Conquering the Great (Fire)Wall of China
Visa
(only for Unleash participants mainly if you’re applying from the US,
may apply to others with invitation letter eg. conference)
Info based on these sources: Guidelines, FAQs, Contact us
Random tips in random order:
> What: For conference/ events with invitation letter it will be ‘F visa’ with a ‘major purpose of visit’ (needs to be filled in the form\section 2.1) as ‘Non-business visit’.
> Where: There are no appointments for China Visa, show up directly at the embassy/consulate near you. If living far from one like me, use a third-party service to save spending on the flights. Find the locations here.
> Essential things to carry: Invitation letter, passport, flight ticket, Immigration documents if like me, Filled Visa application form.
> Cost and Payment: See the images attached below. Charges are based on your citizenship, eg. India is considered a “third country” here and charged differently than the US.
> Where: There are no appointments for China Visa, show up directly at the embassy/consulate near you. If living far from one like me, use a third-party service to save spending on the flights. Find the locations here.
> Essential things to carry: Invitation letter, passport, flight ticket, Immigration documents if like me, Filled Visa application form.
> Cost and Payment: See the images attached below. Charges are based on your citizenship, eg. India is considered a “third country” here and charged differently than the US.
There are instances of cards not working, as posted on the google reviews, so do aim for money order of the exact amount. Also, you have to pay when you collect the Visa and not the first time. Didn’t work for me, but you can call the consulate in advance to make sure of such quirks.
> On the day: you visit the embassy. Check how crowded it gets beforehand and go as early as you can. The lines can get crazy. For example the Consulate in SF opens at 9 am but the people start arriving at 6.30! I was there at 7 am and still some 10 people ahead of me, and many try to jump the line. At SF you can ask for a number to the security and wait at a cafe instead of in the cold.
> The visa webpages are tricky since many are in Chinese. This google translate extension in chrome helps me in such times.
HK-Shenzhen travel
Bus/ ferry is a better option if you’re going to SZ directly from the HK airport. My guess is Unleash’s bus would be from the airport only since they said HKG in the last email. So if you’re are already in HK, taking the airport express back to HKG just for the bus would be inconvenient and cost as well.
Train (HSR)
Time 1 way: 15–20 mins
Fare: $10–20 depending on the class
Station in HK: West Kowloon Station (西九龍站) (note: Kowloon and West Kowloon are 2 different, close to each other)
Station in SZ: Shenzhen North Station(深圳北站) / Futian Station (福田)
Ferry
Time 1 way: 60 mins
Fare: $16–20 depending on the class
Station in HK: Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal(港澳碼頭), HK island.
Station in SZ: Shekou port, Shenzhen(深圳蛇口)
$36–40 if ferry taken from HKG (airport)
Reference.
Booking (maybe this, not sure if this is the official site)
HK transit and protest fears
If you’re planning to visit Hong Kong while in China, do first check the list of visa-exempt countries. HK allows a number of countries to visit and even stay for a short stay (for eg. India 14 days) without any Visa. In some cases, such as India, one has to fill an online form (pre-arrival registration) and carry a print of that while visiting, airport immigration will make sure we have that before allowing entries.
A lot of talk about HK being unsafe. Sure there are protests and hotspots, roads and trains will be blocked/canceled, but so far protestors are accommodative and welcoming, especially of the protestors. This article from CNN describes the status well. So my suggestions would be to extra careful but to avoid irrational fears. The flight cancellation is a possibility though, no doubt.
HOW TO GOOGLE?
Wrong question! All google services banned here. (check if your fav site is banned here)
Let’s start by getting the internet to your smartphone first. DO NOT waste money on getting an international plan from your home country to be safe (more expensive and not reliable). Chinese airports have good prepaid sim cards. Sometimes right at the baggage claim, and sometimes after that, keep an eye for China mobile/ China Unicom. One plan if I remember correctly is 60 CNY 10 GB of data might be ideal. If you’re tight on money, go to the store in the town to get more options.
WHAT ABOUT GMAIL? ( VPN tips)
Okay if you have to get past that Great (fire)wall of China to access Google, Gmail and all banned stuff, you need a VPN running on your device (both mobile and laptops). There are many free services which might work for most needs (eg. TurboVPN) but I decided to pay for one since I know how frustrating it can be for me if I can’t access something. And frankly, most people with me shifted to a paid app after a day in China, because right now the firewall has been extra defensive. I use expressVPN ($13/month) and you probably can get a month free by using this referral link (click here for official page, if clicking on my link gives you jitters :D).
Extra instructions: So any time you want to access something banned in China, your VPN app needs to be running. But VPNs do take extra battery power though. So trick can be to start the VPN, start the banned app/ site, stop the VPN and keep using the banned app until it gets blocked again.
PS: Your school/ company may provide VPN, ask them. Like mine already had Pulse secure, it works sometimes, but too slow.
All of this might be irrelevant, I’m guessing Unleash might just install a VPN enabled wifi at the locations to give us access. Some hotels in China do that. So maybe just wait on buying a subscription until the very last week.
Some frustrating stories like the following, so better go with a backup plan!
HOW TO CALL SOMEONE?
Once you have the prepaid sim, can call in China. But most probably you will want to do an internet call/ call on some social media platform. For that and many things, WECHAT the super app is one thing you need to have/ know. By super-app I mean it has the functionality of calling, messaging, facebook, Instagram, apple pay etc… It’s a go-to app for many mini-apps as well (like ordering food on Meituan 美团网). Another super-useful feature is paying by wechat wallet/pay. More on that later. If you happen to have your home country sim card ON as well, do check with the service provider about charges. For eg. my carrier had extra charges on specific wifi calling .
HOW TO PAY?
Most people in China use wechat pay or some other similar mobile wallets. So the best way to pay is to use those. But at least for getting the prepaid sim card at the airport or some initial transactions keep the cash. Your bank in the home country can be the easiest way to get Chinese currency (known as RMB and CNY, the same thing btw) but they do charge charges around 10% and take 1–2 days to get your forex in the local bank (Chase in America). You can save a little by crediting CNY on a forex card (travel card/ multi-currency card) and then use ATM in China to get all that money in cash. But I haven’t tried that so don’t know pro-cons exactly.
Coming back to Wechat pay/ Ali pay, you simply can’t use do this from outside China, I tried all tricks (including using a VPN to teleport to HK and install a different version of wechat but nothing worked (for me)). You have to be in China, with a Chinese phone number and then only you can add your credit (maybe debit too) card in the wechat wallet. Can quickly test if it’s working by sending some friends a small amount. Sometimes I’ve heard one need to add few wechat friends to access the wallet, but I had already a couple of added in there.
WHERE’S MY UBER? (online taxi)
Best way to travel from the Airport, like many metro cities it to get the Airport line (metro). Will check what’s the scene in Shenzhen, but they should take cash as well as a mobile wallet. Can get the metro card loaded as well if you want to travel multiple times.
Coming to Taxi, China’s equivalent of Uber is DiDi (stands for beep beep). Many had a problem communicating with the drivers since they didn’t know much English. But being the environment-friendly that we all are supposed to be, let’s use public transport.
MAPS
3 options: Baidu maps (best app, but all in Chinese), Google maps (in English but needs VPN, and internet), Maps.me (free, in English, offline!) But be sure to download the Shenzhen area before leaving for China.
LANGUAGE
English is not ubiquitous. Google translate works (google pulled some stunts to pull this off 2 years ago) but again can’t be trusted that it will remain open. On VPN can be accessed for sure, but if don’t have VPN then try downloading the language package before flying and access the app offline. Also, android users, don’t forget to download all apps before leaving because the play.store won’t work, unlike the apple store.
