Registration & Assimilation

Monday 2/26
Registered for classes and pay for my tuition and door room for the semester. The process was pretty orderly and efficient. There were 3 ways to pay for everything cash (USD or RMB), debit, and credit. I originally was planning on using a credit card, but was told that their was a 1.5% service fee. I decided not to eat the 1.5% service and decided to go pick up some cash that had been left for me at my dad's friend's business.

I took a cab to the auction house which was located on E. Nanjing Rd (Lu) and walked into office. My dad's friend wasn't there but some of his employees were there working. I spent the next 45 minutes pantomiming who I was and why they should give me a large amount of cash. Once my identity was verified and story checked out, two of the employees helped me open up a bank account at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).

Immediately after this I went to look for a SIM card (ka) for my phone, which can be purchased practically anywhere. After playing a little charades, I bought my SIM ka for around $100RMB, $50 of the $100 was loaded into my phone account. In China, mobile phone service is pay as you go. I'm not sure the exact rates but local calls in Shanghai run me about $0.13RMB/min. The rate information is completely in Chinese so I really don't know the exact fee structure. Just that its a little more expensive calling numbers outside the city (within China). Once the cash on the card runs out you can deposit more money at basically any street corner or convenience store in China. You can also check your balance by text messaging 10086 with the message "yecx". You will get an immediate text with your remaining balance.

After getting my phone and bank account set up I went back to campus to pay for my tuition using my new debit card. The rest of day was an epic 3 hour search for a supermarket so that I could by some soap, shampoo, water, and most importantly toilet paper.




(One of the most precious commodities in China)