我想开一个银行账户。 I want to open a bank account in Beijing

Last time I decided against opening a bank account in China as I was there for only 3 months and got by by withdrawing money using my Aussie atm card. However, I found that I had to pay AUD $5 per transaction plus various exchange fees. This wouldn't be too bad for a few transactions, but if we have do withdraw several times, the costs would certainly add up. Since this time I will be there for five months, I thought it would be convenient and cheaper to open a bank account there.

By the way, there is a bank inside BLCU, and a few ATM machines on campus. RMB 2000-2500 can be withdrawn each time depending on the machine. RMB 10000 can be withdrawn per day.

I had a few friends who had a Chinese bank account while in China. Apparently it's quite straight forward to open, requiring only the passport. There are several advantages to opening a bank account:

1. Reducing bank fees back home. Obviously this depends on the bank. I've heard that some banks don't charge transaction fees if the atm card is used overseas, so it might be a good idea to shop around before coming if this is you prefer to use your home country's atm card.

2. You can carry the Chinese's bank atm card around with you instead of your home country's atm card. This may not seem like a big deal, but if your wallet was stolen, it would be a big hassle to cancel all your cards back home, not to mention about worrying about having no money for the next couple of days.

3. I didn't need to do this myself since I lived on campus, but I was told you can pay for your utilities, phone and mobile phone and various bills using the atm. This way you don't have to run around going to each payment centre and queuing up, which apparently can take a while.

The only problem is how to open an account if your mandarin is still not so good. Luckily I found the lesson on Chinese Pod.

Some useful vocab:

账户               zhang4hu4               account
申请表         shen1qing3biao3 application form
活期存款 huo2qi1cun2kuan3 current deposit 
自动取款机 zi4dong4qu3kuan3ji1 atm

I shall try it out when I get to Beijing, and will report back, so watch this space!

By the way, if you readers out there have had some experience opening an account or dealing with the bank, please tell us your experience / tips in the Comments section below. Thank you! : )

Chinese Pod

Image by Free-Stockphotos.com

So I've decided to do some self-studying before I go back to Beijing in February. It's not easy! It's not that I don't have time, but I'm just....lazy! I'm forcing myself to look through my text books that I brought with me (not much luck here), but then I revisited this fantastic website, Chinese Pod. It's giving me a daily dose of pretty useful mandarin. The dialogue topics are fantastic and very useful eg. going to the hairdresser, ordering food, lost mobile phone, etc. The hosts are pretty cool to and give really good explanations. Topics are divided up into newbies, elementary, intermediate and advanced.  The podcasts are free but you have to pay for transcripts and notes. 

What are you waiting for, check it out! Even if you're going to China anyway, it's worth knowing a bit before you come.