Basics - The Rough Guide to Beijing - page 60

USEFUL RESOURCES
Chinatefl www.chinatefl.com . A good overview of English-teaching opportunities in the
Chinese public sector.
CIEE ciee.org . The Council on International Educational Exchange runs programmes for
US students of Mandarin or Chinese studies, with placements in Beijing.
Teach Abroad goabroad.com . International teaching website with plenty of Beijing pos-
itions.
Zhaopin zhaopin.com . A huge jobs site, in Chinese and English.
Mail
Main post offices are open Monday to Saturday between 9am and 5pm; smaller offices may
close for lunch or at weekends. Offices in the New Otani Hotel (daily 8am-6pm) and at L115,
China World Trade Centre (daily 8am-8pm), keep longer hours.
The InternationalPostOffice is on Chaoyangmen Dajie, just north of the intersection with
Jianguomen Dajie (Mon-Sat 8am-7pm; 010 65128114). Here you can rent a PO box, use
their packing service for parcels and buy a wide variety of collectable stamps, though staff
are not very helpful.
The Chinese postal service is, on the whole, fast and reliable. A postcard costs ￥ 5, while
a standard letter is ￥ 7 or more, depending on the weight; stamps are available from post of-
fices and street kiosks. An Express Mail Service ( EMS ) operates to most countries and to
most destinations within China and is available from all post offices. Besides cutting deliv-
ery times, the service ensures the letter or parcel is sent by registered delivery - though note
that the courier service of DHL (24hr office 2 Jiuxian Qiao, Chaoyang; 010 64662211,
cn.dhl.com ) is rather faster, and costs about the same; there are also FedEx ( fedex.com )
and UPS ( ups.com ) branches around town.
To send parcels , turn up at a post office with the goods you want to send - staff sell boxes to
pack them in. Once packed, but before the parcel is sealed, it must be checked at the customs
window in the post office. A 1kg parcel will cost ￥ 70-140 to send by surface mail, ￥ 150
by airmail to Europe or North America; the largest box available holds 30kg and costs over
￥ 1000 to send. If you are sending valuable goods bought in China, put the receipt or a pho-
tocopy of it in with the parcel, as it may be opened for customs inspection farther down the
line.
Maps
A large foldout map of the city can come in handy. In general, the free tourist maps - avail-
able in large hotels and printed inside tourist magazines - don't show enough detail. A wide
variety of city maps are available at all transport hubs and from street vendors, hotels and