Living in China: practical notes
🇫🇷 Ce guide existe en français
A large part of this site's readership has always been the African and wider international community living in Chinese cities — students, traders, teachers, engineers. These are the topics readers asked about most, condensed into the version you'd want on day one.
Papers: the machinery of staying
- Registration within 24 hours — every address change (including hotel stays, which register you automatically) must be registered with the local police station. Landlords sometimes drag their feet because registration exposes the rental; insist — it's the document every later permit application asks for.
- Notarization & authentication — degrees and police-clearance certificates need notarization (公证处, gongzhengchu) and, since China joined the Hague Apostille Convention in 2023, an apostille has replaced the old double-legalization chain for member countries — dramatically simpler than it used to be. Big-city notary offices handle foreign documents routinely; provincial ones may need a translation agency first.
- Work status — working on a student or business visa is the risk not worth taking; enforcement is real and bans follow. The legitimate path (work permit + Z visa + residence permit) runs through your employer and the notarized documents above — which is why assembling them before you need them matters.
Choosing a city
- Guangzhou — the historic hub of the African trading community (Xiaobei/Sanyuanli), unmatched for sourcing and community infrastructure, but pricier and stricter than it was.
- Yiwu — the small-commodities capital; a huge international trader community with mosques, restaurants and freight forwarders on every corner.
- Second-tier cities (Chengdu, Hefei, Suzhou, Wuxi, Kunming, Xi'an) — half the rent of Shanghai, easier police registration in practice, growing international student populations, and universities that anchor halal canteens and international groceries. For students especially, these cities are the quiet good deal.
- Beijing/Shanghai — the most English-friendly bureaucracy and the most expensive everything. Best for corporate postings; hardest for informal work.
| City | Rent vs. Shanghai | Known for | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guangzhou | ~70% | African trading hub, Canton Fair | Traders, sourcing |
| Yiwu | ~40% | Small-commodities market | Wholesale buyers |
| Chengdu | ~40% | Laid-back pace, big student scene | Students, remote workers |
| Hefei | ~35% | Universities, manufacturing belt | Scholarship students |
| Suzhou / Wuxi | ~50% | Industrial parks near Shanghai | Engineers, factory roles |
| Kunming | ~35% | Mild climate, SE-Asia gateway | Long stays on a budget |
| Beijing / Shanghai | 100%+ | Corporate HQs, embassies | Corporate postings |
Money
- Alipay and WeChat Pay accept foreign cards — both now onboard international Visa/Mastercard holders; daily life without them ranges from awkward to impossible. Set both up in week one.
- A Chinese bank account still needs a residence permit at most branches, plus patience; bring your passport, registration slip, and a local phone number.
- Sending money home — the legal channels (bank remittance with income documentation, or licensed services) beat informal networks that periodically collapse and take deposits with them.
- Cash — a few hundred yuan still helps at small vendors outside tier-1 cities, though even market stalls prefer QR codes.
Food, faith and community
- African, Middle Eastern and Indian restaurants cluster near universities and old embassy/trading districts — in most big cities the university quarter is the reliable starting point.
- University Muslim canteens are the dependable halal option anywhere in the country, including cities with no other visible halal infrastructure; Lanzhou-beef-noodle shops (clearly marked 清真, qingzhen) are the halal fallback on any street.
- Churches, mosques and community associations operate openly in the big cities; student unions and country associations at universities are the fastest route into a community that already knows every answer in this guide.
Everyday survival notes
- Apps — WeChat is society's operating system; Didi for taxis, Meituan or Ele.me for delivery, Amap/Baidu Maps for navigation (Google services need a workaround and can't be relied on), and a translation app with camera mode for menus and contracts.
- Health — big-city public hospitals have international clinics with English-speaking staff at reasonable cash prices; carry insurance anyway, because the serious-illness gap between public pricing and international-hospital pricing is enormous.
- Contracts — rental and employment contracts are enforceable and the Chinese-language version controls. Photograph everything, translate before signing, and never hand a passport over as a "deposit."
Students: pair this with the study-in-China guide for the visa-to-residence-permit sequence. Traders: the sourcing guide covers the freight side of the Guangzhou/Yiwu life.