First 3 Things About Chengdu ;)

[Pardhu]

Hello everyone!

I am coming to ChengDu in a weeks time and its my first visit. So, i’m quite excited to be there.

I would like to ask if you can post the first 3 things that comes to your mind, about things I should be worried about or something I should probably should not forget to bring there. ANYTHING you can suggest will be of great help.

Hope it will not be another boring task 😛 and I hope to catch u all soon!

Pardhu

[Brendan]

Hey Pardhu,

How long are you planning to be here for, and what will you be doing?

Check this article out first of all: Six Tips…

A couple of things spring to mind for me from when I first arrived, the first one being any essential or preferred toiletries you currently use. I was in the habit of using only natural based products back home, and regret not having brought more with me. Aside from obviously not being able to read Chinese labels, there are very limited natural products here, or paraben free choices.

Another would be any medications that are at least ‘likely’ to be necessary for you personally. That might include something as simple as Aspirin, or Ibuprofen if you use them.

Consider a decent power adapter, and you’re probably good to go!

Good Luck getting settled in.

[Pardhu]

Hey Brendan,

I will be there for an year at least! I am an Architect, and I am coming to work with an Architecture studio there.

I just went through the article and I think I managed to cover most of them! Its a very good one…thank you for the suggestions!

P

[Vincent]

1) Taxi drivers cannot speak English so make sure you can pronounce the street name in Chinese or have it printed somewhere in Hanzi for when you get out of the airport. Take a taxi from the line outside.

2) Go to the local police station as soon as possible to get your accomodation registration form for aliens. I believe you’re supposed to do this officially within 24 hours, but I’ve waited up to more than a month and they didn’t say anything about it. Just do it as soon as you can to avoid troubles anyway.

3) If you are planning on using 3G mobile internet on your foreign phone, make sure to sign up with China Unicom (and not China Mobile)

[Rick in China]

@Brendan

RE: “I was in the habit of using only natural based products back home, and regret not having brought more with me.”

This reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld ala “Today’s Sponge” with Elaine, where she evaluates whether potential partners are “sponge-worthy” — I can imagine you now, considering when guests are coming over, whether you want to swap out your limited and dwindling supply of natural toilet tissues with common Chinese paper to as to not waste it 😀

[Chris Ziich]

Have to 2nd Vincent’s #3. If you’re bringing a smart phone, and I would recommend it for maps and learning chinese apps, make sure that it will work on Chinese mobile networks. For Unicom your phone should run on the UMTS 2100Mhz band for 3g.

[Charlie]

Off the top of my head…

1 – Learn Chinese as quickly as you can. This might not be something that you will have to do since your company might be setting up a lot of things for you, but it will benefit every part of your life in China. You can probably get your company to set you up with Chinese classes, or you can study in your free time. Or just date someone who doesn’t speak English. This might help: Four Tips to Master Basic Chinese

2 – Get a bicycle. It’s a great way to get around and to experience the city. Chengdu has bike lanes almost everywhere in the city. This will help: How to prevent your bike from being stolen

3 – Learn the characters on a restaurant menu. This will 1) help you figure out what you like and 2) keep you from eating the same dishes over and over.

Good luck!

[Steeevyo]

A fellow architect. Good luck in Chengdu.

-I take pictures or screenshots of all relevant adresses written in mandarin and store them in a special folder on my smartphone so i can show the taxi driver.

-I have “Pleco” installed on my smart phone. Good mandarin translator.

-Learning the language is highly recommended. I never got to it in three years apart from basic conversation skills, and looking back that’s a shame really. Even if you think youre here only for short term, take classes anyway. 80% chance is that you will stay longer.

[Brendan]

An all round good call on the smart phone, knowing that China Unicom support foreign 3G phones would have helped me out massively on arrival, opening up some of the apps and features on my phone. As mentioned above there are numerous apps that will make so many tasks that much simpler. Since being on China Unicom recently I’ve been able to take advantage of GPS functions, which are nothing short of awesome when you have a taxi driver trying to rip you off on a longer journey! Between Google Maps & Translator I can get just about anything done anywhere. Bookmarking locations in Google Maps is super handy too.

[Pardhu]

Thanks a lot guys…ill Keep everything in mind! China Unicom..check 😉

Hi Steeveyo, good to see an Architect here! “80% chances that ill stay longer”! I really hope so!

Could you give me an idea about the work environment and seriousness inside an architects studio? It would be really helpful.

Thanks again.

[Steeevyo]

Hey just drop me a PM. I just moved to Chengdu for my London employer and before i was working in Beijing for three years. There were hundreds of foreign architects in Beijing, here it’s bit more scarce. But thats good, more work for us.

[Pardhu]

Thanks a lot guys! I came here about a week ago and everything you said has been helpful 😉

[Author]

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