Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
While it is your landlord's responsibility to ensure a phone line is available, it's up to
you to pay for its connection. Your landlord or agent will usually help you do this. If not,
take your passport and lease to your nearest China Telecom or China Unicom office. You
should also know the first four digits of the apartment's phone number. If you don't know
this, you can ask your neighbor for the first four digits of their number. The phone company
will want this to verify that you are dealing with the right people.
To connect a phone line without Internet, the initial setup fee is RMB200. The ongoing
monthly line rental fee is then RMB21.60. For local calls, the first three minutes are charged
RMB0.22, and it's RMB0.11 for every minute thereafter.
If you intend to make international or long-distance domestic calls from your landline,
you will first need to have this function added to your phone account. You can request this
upfront when you first apply for the phone line, but it can be added at any point. Adding
this service is free. At this time you should ask the phone company about their IP function
offers. This is a five digit number that you dial before you start dialing the phone num-
ber. They occasionally have different deals or promotions, so the numbers can vary. Adding
these to the dialing process can cut call prices by around 50 percent.
CHOOSING A PHONE NUMBER
Numbers are a big deal in China—some are considered auspicious, others ominous.
Any phone number brimming with auspicious numbers will be hard to get, and
may even come at a price. In fact, in 2003 at a special auction of phone numbers
Sichuan Airlines bought the phone number 8888-8888 for RMB2.33 million (then
US$280,000). Phone shops will usually show you a list of available numbers from
which to choose. If you do get a number you like, you'll be shackled to that phone
company for as long as you're unwilling to relinquish the number. There is no num-
ber transfer system here.
If you search, you'll find varying meanings for almost every number, but the fol-
lowing numbers to this day still strongly influence people's behavior, from the phone
number they choose, to the floor they live on, to the amount of money a restaurant
deems suitable for a dish.
6
(
六,
liù
): Six is considered to be a very auspicious number because it sounds
like the Chinese word for “flowing” or “smooth.” Even what some Westerners might
