Moving To China

The first step in making your move to China is to get a visa. Welcome to the web of Chinese red tape—and oh, what a web they weave. Unless you are only trying to get a tourist visa, you’ll want to leave plenty of time for obtaining all the documents you’ll need. Two months is a safe bet, though the process can be expedited if necessary. The Chinese embassy typically takes around a week to process the application before it can be returned to you. Keep in mind, however, that most visas are only good for entry within three months of their issue date, so you don’t want to get your visa too far in advance.

Deciding what to take will, of course, depend on how long you will be in China and what sort of a shipping budget you are working with. To get you started in your selection process, there are three broad categories that will help you decide what to pack: availability, an initial supply of necessities, and personal items. For everything else, try to leave it behind. Most expats find their Chinese homes much smaller than their western homes, with very limited storage. Unless you are relocating with a long-term position in a corporation that provides a significant shipping budget, it’s just not worth the cost and effort to bring too much.

Granted, life in China isn’t all rosy. The language poses an especially difficult hurdle, like the time we didn’t understand the salesclerk’s warning about the bad ice cream until our son vomited in the taxi on the way home, or the time we ended up in the city of Ninghai when we had asked for bus tickets to Linhai. Always getting the foreigner’s markup in prices gets old quickly, as does constantly being stared at and talked about.

But in our opinion the rewards far outweigh the hardships, and nothing is as rewarding as the friendships. We’ll never forget playing mahjong with coworkers until the wee hours of the morning. Or surprising and delighting old men at public parks when we ask to join in their xiangqi (Chinese chess) games. Or spending countless hours on the basketball court with Kevin Garnett, Scotty Pippen, and Vince Carter... not the real stars, of course, just the chosen English names of our basketball-crazed students.

It’s from all these experiences that this book came about, and we hope that it will prepare you for what’s in store and paint a vivid picture of what your life in China may look like. So go ahead, and begin your joyful exploration of the Middle Kingdom. We’ll get you started, but most of all, this is your adventure to create. Enjoy it!