Home › Live in China

Living in China: Everyday Essentials for Exchange Students

Payments, phones, apps, housing and daily routines work the same way whether you study in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing or Chengdu. Each topic has one detailed guide here — learn it once, then use the city guides for what is genuinely local.

Get Set Up in Your First Week

Alipay & WeChat Pay

Link a foreign card, fees and limits, paying on the metro, and linking a Chinese bank card.

A quiet corner of a Hangzhou metro station platform, rendered in precise photographic realism. Clean tiled floors with directional arrows, a sleek glass safety barrier, and a waiting train with silver-and-teal livery form the structured geometry of the scene. Overhead, illuminated signage glows softly without legible text, suggesting route information. The platform is completely empty, emphasizing independent student travel. Cool, even artificial lighting reflects subtly on the polished floor, while the train interior emits a slightly warmer glow through the doors. Shot at eye level along the length of the platform to create depth and leading lines that draw the eye into the distance. The mood is efficient, safe and modern, ideal for illustrating budget-friendly transport in a Chinese city.

SIM, eSIM & Internet

Travel eSIMs, local SIMs with a passport, data costs and VPN considerations.

A neatly arranged student study desk in a compact Hangzhou apartment, styled for an international exchange experience. On a light wood tabletop, an open slim laptop displaying a map of China, a Chinese-language textbook with sticky notes, a metro card, and a minimalist white ceramic mug of green tea sit in ordered harmony. Behind, a large window frames blurred high-rise dorm buildings and leafy campus trees. Late afternoon natural light filters in, casting soft, warm highlights on the laptop and gentle shadows across the desk. Photographic realism with a shallow depth of field keeps the desk in crisp focus while the city outside is softly bokeh’d. The atmosphere is focused, organized and aspirational, suggesting productive study and preparation for exploring China.

Essential Apps

The cheat sheet: payments, rides, maps, trains, delivery, translation — and the order to set them up.

Home, Food and Money

Housing: Dorms & Rentals

Dorm or private rental, Wellcee and Ziroom, deposits, contracts and police registration.

Food in China

Canteens, delivery apps, regional dishes and how to eat well on a student budget.

Monthly Student Budget

What rent, food, transport and data actually cost, with tools to track spending.

Students in a class at Zhejiang University Zijingang campus

Student Life

Classes, dorm life, culture shock, making friends, safety and health basics.

Your First-Week Order of Jobs

  1. Register your address with the police within 24 hours (dorms usually do this for you) — how registration works.
  2. Buy a local SIM with your passport — step by step.
  3. Finish verifying Alipay and WeChat Pay with your new number.
  4. Open a Chinese bank account if you are staying a semester or longer, and link it to both apps.
  5. Get your campus card, student ID and residence-permit appointment sorted through your international office.

Want everything as one list?

The free China Exchange Checklist covers documents, money, phone, housing, packing and your first week — printable, no sign-up.

Explore Your City

Once the setup is done, the city guides cover what changes from place to place: neighbourhoods, local food, attractions, student areas and weekend trips.

Hangzhou — West Lake, tea villages, local food · Shanghai — neighbourhoods, food, day trips · Shenzhen — bay parks, beaches, Hong Kong trips · Beijing — Forbidden City, Great Wall, hutongs · All city guides

Last updated: September 2026. Prices, opening hours and rules in China change often — treat costs as estimates and confirm anything important with the official source before you go.

Photos: · Photo by Julio Lopez on Pexels.com · Photo by Change C.C on Pexels.com · Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com · Félix An / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)