Murray Loc: New Westminster

Hi all:
We are leaving for china in a week, seeing Beijing, Suzhou Q'ufu, Jinan & Shanghai. Have D5100' 18-55, 55-300 kit lenses & 50mm f1.8. Thoughts please on what to carry and recommendations of those who have gone before us. Really getting excited. Thanks so much!
Murray

breck Loc: Derbyshire UK

You will have a great time, but expect crowds at any well known spot, The Chinese love sight seeing too.
There are a couple of spots on the great wall that are much quieter go for them and check out the dragon wall in the forbidden city there are quiet spots there as well if you go on your own . Go to Yuan garden in Shanghai if you geret the chance beautiful gardfen, buildings and amazing shopping just outsid ethe garden entrance you will see a long line of people trying to buy dumplings walk past them and go upstairs its a little bit more expensive but saves a hours waiting and they are delicious. There are a few pick pockets about but no worse than anywhere else, have fun expect crowds and food unlike anything you have eaten before
Its easy to get about in the big cities, avoid unofficial taxies at Beijing airport they are very insistent and charge a fortune. your kit sound fine

cockney greg Loc: London E17

Why not PM ChinaPaul.

Jaime Loc: Los Angeles

Above all... when you get to your hotel, take a handful of cards with the name and address. When you are out and about, and you get a taxi, just give the driver one of those cards, he'll take you to your hotel. It avoids any mis-communication. I had an amazing time. Take a look at my China link...

http://www.photobyklein.com/Portfolio/Travel/China

You'll get some amazing shots. BTW, my shots were all taken with a D200 and an 18-200. I found that to be a good walk around lens. Never used the other lenses I took. It's a DX lens and works well. I would rent from lensrental.com or rentglass.com. They're very reasonable. Have fun!

RodL Loc: Down Under

If you are anywhere near the youth Hostel in Qufu drop in and say Hi to Mr Lu, He runs the hostel. Tell him Rodney from Australia says Hi he will make you welcome and he is a good photographer and can give you info on Qufu he has lived there all his life and he is a great bloke. 18-200 is all you will need but take plenty of memory as Qufu is like a wonderland and great shots at night as well. Look forward to seeing some shots when you get back home.

rps Loc: Muskoka Ontario Canada

It is a photographer's paradise! There are countless unique landscapes, exotic buildings and fascinating people. Despite the language barrier, I had no problems. A smile always works.
I spent one day all by myself wandering around Shanghai with no problems and no fears. (Incidentally, Shanghai makes New York look like a hick town.) People are hospitable and generally don't object to being photographed.
The one huge negative is the air pollution. It is ghastly! However even that can be turned to photographic advantage.
I brought my long lens and never used it once. You can buy memory cards but I still would take a few extras. It's also a good idea not to put everything on one card or, if you do, to download your shots to a computer or to home, in case your card gets corrupted or your camera lost or stolen (although theft is not a huge problem as it is in some countries.)
You also should look into power adapters. I seem to recall power is 220 and the connections the same as those in the UK. (Check that out. I may not remember correctly.)
You will come back with some prize winners!

CocoaRoger Loc: Cocoa Florida

Be prepared for probably the worst air pollution ever. Yes, power is 220v but in most hotels you will find 120 available. Keep your head on a swivel when crossing streets and just in general, driving laws there tend to be more suggestions than laws, driving the wrong way or on sidewalks is not unusual. Be very careful what you drink, don't drink water that you don't know for a fact has been purified. Even bottled water you check to make sure the seal isn't broken. Their beer is quite good. Don't eat any fruit or veggies that either aren't peeled or not cooked. For example don't eat apples, grapes etc... bananas, oranges ok. I don't know if it was just me but it seemed that the batteries I bought in China for the camera didn't seem to last very long. Always have toilet paper on you when you go anyway! Many public restrooms don't have TP. Never stab your food with the chopsticks, that is extremely rude and crude. If you are someone's guest for dinner always take a small portion first and compliment it. Then after everyone else has taken some then you can take more. Never kiss in public! Holding hands is fine and that kind of thing but kissing is thought of the same as actual sex. Always take your shoes off when entering a home, they will provide slippers, don't wear those same slippers if you step outside, or go to the bathroom, they will have others for that. As for photo's look for the beauty of their art and culture and archetecture. I was there for a whole week trying to figure out what was different about their large apt. buildings (besides the enclosed balconies) and it suddenly hit me that they all had window airconditioners in all of the windows. If you go to see the body of Mao on the south end of Tiananmen Square no cameras, talking or hats are allowed but there is a building across the street on the east side where you can store items. Your bags will be checked before you enter. Wear comfortable shoes when you visit it and if you plan on visiting the Forbidden City the same day. Lotta stone walking. There are two main portions of the Great Wall outside of Beijing-Badaling is the more popular to the northwest, Mutianyu to the northeast. Please remember you are their guest so be respectful. They are very proud of their country and culture but their humility prevents them from showing off or bragging but like anyone they do like to be complimented. Many times I was shown things, items, etc.. that they were proud of that in America may have been years behind the times. In Beijing you MUST order Peking Duck at least once. Not that it's so great, but it's tradition. Remember, the Great Wall is not just a nice level walk, it was deliberately built on the most difficult terrain so it can be quite steep and difficult. In older buildings, or places remember they didn't have building codes so you might be surprised to find walkways or stairs in buildings with different size steps and no handrail or lighting. Modern hotels are pretty much the same as ours. If you have a few days in one location do what my Chinese wife did for me. The first thing we found a small shop with three rather senior women and a few sewing machines with a whole wall full of beautiful material. They measured me and a few days later had a stunningly beautiful shirt for me hand made for my wedding there. If there is a bathroom attendant in any public restroom he/she will pretty much expect a tip. Also, when you do visit the Great Wall, there are tons of vendors selling souvineers. You will see some men dressed as Chinese warriors. Don't take their picture without paying them-that's why they dress up for the tourists. You may see things that surprise you but just try to go with the flow, it's their country. I was surprised at the willingness of my wife and family to just throw litter on the ground or out the window. I even rebuked them by picking it up and taking it to a trash can and they just laughed at me for cleaning it up. But I did notice that every morning it seemed, that old people were out sweeping up the one block section of the roads so maybe it's an income for them, I don't know. Also, they honk their horns CONSTANTLY. You might go to youtube and just do a search on Chinese traffic, you'll be amazed. Anyway, the honking isn't meant the same as in the west where here it usually means anger. There it's expected and tolerated and generally just means ''hey I'm here so don't hit me'' or ''hey I'm here so don't make me hit you''. Smoking is a big thing in China and sometimes favors are paid with cigarettes.

Jaime Loc: Los Angeles

Great suggestions and tips from all. I just remembered, there's a sporadic, spontaneous, flea market in Shanghai called the Ghost Market. It doesn't happen every day. See if you can do some research to find it. I had a friend take me. It was quite interesting.

CocoaRoger Loc: Cocoa Florida

OH, also, if you get a chance visit some back alleys off the main roads and highways if your in a city. You'll find whats called Hutongs and they are their own little world and culture there, hawking goods and all kinds of things. You feel like you're in just an alley but if you get invited into someone's doors you'll find that often there is their own little garden paradise and quite nice home inside.

Daryl New Loc: Wellington,New Zealand

Sounds a great place,look forward to seeing pics,please?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I was there for two weeks in 1998, and I carried a Canon Elf on my belt. It used APS film and could take pictures in three different sizes. I had no intention of lugging camera equipment around with me. One annoying woman in our group had a Nikon SLR, and she acted like she was shooting for Nat Geo. She would hog a scene and make everyone else wait till she was finished getting the perfect shot.

Avoid any water that isn't bottled - drinking, washing, showering, etc. People sell bottled water all over China - by the side of the road, at tourist attractions, etc. It's often frozen. It was over 100° F when I was there in August.

China has bad air, bad water, and over a billion people. You'll be glad to get home. You can get some good deals on traditional Chinese items, but beware of imitations. I bought jade, but I have no idea if it was actually jade.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Murray, I will second the Taxi advice and will take it a step further. Take some index cards so the hotel can write the name and directions on the card in BIG writing. Do this for everywhere you want to be taken. The cards all have a map on the back. BUT most all the older taxi drivers(most of them) can't see and don't have glasses. So they can't see the cards to get you home. Don't know if they still use the central cell call service that can translate for the driver. None speak English. If you need a translater, find any student. Make sure you have a WiFi phone for hot spots, so you can get info. Info is almost impossible to get in China, especially travel info if you are not with a tour.
You WILL have a blast. China is a photographers paradise.

CocoaRoger Loc: Cocoa Florida

You can buy, maybe rent, handheld devices to type in and translate to foreign languages too.

rps Loc: Muskoka Ontario Canada

FOLLOWING IS AN ARTICLE I WROTE ON MY RETURN FROM CHINA. YOU MAY FIND IT USEFUL.
Some day you’ll have a vacation choice between Mars and China. If you dislike the unfamiliar and are uncomfortable with the exotic, you’ll choose Mars.
My advance research on China proved misleading. Air China gets terrible write-ups on the internet but it’s as good as any airline I’ve flown with modern, clean aircraft, tasty meals and efficient service. Contrary to endless horror stories, I encountered only one questionable toilet in China. Smoking and spitting are no more prevalent there than here. Even small cities such as Hangzhou and Suzhou are bright and clean with impressive shopping districts. (A “small” city in China is about 2-million people!) Shanghai, a spectacular blaze of smart shops and innovative skyscrapers, makes even New York and London look like backwaters. The Chinese also accomplish something at which we largely have failed. Their city centres are green, with huge, old trees sheltering downtown streets. Highway medians and the sides of the elevated expressways are hung with baskets of bushes and flowers. The vegetation flourishes despite ghastly air pollution. Each dawn the sun rises like a poisoned orange behind a shroud of smut and smog. You wish you could swim to the surface and fill your lungs with clean air. Most gas is leaded. Homes and industry burn coal. Shanghai has 19-million people and three million vehicles. 15,000 new vehicles join “the fleet” each month. Beijing, under its green-gray grit, will host the 2008 Olympics. It’s hard to imagine any athlete performing well in the perpetually tainted air.
China is at once ancient and modern, logical and mystical, communist and capitalist. There is no feeling of repression, no revolutionary banners, no ubiquitous murals of political leaders as in Cuba or the former USSR.
However China is not a place for the inexperienced traveler. The jet lag is ferocious. (When it’s noon in Beijing, it’s midnight yesterday in Toronto.) Despite China’s huge landmass, larger than the continental United States, the whole country operates on one time zone. Few people, even the guides, are comfortable with English. You quickly become very adept at charades. Food is exotic and invariably served with chopsticks. You really don’t understand China until you’ve eaten a fried egg that way.
The pollution and the unfamiliar foods make China risky for anyone with lung or allergy problems. Most tourist sites have lengthy and awkward steps, often without handrails and wickedly slippery in the rain. There are unfenced spots where it’s easy to take a nasty tumble and no facilities for the handicapped. On the plus side, there are many English signs. (Odd that English signs are banned in Quebec but encouraged in China. Perhaps the Chinese are more confident about their culture.) Hotels are both luxurious and reasonably priced.
There is no problem with scams or street crime and the Chinese are unfailingly gracious and helpful, invariably responding in kind to a smile or laugh. The sole unpleasant incident on my trip was a confrontation on my return with a surly attendant at Pearson International Airport in Toronto. Ah, it’s good to be home!
I wonder what Karl Marx or Mao Tse Tung might think of China’s relentless capitalism. It’s nominally a communist state. But it’s booming, bustling, bursting and building at a dizzying pace. There are incredibly innovative skyscrapers and shopping streets awash with light and lined with modern stores and restaurants. There are many places to stop for an excellent Chinese beer. Something stronger is hard to find. The before dinner drink is not a Chinese custom.
The boxy Mao jacket is long gone, replaced by hip hugger designer jeans and expensive, sexy leather boots.
There are no graffiti and no street people. There are some beggars, many of them horribly maimed, presumably victims of China’s notoriously lax attitude towards workplace safety.
Pictures of Chairman Mao I expected. Pictures of Harland Saunders I did not. There are few images of Mao other than the big one on the Hall of the People at Tienamien Square. Mao’s chubby baby face also peers from all denominations of Chinese folding money. But it’s impossible to walk a block without seeing the face of Colonel Saunders, the old scoundrel who inflicted Kentucky Fried Chicken on the world. China is peppered with KFC’s as well as McDonalds and Starbucks. (Big Mac about C$2. Starbucks medium cappuccino, C$4!) Chinese food is one of the healthiest cuisines in the world. I ate nothing but for two weeks, most of it very different from the Cantonese variety that dominates Canadian Chinese menus. There are seven distinct cuisines in China. Cantonese is but one. I lost weight, felt great and stopped popping my daily acid reflux pill. And the Chinese look great. 80 year old women are slim and have the skin of 20 year olds. Yet one morning I saw a young and, for the moment, incredibly svelte Chinese woman stock up on KFC for breakfast! The British legacy to the Chinese was opium. The American may be junk food!
China is a developing economy. Yet there are countless signs of affluence. Modern condos are springing up on all sides, sold oddly enough by the square metre. Prices rival those in Toronto or Vancouver. In the beautiful and verdant West Lake district of Hangzhou which resembles an affluent southern California suburb, there are side by side Porsche, Maserati and Ferrari dealerships.
Young people instantly recognize the name Celine Dion although they are surprised to learn she is Canadian. However It often takes some prodding for them to identify Norman Bethune, the Gravenhurst Ontario doctor who became a Chinese folk hero for his work with Mao and the People’s Liberation Army. Oh yes, we learned of him in school…
Oriental society is based on the concept of “face.” You never create a situation in which the other party “loses face.” Extrapolate that idea and you achieve a social norm of respect, generosity, civility and kindness. It also creates some circumlocutions. One never would say that the pollution is much worse in China than in Canada. You might instead introduce the subject by enthusing about the positive effect on the atmosphere of the many trees and bushes along the roads.
Nevertheless, the Chinese are relentless sales people. If they sold cars in Canada, all of us would be driving brand new top of the line his and her BMW’s. The pressure is subtle, the demeanor always courteous and dignified. But you will buy something! The exercise begins with a visit to a factory, usually on some out of the way street or alley. You are greeted warmly by a beautiful Chinese girl with better than average English skills. As you’re served tea, she demonstrates with charm and expertise and at considerable length the intricacies of tea/jade/cloisonné/silk/pottery/whatever. There is no obvious pressure as you are led into the huge and brightly lit display area. What a great tragedy it would be if you did not bring home some tea/jade/cloisonné/silk/pottery/whatever. Our prices are much lower than in Shanghai (or Beijing, depending in which of the rival cities you are.) The prices seem reasonable but even after the discount, and the gift --- because after all you are “a friend of China” --- they are in fact grossly inflated. But damn, they’re such lovely folks! And what the heck, it isn’t really that expensive…
I have a ceramic and brass globe of the world, made in China, which cost about fifty dollars in Canada. Its identical twin in Beijing went for the equivalent of C$200! You will buy something you don’t really want and you will spend more than you planned because a)she is so charming b)you don’t want to look like a tightass and c)hell, you only go to China once in a lifetime. I came home with a spare suitcase jammed with tea , a jade cabbage (guaranteed to attract money), a jade pillow (just like the dowager empress slept on), a cloisonné Christmas tree ball, two metres of silk, a pottery tea cup and considerable quantities of “whatever.”
My guide in Beijing, something of an oriental Dudey Kravitz, offered to get me everything from a telephone card to a Chinese hooker. I can’t vouch for the hooker but the phone card was a good deal. For Y50, about eight Canadian dollars, I got 15 minutes of call time to Canada. The hotels want that much per minute.
The internet is readily available at most hotels but it’s glacially slow and the computers have a distressing tendency to switch abruptly to Chinese characters. The one “internet café” I visited had the ambience of an opium den.
I’m told that an accomplished Chinese typist can outpace anybody working in English. You enter the English letters, such as the “bei” in “Beijing” and a choice of Chinese characters pops up. You click on the correct one and so it goes.
But Chinese signs lose (or, maybe, gain) something in the translation. Please be a decent visitor and Queue (sic) one by one. Speaking cell phone is strictly prohibited when thunderstorm. Or, perhaps best of all, the signs on the platforms of the Shanghai subway stating that it is “strictly forbidden” to commit suicide by jumping on the tracks,
City traffic is monstrous. Drivers play a sort of slow-motion game of “chicken” at every intersection with pedestrians and bicycles thrown into the mix to make the gridlock game more interesting. The object is to slide in ahead of the other guy without blinking. Pedestrians must have the life expectancy of an RAF tail gunner. I coped by choosing a likely and lucky looking candidate each time I reached a crosswalk and closely shadowing him/her across no man’s land. It generated a few apprehensive looks. Let’s face it. How would you react to some old “foreign devil” with a white beard and a red hat cozying up to you on a downtown street? Yet despite the impossible conditions, I saw no displays of road rage --- a lot of horn honking, yes --- and only two minor fender benders. Maybe it’s the red feng shui charms designed to ward off accidents that dangle from every rear view mirror.
There are no bargains in China, even away from the tea/jade/cloisonné/silk/pottery/whatever emporia. Electronics cost about the same as in Canada. Everyone, even Buddhist monks, have cell phones, often two. They are used incessantly. They’re sold both at “cell phone supermarkets” which feature dazzling variety and at makeshift roadside kiosks. Yet the cheapest and most basic model I could find costs about C$140. That’s a big expense for the average Chinese worker.
China always has been a high tech society. It had a workable civil service and an accurate census 1000 years before the Domesday Book in Britain and moveable type 400 years before Gutenberg. There were standards for the width of roads and the vehicles that used them. The Chinese invented chrome plated steel 2000 years before it was “first developed” in Germany in 1937. They do unbelievable things with silk and with each other. I saw a kung fu stage show and an acrobatic revue both of which left me goggle eyed with amazement. And I’m not a particular fan of either discipline.
Amateur photographers who lead exemplary lives don’t go to heaven when they die. They go to China. There are prize winning shots at every turn, quaint and exotic scenes, faces full of beauty and character and impossibly cute children. The endemic smog softens the light, puts a halo around the sun and adds character to the scene. Just convince yourself it’s not pollution but picturesque mist! Incidentally, this is the first trip I’ve made with my digital SLR. It’s the only way to go: no worries about airport x-rays or running out of film. But even shooting most of my subjects at lower definition and deleting the bad shots each evening, I had to buy an extra memory card. They too are no bargain in China even though they’re made there. Just be sure your charger can handle 220 volts. Most do these days. If not, you can buy a converter or use the 110 volt shaver outlet in most rooms.
Chinese culture is obsessed with the twin notions of long life and wealth. There are countless customs, symbols, talismans, animals and strategically placed objects to attract both. The ancient art of “feng shui” (literally “wind and water”) has become trendy in North America in recent years but it has been an essential part of Chinese architecture and urban planning for 4000 years. Indeed the very location of Beijing was determined in 1045 BC by its favourable feng shui in relationship to the nearby mountains. Two weeks before 9/11, a feng shui master in Beijing tried to warn the US embassy. He got the reaction you might expect. The feng shui consultant is as vital a member of the design team in China as the building engineer is here. It’s not idle superstition like our phobia about thirteenth floors, but an essential part of planning. Incidentally, all my hotels in China had a thirteenth floor.
The antiquity of China has a calming effect. These gracious buildings with their dragons and lions have stood longer than many in Europe, through wars, floods and earthquakes. Mahogany furniture from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD) looks as functional and modern as something at a trendy Bloor Street boutique today. One night, CNN (yes, it, Bloomberg and the BBC are widely available) was in one of its periodic media frenzies over the fact that US Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers had smoked marijuana. Watching while immersed in China’s ancient society, it all seemed so incredibly silly and banal.
The ancient Chinese, like most societies (including contemporary Torontonians) considered their home the centre of the universe. Thus China was known as “The Middle Kingdom.” That ancient belief is becoming modern fact in the new century as China inherits the role of the world’s major power. Let’s hope they do a better job of running things than the Brits and the Yanks.
--

CocoaRoger Loc: Cocoa Florida

That's a good post rps, very spot on. My expireinces would by only slightly different in that I ran across more of the non toilets ie slots in the floor you flush by pouring water down when done and spitting than evidently you did. In the modern cities it's true that they are more Westernlike such as Beijing, Gaunghzou (Canton), I didn't visit Shanghai. Shenyang and where I spent most of my time Fushun are more industrial and mining cities and not major tourism stops so I found a LOT of spitting and non toilets and just dirt in general. You also reminded me of the signage, that was one of the fun things to see. For some reason they just can't seem to find someone who can write English and many of them end up accidentally being quite amusing. You're also correct about American junk food all over the place in the large cities. One surprise of mine was that actual Chinese food is far different than found in so called Chinese restaurants and ordering can be quite a guessing game and advanture. Don't miss out on dumplings! So many types and recipes and quite good and don't be afraid to try new foods and tastes. They have a saying ''if it flies, swims, crawls or walks under Heaven we eat it''. Also, that in many restaurants you end up cooking your own food over a small charcoal pit in your table. A couple more things you reminded me of... don't make the mistake I made and fail to keep a complete diary or journal of your adventures and yes, I felt more safe there than anytime in America. Walking down the streets in Beijing at 11 pm and I guessed there were probably 100 people within a 50 radius so getting mugged or harrassed seemed like an impossibility, also there is a heavy police presence in that it seemed like there was a car or wagon at almost every intersection. Also as goes the Communist/capitalist thing, it may be a Communist government but the country is extremely capitalist with just about anything and everything for sale on streets. Also as a photographer look for interesting faces, not just sights and experiment with B/W.