My China World

Tips

China is called Zhong Guo to chinese people which means "Middle Country" or literally "Middle Kingdom" but nobody calls countries kingdoms anymore, not even the chinese.
Chairman Mao is on every single piece of currency in china except those comprised of metal or those that are a non-standard size, like the various jiao notes. These usually feature one of the 56 minorities that China has and presumably are too low of an amount of money for the good Mr Mao.
The CEO of WonderHowTo is a Chinese-American! How meta!
If you're expecting pagodas and

Chinese Food Dangers

Chinese food in China is not like Chinese food in western places and will take some time to get accustomed to it.

Do not try to just go and eat the food all fast expecting deliciousness like you would foreign Chinese food, because you might faint from shock that most of it is rather natural tasting and lacks the artificial spices that we like.

They do however use natural flavors in the form of "vegetables" and "peppers", which are foreign to most western eaters and should be understood before eating.

Step 1 Travel To China

Getting to China is easy and rather inexpensive if you live in a major coastal city. You will however need a visa, something that most Americans are not used to needing to travel pretty much anywhere.

Step 2 Find a Hotel In China

Finding a hotel is easy, the word for hotel is Jiudian. Jiu is the number 9 in chinese and this is an interesting point since most b-rate hotels will advertise their rates in 9's and 8's. For example, 98RMB per night, or 198 RMB per night. That's about 15 and 30 bucks, respectively.

If you're one of those couch surfer types I can tell you right now don't even try this in China. I've known this one dude for like 3 months and i've never been to his house so a chinese person isn't gonna let you and your hemp Dakine backpack in so easily.

If you're going to book a hotel use a site called Agoda or another one called eLong. I'm not gonna link them, you know how to use google. You can get a decent place for pretty cheap but if you want something sexy in the best part of town expect to pay 2nd tier American city rates.

Step 3 Meet Friends In China

I've gotta be honest that for a man to meet local Chinese friends in China it is not very easy. In areas like Beijing and Shanghai this is less true but for the most part in other areas they are curious about you but don't want to be your buddy.