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@Kim
I agree that it’s important. One of my key requirements and concerns with taking baby abroad is great insurance. I suppose it’s just a matter of each person evaluating their personal situation and determining whether the cost for good insurance is worth the impact to daily life, vs. the chance of a serious incident or issue cropping up and whether they have enough ’emergency funds’ to cover whatever it may cost. My experience with medical cost in China is that it’s typically very low, and I never cared about insurance here.. which is why insurance wasn’t ever a concern on this side of the world. Australia however, expensive, important. For example, if you’re making $12/hr, $200/mo hurts a lot more than if you’re making $80/hr. 😀
Hey everybody, I’m back with a question.
I’m looking at getting my plane ticket now. August 28 arrival seems to be a good deal, and it’s right next to the turn of the month (so maybe easier to get an apartment around that time?) Anyone have any thoughts on this? Is this too late of an arrival date if I’m set to start school on Sept 9?
It’s plenty of time. Back when I decided to study at Sichuan Uni I arrived a week late and I was still on time.
As long as you have your passport, visa, money and your address in Chinese, everything will work out fine. Don’t worry.
Hey everybody, I’m back with a question.
I’m looking at getting my plane ticket now. August 28 arrival seems to be a good deal, and it’s right next to the turn of the month (so maybe easier to get an apartment around that time?) Anyone have any thoughts on this? Is this too late of an arrival date if I’m set to start school on Sept 9?
Agree with Vincent – plenty of time. When I come from overseas it usually takes 3-5 days to adjust to the time difference.
Alright, so my biggest issue at the moment is figuring out how I’m going to deal with my bank situation. Should I just open up an HSBC account, set up my current job to direct deposit into that, and be able to exchange my USD into RMB while in China at HSBC in Chengdu?
I guess this is more of a question I gotta ask a bank employee, but just wondering if anyone has experience with something like this.
If you use HSBC accounts it will work like this: You can deposit into USD in USA, then you have to do an int’l transfer (free for HSBC Premier, otherwise like 120rmb/int’l transfer, yes, even tho it’s the same bank). You can do this transfer from your phone or computer. When you’re in China you will open up a CNY HSBC account to transfer into. You can do a USD(US account) > CNY(China account) transfer, then withdraw from the Chinese account freely as any other bank account. HSBC China likes to use passports not cards, so you’ll have to sort out a way to get a bank card with them.. I think they’re regarded as one of the more ‘high end’ banks here and aren’t typically used for local withdrawals.
I’d suggest seeing if you have the ability to get a bank of china account where you’re at, if I were you, I’d probably talk with the bank directly to find out whether I could just do direct withdrawals from ATM and what that rate would be vs. doing a conversion *IN CHINA* to CNY after any transfer fees, do the math, and sort out best option based on lowest cost.
FYI You can also just withdraw money from your current American bank card at all major Chinese banks. The max amount in 1 time is mostly 2500RMB though and you’ll end up paying a ~$10 fee every time. Which definitely adds up over a year. The exchange rate isn’t too bad though.
Another pro move is to find someone who earns RMB and would rather save money in USD, so you could do swaps with him/her. I regularly do RMB/USD swaps with someone I know, so I end up with the best exchange rate and no fees.
Hey Vincent (or anyone who can answer), what is the exchange rate like if I do that? If I don’t even switch banks at all, and I want to convert my American dollars into RMB (Cash) at a bank, would I pay the $10 + get whatever the exchange rate is at the time (for example, today it’s 1 USD = 6.21 yuan) or would it be less than 6.21 exchange rate? If it’s less, what’s the ballpark figure on how much less than 6.21?
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