10-30RMB - Early dinner. Usually something hefty. I generally order chow feng which is a guangdong dish. I might go for some curried meat with rice. Never drink beer at the meal. Too expensive. Accept the water and be prepared to pay a 2-5RMB service charge if you use the tissues that are provided in packets. One person pays for everything. You don't go dutch. If someone pays say 'I'll pay next time'. Make sure you insist next time and actually pay. It's quite a struggle to pay the Man before your friend.

6RMB - 1 large bottle of canoe-sex (fucking close to water) beer. Chinese people get hammered on it quite quickly. You'll want to make sure you buy the stronger stuff tbh or you'll just be peeing all the time and not getting merry. You buy rounds much like the UK. A round is generally 3 bottles at a time so 18-25RMB. Expect to pay upwards of 50RMB in a nightclub. The host (the person who invited you out) pays for the first round.

I hope this helps.

Cheers, it does help. The weak beer doesn't sound too tempting, so I guess I'll be going for the spirits or some such. Surely they've got some local spirits, which shouldn't be too expensive, then? And yeah, I went out drinking with a mix of Asian students before, and they got tipsy a hell of a lot faster than I did, which actually annoyed me as it's boring to be sober sat in the middle of a bunch of drunk people

Nice to have the bit of etiquette in your post, too, though it's fairly straightforward, I suppose. The only thing that doesn't sound all too tempting is the whole prostitute thing, as I can imagine having a hard time telling the difference between a girl who's after the money and one who's there to have a good time, all the more so when drunk :|

And you got me wondering about the pool tables. I love to play a game of pool when out, and even though pool tables aren't all too common in Dutch bars, there's the ocasional pool hall and such, so you can always find a place to have a game that isn't too remote. What are your experiences with games of pool, and finding a place to play? Are pool tables common in pubs, and are local random people up for joining in on a game, judging your experiences?

[Nate]

Originally Posted by Ucallme

Chinese girls are fit

Well for me anything with a skirt <drools>

Amphrax/Arauddry

You'll like Scottish blokes then too!

[Stallion]

having been to shanghai twice in the past 12 years, and spent more then 2 months in china overall.. something I found useful to find good prices is not to take on the first best store / bar / restaurant. Most people dont walk further then the main shopping / bar / restaurant streets. Basicly you can live very cheep or very expensive, the cheep way is to find out where the chinese eat, shop and drink! Although prices have more then trippled in shanghai between my two visits (10 years of distance in time), the best way to find for instance breakfast is to walk to some sidestreet where locals live and buy abit of local food for a few Yen. You can get around very cheepely but you have to want to explore abit outside of the tourist traps. Prices and location go hand in hand, a top located store @ main shopping street of shanghai will cost alot more then the hidden substreet 100 meters away.

And do not be afraid to ask the chinese for tips, eventhough many will only return a smile, almost all of the best stuff aint availible directly, but must be found.. for instance, wanna go see the jade buddah? well dont take the tourist bus, take the local bus! that will for instance cut your travel cost upto 10 times if not more. Tourists pay! Locals dont, live like the locals and your budget might even hold out for another half year!

[Andrilyn]

Try and stay away from ze birds!

[Nate]

Just found this article, do be careful with what you eat.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Losing the taste for China's delicacies

[CorNokZ]

Originally Posted by Nate

You'll like Scottish blokes then too!

He's fit.. You gotta give him that! And the rusty saw and the cheeky smile just makes my pants sit tighter

[Straef]

Originally Posted by Nate

Just found this article, do be careful with what you eat.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Losing the taste for China's delicacies

Heh, I can't say I'm looking forward to finding out that what I'd just finished eating were donkey balls or wasps or whatever, but at least that's just disgusting rather than dangerous. The pollution bit in that article worries me, as I can't be arsed with cancer-causing chemicals and whatever other stuff he mentioned when trying to have a healthy meal over there :x

But although the former head of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration has been executed for taking bribes, many local officials still disregard rules on environmental protection, and Beijing itself is said to have tried to cover up a World Bank report revealing that more than 700,000 people die every year in China because of air and water pollution.

And that doesn't sound any healthier than the food part

[Megarevs]

Just buy bottled water or boil it, even though its a big factor in pollution (bottled water)

and as Staj said, go down the side streets thats where you get the best food.
If you want i can send you a chineese menu converted into english (if i can find it), as most places they dont speak english or have english menus.