Vorbereitung China

This page is meant as a help for students going to China the following years. It is a updated version of Marco's article, a collection of tips and hints for the whole preparation progress, also considering the new dual degree agreement for TUB Bachelor students.

Common tips

• Admission letter from TUB Professor

Get your TUB Professor (Prof. Mahr) to sign an official looking letter that you will be attending the SJTU university for two years and that the entire time is counted for your German study plan. Make plenty of copies of this letter.

• Keep copies of official SJTU letters

Some of the official SJTU letters you receive from Shanghai have to be handed in for example for your VISA application. Always keep some copies of these papers, because they still might be useful later.

VISA

The VISA application has to be done at the Chinese embassy. The simple application for a "Student X-Visa" is done within four weekdays and costs about 30,- EUR. Before you go there, inform yourself at the official homepage, which forms are currently required. Usually, they include:

• "Visa Application for Study in China" formular, JW202
• "Physical examination record for foreigner" formular, including
  • AIDS/HIV test results (tests made at Gesundheitsamt Berlin have been accepted without problems)
• "Admission notice", the official SJTU invitation

Note: All forms that you fill out or get filled by other personnel should be stamped with official looking stamps (in red ink). Get a red ink pad before starting running for your forms (recently there haven't been any problems with stamps having a different colour than red, but maybe its safer...).

Health

In Germany

As mentioned earlier, you'll need a HIV test before applying for the students visa. This can easily be done at Gesundheitsamt Berlin.

You should be vaccinated for all the basic stuff (diphtheria, typhus, tetanus) and hepatitis A and B. Get your vaccination pass up to date and look out for combination vaccinations. Hepatitis A and B combined is about three times 70,- EUR and you have to receive the three injections after the first injection in one month and six month to one year intervals. This is also true for just Hepatitis B vaccinations. Hepatitis A vaccination alone can be given in one injection and last for one year. If a second hepatitis A injection is done within 6 to 12 month after the first, the protection lasts for 10 years. A good (and cheap) place for consulting and expert and getting the recommended injections is the Tropeninstitut Berlin.

As your normal german health insurance will not pay for foreign costs you need to cancel it. Instead, choose a private insurance company to fix a foreign-country insurance ("Auslandskrankenversicherung"). This costs about 20,- to 100,- EUR, depending on the company you choose. We found the cheapest to be the DKV. They will also cover limited costs for trips back to germany which last up to six weeks. You may also want to have a "Berufsunfähigkeitsversicherung" fixed. Normally, the insurance company hotlines are helpful and can answer your questions quickly.

In China

The "physical examination record for foreigner" or "Gesundheitszertifikat" can be done at the SJTU Minhang campus in the first week of the new semester. You need this certificate, to receive a two-year residence permit in China, since the X-Visa you get in Germany is only valid for a limited time. The examination consists of taking of a blood sample, chest X-ray, EEG and so on, but is painless. It costs around 500 RMB, exact time and place are usually released in the International Student Dormitories during the first week of the new semester.

Medicine

Right on the opposite side of the Minhang campus entry gate, there is a chemist's shop, but we recommend you to bring with you at least for the first two weeks:

• Some multivitamin pillets, as we ate almost no real food in the first week, due to the heat and jetlag and sickness.
• Diarrhoea medicine, like "Immodium akut" or similar. All of us had - sometimes very intense - diaerrhoea, as the food here has a lot of fat and in the first weeks you want to try out everything ;-)
• Aspirin. Readily available almost everywhere, but for the first day or the flight (to reduce the risk of blood clumps during the flight and long time sitting).
• Your favourite tea. Since you might have some problems with the airconditioner in the beginning, you might come down with a cold. You don't want to drink green tea then ...

Money

You can get money in China without being charged for the Euro to RMB transfer, if you have a Citibank account with Citibank Maestro card (EC card). There is for example a ATM located directly on the way between Xuhui subway station and SJTU Xuhui campus, so you can pick up some money on your way to the language classes. A credit card money withdrawal is usually charged with a 1% fee, but this depends on your contract. Anyway, bringing a credit card to China (also for backup) is a good idea.

The German banks Commerzbank, Deutschen Bank, Dresdner Bank, Hypo-Vereinsbank, Sparkasse and Postbank allow Maestro card cash money retrieval from within China for an all-in fee of 4,50 EUR.

Following banks accept Maestro Cards (EC card):

• Bank of China, also located directly inside Minhang Campus
• Agricultural Bank. English menus and 2000 Yuan maximum withdrawal. There is one of them maybe 15 minutes away by bike from Jiao Tong Min Hang campus.
• CITIC Industrial Bank. Also in English, also 2000 Yuan. Can be found near Xujiahui station, a good place two spend it the same day.
• Shanghai Bank. Here you can get 3000 Yuan at once for just 4,50 EUR fee. Very good.
• And more...

Language

The Sprach- und Kulturbörse offers both in-semester courses and intensive courses. The intensive courses are about 82,- EUR for 30 effective hours in two weeks (2 * 5 days, 3 hours per days). If you do a second intensive course you even get a rebate of 15,- EUR. There are three to 10 people in each course and you get good course materials to work with at home.

TODO: Chinese courses in Shanghai (SJTU)

Also, you should get at least one Mandarin Phrasebook. We found the Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook very helpful, not to say it was crucial to our survival :-) Its ISBN is 0-86442-652-6 and costs around 8 EUR at Amazon.de. You can point at some characters to make you understandable, but to correctly spell out the Pinyin you would have to take a Mandarin crash course at least.

German Bafoeg

The Bafög application should be done as soon as possible. It can last a half year until you get your first money.

Common informations

All the informations concerning the German Bafög are a bit flaky, since we haven't done the whole procedure yet. So it's better to get some first-hand informations instead of reading only this article.

As we know so far, it is not possible to get any Bafög during the second year. Let's see how we will get our money for the second year, since then we will enjoy the first one ...

Here's the address of the institution handling the applications for China:

Bezirksregierung Köln
Ausbildungsförderung
Theaterplatz 14
52062 Aachen

The application

You will have to fill out the following forms, which you can get at the website of the German Bafoeg Institution

• Formblatt 1
• Formblatt 1a
• Formblatt 3
• Formblatt 5
• Formblatt 6

Additionally, get a affirmation from Prof. Hommel, that you have good knowledge of English and basic knowledge of Chinese. Hence the TOEFL-Test is a precondition for the exchange, he only signs the English knowledge if he knows your test results. For the affirmation of Chinese knowledge just ask him, he will sign it even if you just know what "ni hao" means .. You don't know what "ni hao" means? Go here ;-)

You will also have to send a copy of the affirmation that you are in China for two years, signed by Prof. Hommel.

The Bafög Institution will send you a form, which you have to send to Mr. Gu. He will do some crosses and then you can send it back to the Bafög people.

Feel free to comment in case of questions or additional informations.