Mobile phones in China

If you own a GSM mobile phone (for example, if you use T-Mobile or Cingular), using it in China is quite convenient.

First, you have to make sure you unlock your phone before leaving the US. The easiest and best way is to call your carrier and ask them to do it for you. T-Mobile unlocked both of our phones, even though Lauren's phone is barely a month old.

In the Beijing airport, there were little China Mobile counters everywhere, including in the baggage collection area. We bought a SIM card for 230 yuan, which includes 50 yuan of credit. You also get some special dialing codes that reduce the cost of both domestic and international phone calls.

I didn't get myself one at that time, because I considered looking for a special SIM card for my Blackberry. But I decided that it probably would be too difficult for me to set up my email properly using a Chinese SIM card, so I bought my SIM card in Hangzhou. I did this with help from the Chinese graduate student. She first took me to a newstand. The woman there showed her a list of numbers, but none of the numbers were acceptable to my guide. So we went to another tiny little hole-in-the-wall store that sold China Mobile SIM cards (and not to the official China Mobile store that was across the street). This time the numbers were acceptable, so she asked me which number I wanted. I picked one that seemed a little less random than the others. I paid 110 yuan. It was explained to me that I would get 100 yuan of credit the next day but would have 10 yuan of credit immediately.

By the way, make sure you have the person selling you the SIM card actually install and set up the SIM card (but don't lose your American SIM card!). There are some setup steps that are best done by someone familiar with the steps. For one, the steps are in Chinese. Even if you can read Chinese, the phones might not display the Chinese characters properly (ours do not).