Going to China Part 1: Visa, Insurance, Health and Money!

If you have the fortune of studying Chinese at a higher education facility [yeah, I do mean uni] you will probably be jetting off to China at some point. If you are even more fortunately studying at the beautiful University of Edinburgh, then you will probably be carted off to the even more beautiful Dalian University of Technology [大连理工大学] in your third year, unless you've got it into your head that you want to go somewhere more exciting, like Shanghai or Beijing, in which case good luck to ya. After doing much reading and looking at many photos of the site, I've decided that I'm probably going to have a really nice time there, struggling in my usual manner and hastily explaining to people who've never seen a brown or black person that "no, you can't touch my hair, not even my mother touches my hair" and "no...sorry, I don't speak Chinese."

 Looks nice right! Just some pics from the website - check it out if you're interested http://www.dlut.edu.cn/en/brief.htm

But no, wait, it's not that easy! There's a process involved. A long, complex and expensive process, one which I have yet to reap the benefits of [I'll get back to you on that one].
I had little to no direction in what to do - don't get me wrong the uni gave me all the information [fill out this form, get this visa] it's the CHINESE I blame. The medical form makes very little sense and I couldn't really decipher what they wanted most of the time. Thank god their visa office was organised [if you've ever been to the Nigerian Embassy to get a visa, you will soooo know what I mean]. But if you need to go through the motions, at least you have my words of wisdom to guide you [BE GRATEFUL!!]. 
So, the things you'll need: Visa, Medical forms, Insurance. Shall we?


The Visa part is relatively straight forward - at least, if you live in London. If you don't live in London you may have a completely different experience with some extremely rude Asian civil servants, but I had quite an easy time of it. If you're applying for an X [student] Visa, it's as simple as:
- Downloading all the forms from the Chinese embassy site [follow links for general visa forms]
- Getting the JW202 form from your place of study [they'll know what it is and should send it to you]
- Bringing £66 with you [you don't have to pay till you get the Visa, and I totally forgot about it and when the lady said "that'll be 66 pounds please" I was like wwwaaaaahhhhhhhhhh?]


Do I use enough brackets btw? Sheesh.


So then you hand in the forms, having booked your appointment in advance, otherwise be prepared for a lengthy wait, and come back 4 days later ready to receive your impeccably neat visa stamp.
So that's the easy part.


The difficult part, which took me three trips to my GP, 1 expensive trip to a private hospital and a long, intrepid journey to my local blood clinic [it was during the London riots] was the medical form. The form is not clear. That is it. What do they want from you? Well, what they actually want is a HIV and Syphillis test [you should be able to get that free on the NHS, ask your GP for a referal], a full medical check up [your GP should be able to do that for you, just show them the form and smile vaguely] as well as your blood group, a chest X-ray and an ECG [I had to do it privately, it cost about £250 in total and you need a referal again from your GP].


If you got the form first time 'round, good on ya. I totally did not understand I will not blame you for not doing so either. Apparently you can do it in China, but being me I like to get these things out of the way - no need to make the Chinese more suspicious of you than necessary...


In terms of insurance, good old http://www.thirdyearabroad.com/ provide a decent coverage, which you can tailor to how long you're there for.

Now that I'm reading it over, it doesn't seem that complex...or long. But trust me, it was at the time!! Maybe you'll have an easier time of it if you ever have to go, but having to organise things when you're on holiday just seems like such a hassle at the time!
That's it really...All I can ramble about for now anyway!

Comments & Questions  ^_^    xx