The China Helper
Your practical guide to studying, living and learning in China.
Almost every serious learner of Chinese has tried flashcards, and a surprising number have quietly concluded that they do not work — usually after several months of diligently reviewing 3,000 cards and still failing to understand a sentence. The method…
There is a moment most learners remember: something goes wrong — a wrong turn, a wrong number on a bill, a phone that will not do the thing — and their entire Chinese vanishes. What makes that moment survivable is…
The single best argument for travelling while you study here is that the thing which usually ruins travel budgets elsewhere — the distance — is cheap here, while the things you actually want out of a trip are not. A…
Most people arrive assuming friendship here will be difficult and find instead that it is easy in one direction and strangely hard in another. You will be invited to things within days. People will feed you, show you around, add…
The panic usually arrives about a week before departure, when someone tells you that Chinese food is pork all the way down. It is not. A country with this much Buddhist history, this much vegetable-forward regional cooking and a Muslim…
At some point in your first semester you will need medicine at a moment when you cannot read a single word on any box in the shop. That is the real problem this guide solves — not the theory of…
This is one of the most misunderstood topics among graduating students in China, so let us start with the sentence that saves people the most time: nothing converts automatically. Finishing a degree here does not roll your student residence permit…
During enrolment week you are handed paperwork at speed, and somewhere in that pile are two things that quietly run your life for the next year or four. One proves you are a student. The other is effectively your wallet,…
Ordering food is the first conversation most students have in Chinese, and it is the one that repays practice fastest — you get to eat afterwards, and you will repeat it three times a day. What makes it feel hard…
Almost every beginner meets Chinese through handwriting practice, and then discovers that real life runs the other way: you will type Chinese far more often than you write it. A message to your landlord, a delivery address, a note in…