Smart, well-traveled people land in Shanghai and immediately start having a bad time. Not because China is hard — it isn't, once you know the rules — but because the setup work happens before you get on the plane, and almost nobody tells you that.
This isn't a listicle of generic advice you could get from any travel blog. This is what I wish someone had sat me down and explained before my first trip. Payment apps, SIM cards, the scams that actually catch people, why your phone might feel useless for the first 24 hours, and what surprises literally every first-timer without fail.
Sort Out Payments Before You Land
This is the single most important section in this entire guide, so let's get it out of the way first.
China runs on WeChat Pay and Alipay. Not credit cards. Not tap-to-pay. Not Apple Pay in any useful sense. If you want to pay for street food, a taxi, a restaurant, a convenience store, anything — you need one of these apps linked to a working payment method.
The problem: setting them up requires phone verification, sometimes bank verification, and occasionally a video selfie process. At the airport, after a long flight, with spotty connectivity and a jetlagged brain, is not when you want to be debugging a payment app that's half in Chinese.
Do it at home. Give yourself a week before departure.
Alipay now has an International Edition that accepts foreign Visa and Mastercard directly. This is the easier path for first-time tourists:
- Download the Alipay app (available on iOS and Android without VPN)
- Sign up with your foreign phone number
- Go through identity verification — you'll need your passport and a selfie
- Link your Visa or Mastercard
- Test it with a small transaction if you have a way to
WeChat Pay requires a verified WeChat account. If you already use WeChat to message anyone in China, adding your card is straightforward — go into the Wallet section in settings and follow the prompts. If you've never had WeChat before, create the account before you leave home. WeChat has a verification step where an existing user sometimes needs to "vouch" for new accounts, and sorting that out is much easier when you're not on airport wifi.
You'll also want some physical cash. Not a lot, but enough. Small restaurants in hutongs, rural guesthouses, the occasional taxi driver — they may not have a QR code. Bring USD or EUR (easier to exchange than most currencies) and swap it at a Bank of China branch, not at airport exchange counters. The Bank of China rate is reasonable. Airport counters take a notable cut.
ATMs work throughout China and accept foreign cards from major networks, but fees add up over a two-week trip. Better to exchange a reasonable amount upfront and top up via Alipay as needed.
Connectivity: Get an eSIM Before You Leave
Your home SIM will probably work in China, but roaming charges are brutal and you'll get no usable data plan. The better move is an eSIM loaded before departure.
Services like Airalo, Ubigi, or China Unicom's international eSIM give you a China data package for a fixed cost — usually $15–30 for 10–15 days of usable data. Buy it, install it, test it at home. When your plane lands, your phone connects automatically. No hunting for a SIM card kiosk in arrivals while pushing a luggage cart.
Now the part most travel guides skip: China has a firewall. Google, Gmail, Google Maps, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and most Western news sites are blocked. Not throttled — actually blocked.
If you depend on any of these tools:
- Install a VPN before you land. ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and Astrill are known to work consistently in China. Once you're inside China, downloading and setting up a VPN is significantly harder — app stores show different results, download speeds are throttled. This is non-negotiable if you need WhatsApp or Gmail to work.
- Chinese networks work fine for everything China-local: WeChat, Didi, Alipay, Amap, streaming Chinese content, booking trains.
One nuance worth knowing: even with a good VPN, speeds can be inconsistent depending on the day and location. Don't plan critical video calls through a VPN during Chinese business hours. Use it for messaging and light browsing; plan for possible slowness on video.
Apps to Install Before You Board
Treat this like a pre-flight checklist. You want all of these downloaded, accounts created, and tested while you still have unrestricted internet access at home.
WeChat — Not optional. It's literally everything: messaging, mobile payments, mini-apps that replace entire websites, hotel check-in at some properties, museum ticket booking, restaurant menus, sometimes boarding passes. Even if you only use it to message your hotel to confirm arrival, you need it.
Alipay — Payment backup and sometimes faster for tourist use than WeChat Pay. Set up both; they have different acceptance patterns at different merchants.
Didi — China's dominant ride-hailing app. Works like Uber: set a pickup point, see the fare upfront, pay cashlessly. The international version has an English interface. Use it instead of flagging taxis in tourist areas where overcharging is common.
Amap (高德地图) — This is the mapping app you actually want for China. Google Maps works in China with a VPN, but Amap has real-time transit data, live traffic, accurate pedestrian routing, and coverage of places that simply don't appear on Google Maps. It has an English language mode. Download it.
Google Maps offline packs — As a backup, download your destination cities offline before you leave home. If your VPN fails and Amap isn't loading for some reason, offline Google Maps will still show you where you are and basic street layouts.
Microsoft Translator with offline Chinese packs — Works without a VPN, unlike Google Translate. Download the offline Chinese language pack while you're on home wifi. The camera translate feature — point your phone at a menu or sign and it translates in real time — works offline and will save you repeatedly.
Navigation: What Actually Works on the Ground
In major cities — Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu — English signage is common. Metro systems have English on all signs and announcements. Restaurant menus in tourist areas often have pictures or English descriptions. You can navigate these cities without speaking a word of Mandarin.
Outside the major hubs, English thins out quickly. A few things that help everywhere:
Save your hotel address in Chinese characters. Get the hotel to send it to you via WeChat, or find it on their website — most have it. When you get in a Didi or show it to a taxi driver, paste or display the Chinese text. Don't try to pronounce addresses; the pronunciation gap is too large to bridge in most cases.
QR codes are navigation tools, not just payments. Restaurants, tourist sites, metro stations, even public toilets sometimes have QR codes you scan to access a WeChat mini-program showing maps, menus, booking options, or transit information. Get comfortable scanning things first and asking questions second.
Subway beats taxi in every major Chinese city. Faster, cheaper, air-conditioned, bilingual signage, and runs on a predictable schedule. Get a transport card (交通卡) at any subway station — it works on buses too, and tapping in and out is faster than buying a ticket every time.
Learn to read floor numbers and prices in Chinese characters: 一二三四五六七八九十 = 1 through 10. Five minutes of practice before departure means you can read price tags, floor numbers, and basic menu numbers without pulling out your phone.
Cultural Norms That Catch People Off Guard
No tipping. You know this intellectually, but it still feels wrong to leave a restaurant without leaving something on the table. Resist. Tipping confuses or mildly embarrasses service staff in China. It's not customary and not expected. Just don't.
Restaurants are loud. Not "lively" loud — genuinely loud. Tables packed close together, people talking at full volume, TV on in the corner, kitchen noise from an open pass. This is completely normal and not considered rude. If you're waiting for a quiet moment to have a conversation, you'll be waiting a while.
Queues require asserting your position. At popular food stalls, ticket counters, and anywhere with a crowd: you need to actively hold your place. Standing back politely and waiting for people to notice you doesn't work the same way it does in Northern Europe. Step forward, make your presence known, hold your spot. This isn't aggression — it's how the system works.
Staring is not hostile. In smaller cities and rural areas especially, foreigners attract genuine curiosity. People may stare openly, ask for photos, or approach you to practice English. In the vast majority of cases this is friendly curiosity, not aggression. Responding with a smile tends to go well.
Don't point with one finger. Use an open hand instead. Pointing a single finger at someone is considered rude in Chinese etiquette.
Scams Worth Knowing
China is genuinely safe by most measures — random street crime is rare, especially violent crime targeting foreigners. But tourist-specific cons are real and operate in predictable patterns.
The tea ceremony scam: A friendly, well-dressed person strikes up conversation near a major tourist site. After chatting for a while, they mention they're heading to a traditional tea ceremony and invite you along. The "ceremony" ends with a bill for hundreds or thousands of RMB that you're expected to split. The tell: strangers at tourist sites who are very keen to take you somewhere specific. Politely decline and move on.
The "English practice" student scam: A friendly young person approaches and says they're a student who wants to practice their English. They suggest a nearby art gallery, restaurant, or teahouse. The establishment turns out to have wildly inflated "foreigner prices" that the student and owner split afterward. Genuine students who want to practice English do exist, but they don't approach strangers outside tourist sites and suggest expensive venues.
Overpriced tourist taxis: Particularly around major tourist sites — Tiananmen Square, the Bund, the Forbidden City area. Before getting in any non-Didi taxi, either confirm the meter is running or agree on a price before you start moving. Better: just use Didi, where the fare is shown upfront.
Tour card hustlers: People standing near major sites holding cards offering tours, photos, or transport for money. The prices are never fair. Ignore and walk past.
Health Basics You Should Know Before You Need Them
Tap water is not safe to drink in China. Bottled water is everywhere — every convenience store, hotel, restaurant. Your hotel room will have a kettle for boiling water; some provide complimentary bottled water. Don't drink from taps, don't use tap water for brushing teeth if you have a sensitive stomach, and stick to bottled or boiled for the first week until you know how your body is adjusting.
Pharmacies (药店) are everywhere in Chinese cities — look for the red cross sign. They're typically well-stocked with over-the-counter medications: pain relievers, antidiarrheal medications, cold medicine, antihistamines. Staff are unlikely to speak English, but pointing at your symptom location on your body and showing a phone translation usually gets the job done.
Emergency numbers: 120 for ambulance, 110 for police. These are reliable.
International hospitals exist in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and other major cities, with English-speaking staff and Western-standard facilities. They're expensive without insurance. If something more serious is going on with your health while you're in China and you need real English-language medical support, see the medical guide — including information on what Chinese hospitals can do for foreigners, what the costs look like, and how to navigate the system without speaking Mandarin.
Border and Arrival: What to Sort Out First
Before you get on the plane:
- Download and save your hotel address in Chinese — screenshot it
- Bring photocopies of your passport (separate from the original — if the passport gets lost, the copy helps)
- Check exactly what visa you need. China has expanded visa-free programs significantly in 2024–2025, but eligibility varies by nationality and trip purpose. Verify your status on the Chinese embassy website for your home country, not a travel blog that might be outdated.
On arrival:
- Fill in the customs declaration form on the plane or at the machine in arrivals. Declare cash over $5,000 USD equivalent.
- If you're staying in a licensed hotel, they handle mandatory foreigner registration with local police automatically. If you're staying somewhere unlicensed (some Airbnbs, private guesthouses), you're technically required to register yourself at the local police station within 24 hours. Most tourists in licensed hotels never encounter this.
What Surprises Almost Every First-Timer
WeChat is literally everything. Not just messaging — restaurant ordering via QR code menus, hotel check-in, museum tickets, transport cards, payments, sometimes boarding passes. Within three days, you'll understand why Chinese people can't imagine life without it.
QR codes replaced menus at many restaurants. You sit down, scan a QR code on the table, and a WeChat mini-app opens where you order and pay. No physical menu, no flagging down a server to take your order. The first time it happens it's slightly confusing; by the third time it feels efficient.
Major Chinese cities are safer than most Western equivalents for street crime. Violent crime against foreign tourists is genuinely rare. You can walk around late at night in Shanghai or Beijing with far less anxiety than you'd have in equivalent-sized Western cities.
The high-speed rail is excellent. Trains are almost always on time, the carriages are clean and quiet, and the network covers the whole country. It's legitimately one of the best train systems in the world. If you're moving between cities, train is often better than flying once you factor in airport overhead.
People are much more helpful than you expect, even with no shared language. Point at something on your phone, show a map, and the vast majority of people will either try to help or find someone who can. The language barrier is real but it doesn't mean people are unhelpful.
Get the Full Setup Checklist
For the complete pre-trip setup — exactly which apps to install and in what order, the payment setup sequence, which eSIM to buy, and what to do in your first week — grab the Survival Kit. It covers the logistics that most travel guides miss.
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