shopping list

[con's fly is open]

Now that the fusebox for my apartment is younger than I am, I've got a ton of things to get. So some questions:

- Who runs DSL in China, specifically Suzhou?

-Where's the best deal for microwaves? What's the best brand?

- How about mattresses? The guest room bed is awfully hard.

- Same question for phones, both mobile and landline; water heater/coolers; and space heaters (for the remaining month I'll need one).

[Lotus Eater]

Only info I can give you is on mobile phones. I bought mine from firstly Home Club - no problems, then the next 2 times Gome. Again no problems and Gome would bargain with me.

There are plenty of phone places to buy second hand (??) phones but probably the guarantee is dodgy.

Next step then is to go to your friendly Sim card dealer and buy a sim card - about 35-40Y, and a refill card. When you get the sim card ask the guy to do all the fiddly stuff for you like getting it connected and also make sure he has it set up so that you can use it all over China. You can do it, but it's easier if he does because the instructions are all in Chinese!

There are phones here that you can only use in your current city - they quit once outside the city limits. Much cheaper but for me pretty useless - I want to use mine wherever I am. If you are travelling fill the card with money BEFORE you go - buying a refill card in another province WON"T work!!

Have fun!

[Raoul Duke]

Hey Con,

Apparently the best deal in Suzhou for ADSL is through China Telecom. Try to negotiate a flat-rate price, but be careful...some of their plans offer cheap flat-rate for the first few months and then revert to an expensive per-minute plan. My lanlode say he looked into changing me to cable ADSL, but that China Telecom was actually cheaper.

For electronic things like microwave ovens, compare prices at Suning and Gome ("GuoMei") stores, and at Auchan. The best Chinese-made appliances come from Haier, but you'll definitely pay a premium price for them. I bought a large Galanz microwave at Auchan for sterilizing baby bottles; I've been happy with both price and performance.

Mattresses that aren't rock-hard: you may have to import one. Every bed I've had in China has been like sleeping on a dining table. My guess is that sleeping in comfort is considered decadent and counter-Revolutionary, or perhaps it disturbs your qi by angering the small demon dragon that lives in your spleen. Ask around in department store bedding departments (the good department stores in Suzhou are on the south end of Renmin road near the Sheraton Hotel), but I suspect there may be a big ol' mei-you in yer future.
Be prepared for some sticker shock...mattresses are pretty pricy in China.

I don't know much on landline phones except that you seem to get what you pay for. Cheap phones are invariably crap. Unfortunately the problem is often not the phones but rather the phone lines and jacks in the apartment, which are often installed by the landlord's addled, airplane-glue-huffing nephew. Complaints of weak, noisy phone lines are invariably met by Chinese landlords with outpourings of sympathy and fast, effective action. Sure.

For mobile phones, Nokia phones give far and away superior call performance, and are priced accordingly. I like Sony Ericsson phones, which offer decent performance and an advanced package of image/video/audio abilities at a very good price. I've found the best prices on these, oddly enough, at the Sony Ericsson stores, which often run special sales.
An important consideration here is the company, and the kind of account. China Mobile offers much better performance, and much stupider counter clerks, than China Unicom. Consider avoiding buying a xiao ling tong SIM card, which I generally call a Wei? Wei? Wei?. These accounts are very, very cheap to use and are only usable in the town where you buy them. This local-only limit is enforced by using very weak transmitters; the foil in a pack of cigarettes is enough to kill the signal. Performance is terrible.

Lotus' advice on buying mobile phone time is good. Regardless of the type of account, it's very difficult to do outside your own city. It can be done by going to the city headquarters of China Mobile wherever you happen to be, but it's a hassle. Better to just tank up before you leave town.

Water heaters: Assume you mean hot-water dispensers for bottled water? If you just want hot water, I've never seen a difference. Cheaper is probably better, and I can usually find a basic dispenser for under 50 kuai. If you're in the chips, the bigger dispensers that also have refrigerator units and produce honest-to-God cool water will spoil you quickly. Buy at Suning, Gome, or Auchan. Might also check prices at Bai Ren Fa.

Space heaters: if you've already got the standard wall-mounted air con/heater, I really like the oil-filled radiators like I have in my office/computer room/smoking and cursing area. They're slow to heat and don't force air movement, so they're only good as supplemental heat. They're more expensive to buy than other electric space heaters, but are more efficient and cheaper to operate. They remain warm a long time after you turn them off. Don't know much about brands here, but look for ones with thicker fins and more oil inside. Again, shop prices at Suning/Gome/Auchan/BaiRenFa.

[Ruth]

Con, my microwave is a Galanz. It has a top element so also operates as a broiler oven. I understand you can get one with a bottom element also, which would make toast without the need for flipping the bread half way through.

[Dragonsaver]

Con

I bought a matress pad at the local supermarket. It was on sale for 100Y back in Oct. It made the bed quite comfortable. I have now 3 on my bed as another teacher gave me hers (two) when she went back to Canada. They work really well and will give you the best bang for your buck!!! They are about 1" thick. She also had a more expensive one that is about 2" thick.

Tonight will be my first night on all three matress pads. I might put a 'pea' under them to see if I'm still a princess!!

[Stil]

mengmary said:

Con

I bought a matress pad at the local supermarket. It was on sale for 100Y back in Oct. It made the bed quite comfortable. I have now 3 on my bed as another teacher gave me hers (two) when she went back to Canada. They work really well and will give you the best bang for your buck!!! They are about 1" thick. She also had a more expensive one that is about 2" thick.

Tonight will be my first night on all three matress pads. I might put a 'pea' under them to see if I'm still a princess!!

All this banging and peaing in bed. You really know how to have a good holiday Dragonsaver.

[Ruth]

What Dragonsaver said is good advice, Con. We have a foam mattress on top of box springs. A foam pad would work well for your spare bedroom without breaking the bank. Should be able to find them somewhere. Students here carry them back and forth from the dorms to home on their monthly weekend breaks.

[ilunga]

Great info Raul but I would argue about the phones. I have a xiao ling tong and it works great. It's also a hell of a lot cheaper for making calls. I paid 50RMB about six weeks ago and it's still going despite a fair few 20-30 minute calls. Ok you can't use it outside your city but my housemate twice bought a china mobile SIM, was promised it would work in other provinces, and it didn't.

Soft mattresses are around but not that cheap. 700RMB was the cheapest I've seen for a really comfy one. I picked a decent one up for 300. Not that soft but it's really thick and does me fine.

I had a school-provided microwave before and didn't use it that much. I think the toaster-ovens are much better value. I can cook up pretty much anything. The yorkshire puddings I made over christmas were the best I've had in my life

[Lotus Eater]

With the China mobile SIMS you have to actually get them set up to work all over China - can't just throw it and they work. I have had 4 and they all work - I keep a spare one for visitors so they can swap their home SIM card for here and stay in contact with me while they are travelling. Mine worked from Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiaag, Guangxi - all over. No problems.

[ilunga]

Fair enough. I've always had China Unicom, and they're set up automatically. Only problem is the phones seem to pack up after nine months or so.

[Lotus Eater]

I'm on my 3rd phone - but only because they get stolen when I am careless in bars.

Not buying the pretty ones anymore. Plain and useful from now on.

[Raoul Duke]

Ja...never had much luck with Unicom. Their national coverage isn't as wide as China Mobile's unless things have changed recently; maybe that's the problem?

Maybe the xiao ling tong performance varies with area. I've had many friends using them in both Suzhou and Shanghai, and in both cities they aren't worth a damn. More RF noise down here? More steel in the buildings? Anything is possible...

[nolefan]

unicom's coverage has not gotten any better outside of the cities... the best thing about them is the fact that on some of their plans, you get free incoming calls. Gotta love that.

As far as mobiles go, i'd second Raoul's advice. Don't overlook some of the Chinese brands like Lenovo, Haier and Amoi. They deliver a better bang for the buck when compared to other brands and all of them have menus in English. The advantage of the better brands would be the possibility of synchronizing your phone numbers with the computer. Very handy for those who tend to misplace their phones after an encounter with a bottle of jiu Just get another one, synchronize ..et voila. no more lost phone numbers

Also, forget the microwave... Galanz makes some nice electric ovens for about 400RMB ( see my thanksgiving pictures)... much better for breads, sandwhiches and the likes... Since I got the oven, I can't remember using the microwave at all.... not even once.

[con's fly is open]

Thanks, all.

Next: how about DVD players? Prices vary ridiculously: from 240-ish to over a thousand. What's the difference between top, bottom, and middle of the line? And what's the best brand? Someone mentioned TCL...

[Mr Nobody]

TCL isn't too hot in my limited experience - with their computers.

[Raoul Duke]

Haven't owned a TCL but have Chinese friends who hated their stuff.

I've had good luck with BoBoGao. Good performance. My old DVD/surround-sound system has been moved by China Railway Express () from Changchun, to Beijing, to Suzhou, to Shanghai, and back to Suzhou, and it's still doing fine.

[Lotus Eater]

Ye Fong is the brand of mine - seems to work well (touch wood), but I have added speakers to it separately.

[con's fly is open]

I bought a Philips: 600Y, usually 700. Works pretty well, I suppose.

[Dragonsaver]

Anybody know how much a small toaster oven costs?? Like the kind you get in Canada that fit under the counter??

They cost around $50.00 in Canada. Can you get something like that here??

Going out to Metro tomorrow.

[George61]

Anybody know how much a small toaster oven costs??

Ask Ruth...she bought a cute pink one for Crippler in SJZ.

[Ruth]

George, George, George, I'm worried about your memory. We didn't buy the cute little pink one. However, the one we DID get cost just less than 300 RMB. It's actually bigger than the one we had back home. I could bake a pie or a pizza or roast a chicken in this one. It has a rotisserie (sp?), rack, pan and top and bottom elements.

[Non-Dave]

And it came with a free pastel-green cordless kettle - which is doing very nicely, thanks Ruth and LeiShan!

[Ruth]

Bu ke qi, Non-Dave. Glad to know it's found a good home. My kitchen is blue. Pastel green just wouldn't have done.

[Kurochan]

I've had a Shinco DVD player that's worked well for almost three years, and survived being mailed from Shenzhen to Shanghai with no problems at all. It may be that Shinco sells different types though -- I heard of a guy saying he bought a Shinco and it broke immediately. Mine says DVD-8111 on it.

A friend of mine bought a brand whose name started with Qi, and it broke in about ten days.

Remember that if you buy your player at Carrefour or Wal-Mart and keep the receipt, you have a certain time in which you can return it if it turns out to be no good.

[George61]

Remember that if you buy your player at Carrefour

Carrefour also displays a list of things that, that rule does not apply to..............it covers almost everything you can buy!