Moneysaving during study year in China?

Legacy_user

I'm looking for moneysaving tips for my daughter who will be spending a year studying in Beijing for her language degree. She goes out in August 2006. Because of our income she will only be getting the minimum loan and we have always paid her tuition fees which I understand will be reduced when she is in China. We will probably have to pay her flight costs for her and aren't sure if it will be more expensive for an open ended return ticket than a normal return.

pavlovs_dog

personally i wouldnt have a clue where to begin!

i would probably check out tourist guides for the region to pick up basic moneysaving hints, and get her to befriend chinese students at her uni, to ask for advice.

perhaps she could even join a chinese web forum? im assuming she must speak the language, and im sure you must be able to get computer software to help with the typing in chinese

and if she is going as part of her course then no doubt her tutors should be a mine of info

ianfao

Hi, I can try and help. A friend of mine spent a year in Tianjin as part of her Chinese degree so if you have any questions I can always try and ask her to answer them.

On the flights side, I would suggest you buy a ticket from STA Travel. You can get a 12 month ticket that will be easier to change and they are totally understanding of students needs as opposed to you regular travel agency.

I have been to Beijing a few times though not as a student. Things are cheap in Beijing, but comapred to the rest of China prices are slightly higher. Especially for things like rent. I know that was a big factor with my friend when she had to choose between studying in Beijing and Tianjin.

Feel free to ask any questions and I wll try and get answers from my friend.

jr666

I would advise you to contact your local LEA, they already pay most of your tuition fees and its little known that the LEA can help with traveling costs for exchange students. I'm going abroad next year to australia on exchange and fingers crossed they will be able to help me out with travel costs! Contact them and see what they can do for you.

regarding Visa's and such things, they should all be quite straight forward if the uni has a well set up program and they should be able to sort this all out for you.

Contact your international office at your uni and talk to them; they will probably have loads of books and info on studying abroad.

good luck

megsykins

My little sister is currently in China (doing TEFL on gap year) and from what she says it's dirt cheap! She spent a few days in Beijing when she first got there, and said it's more expensive than the rest of the country but still cheap compared to here. She seems to have been living off rice, but that's more cos where she is there's not much else! (for someone who doesn't like spicy food anyway - she's in Sichuan) Internal flights and hostels in towns are cheap at weekends so if your daughter wants, she can travel around a lot, she can. CDs and DVDs (usually bootleg) are dirt cheap so anything she wants, get it there, my sis just got Series 1 - 6 of Sex and the City for £8!! Discs are almost always multi-region. Clothes, etc are cheap but it's difficult to find them in 'Western' sizes unless your daughter is quite petite.

I believe English is very well spoken in Beijing (compared to the rest of China) but there's always people wanting to learn, maybe your daughter could do some tutoring for a bit of pocket money?

Make sure you use access numbers to ring her - cheapestcalls.co.uk and telediscount.co.uk charge 1p per min at all times of day to Chinese landlines and mobiles!! And the line quality seems to be clearer than from before we discovered them too! She should be able to pick up a Chinese mobile for very little if she doesn't have a landline; if she wants to ring you, she can get an IP card which enables cheap calls and then you can just ring her back.

If the year our is being co-ordinated by the university, then I presume that they will provide guidance on spending levels, etc, I know my uni did for students going abroad.

The Chinese people are apparently lovely - she's in a small town where they've never seen Westerners and keep taking photos of her! (probably not the case in Beijing though!) They're very friendly and she's been invited to many of their homes for meals. If your daughter might have a chance to go to a Chinese family's home, she definitely should, and maybe take some small Western trinkets out to give to any new Chinese friends - my sisters friends love mousemats, pens and keyrings, etc with English words on (they don't know it's advertising for our local curry house / freebies from freshers fair!)

I've babbled on for ages, but hope she has lots of fun! Websites like lonelyplanet.com (who have a great forum) will provide lots and lots of help from people already out there and most universities will give your daughter the chance to chat to returning students and / or Chinese reverse-exchange students before she goes.

She'll have a great time, my sister has loved every minute of it!! Tell her I'm jealous!!

megsykins

Oh yeah, and to add that a RTW ticket might not cost much more that return flights and gives the option of further travel. They're very flexible with moving dates / changing plans. Try STA Travel for a starting point. My sis paid around £1000 for a ticket which includes Beijing, Hong Kong, Oz, New Zealand, Fiji, California and New York!
Jealous! Jealous! Jealous!!!

System

Thanks for all your tips. Newcastle Uni have given her quite a comprehensive guide on her year out but it does help to hear from others who have some experience even indirectly. I think the tip about bringing some little trinkets as gifts is great and the information about telephoning is essential.


I suppose there's no harm in asking for help re the flight costs from our local Education and Library Board (N Ireland) but I think it's unlikely that we would get any help because of our income which is better than some but not huge by any means. However over here the education boards have overspent massively and they are cutting back on quite a few essentials and I don't think my daughters flights would be high on their list of priorities.

other

get a good street map and try to get used to using the bus/subway rather than taxis, they like to rip off tourists....including chinese ones :mad:

also get to know the local students and find where the nearest carrefour (or other massive supermarket) is....however, markets can be good value for fruits and veg...and finally brush up on cooking from scratch

jaffacakes_2

Flights are sometimes cheaper from travel agents run by chinese supermarkets or from travel agents in chinatown.

Try http://www.sagittatravel.co.uk/ or http://www.seewootravel.co.uk/

black-saturn

The living costs there are unbelievably cheap. Food is dirt cheap and so are clothes, dvds, cds, electrical goods and everything else you can think of. Some areas of Beijing only have an annual income of £500. So that will give you some idea of how cheap things will be.