THE ROUGH GUIDE to - Parallels Plesk Panel

left-luggage office in the foreigners’ waiting
room, signposted at the back of the
station, with lockers for ¥20 (daily 5am–
midnight). The left-luggage office at Xi Zhan
is downstairs on the left as you enter (daily
5am–midnight; ¥15/day). There are 24hr
left-luggage offices at each terminal at
Pudong; follow the signs. Price depends
on size, but all but the biggest suitcase will
cost a reasonable ¥20 per day.
Libraries
The Beijing National Library, 39 Baishiqiao
Lu (Mon–Fri 8am–5pm; T010/68415566),
just north of Zizhuyuan Park, is one of the
largest in the world, with more than ten million
volumes, including ancient manuscripts and
a Qing-dynasty encyclopedia; the very oldest
of its texts are Shang-dynasty inscriptions
on bone. To take books out, you need to
be resident in the city, but you can turn up
and get a day pass that lets you browse
(apply in the office on the south side; ¥5). The
Capital Library, 88 Dongsanhuan Nan Lu
(T010/67358114) is smaller, but will let
foreign visitors borrow books, though you
have to pay a deposit of ¥250. They hold
some foreign magazines and newspapers.
The library of the British Embassy, on the
fourth floor of the Landmark Building,
8 Dongsanhuan Bei Lu (Mon–Fri 9am–5pm;
Wwww.britishcouncil.org.cn), has a wide
selection of books and magazines and is
open to all.
Living in Beijing
Foreigners are allowed to reside anywhere in
the city, though most live in expat housing,
often in Chaoyang in the east of the city.
Rent in these districts is expensive, usually
at least £1000/US$1500/¥1000 a month,
which gets you a rough imitation of a
Western apartment. Living in ordinary
neighbourhoods is much cheaper: a
furnished two-bedroom apartment can cost
around £250/US$300/¥2500 a month.
The easiest way to find an apartment is
through a real estate agent, who will usually
take a month’s rent as a fee. There are plenty
of agents, and many advertise in the expat
magazines – an example is Wo Ai Wo Jia
(44 Chengfu Lu; T010/62557602, Wwww
.5i5j.com). Homestays can be cheap, but
you won’t get much privacy; check Wwww
.chinahomestay.org. For anywhere, as soon
as you move in, you and the landlord should
register with the local PSB office.
Anyone intending to live in Beijing should
get hold of the fat Insider’s Guide to
Beijing published by Middle Kingdom Press,
which includes information on finding
housing and doing business. It’s available in
the Friendship Store.
Working in Beijing
There are plenty of jobs available for
foreigners in mainland China, with a whole
section of expat society surviving as actors,
cocktail barmen, models and so on. Many
foreign workers are employed as Englishlanguage
teachers – most universities and
many private colleges now have a few
foreign teachers.
There are schemes to place foreign
teachers in Chinese educational institutions
– contact your nearest Chinese embassy
(see p.35) for details, or check the list of
organizations given below. Teaching at a
university, you’ll earn about ¥3000 a month,
more than your Chinese counterparts do,
though your workload of between ten and
twenty hours a week is correspondingly a lot
heavier. The pay isn’t enough to allow you to
put much aside, but is bolstered by
on-campus accommodation. Contracts are
generally for one year. Most teachers find
their students keen, hard-working, curious
and obedient, and report that it was the
contact with them that made the experience
worthwhile. That said, avoid talking about
religion or politics in the classroom, as this
could get you into trouble.
You’ll earn more – up to ¥150 per hour – in
a private school, though be aware of the
risk of being ripped off (you might be given
more classes to teach than you’d signed up
for, for example).
Studying in Beijing
There are plenty of opportunities to study
in Beijing but note that most courses are in
Chinese (for details of courses on the
Chinese language itself, see below). Beijing
Daxue (usually referred to as Beida, see
p.97; Wwww.pku.edu.cn) and Tsinghua
BASICS |
Travel essentials
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