How to set up a bank account in China

The main part of this day was how to get a bank account in China. Just because I had insider information, I was able to join a group going to a bank.

Before I summarize my day, I need you to say that I’m still not able to use Wi-Fi. Thus, I still can’t upload my photos yet. The reason is we need a bank account first, which is linked to our WeChat account, which is again related to our Wi-Fi account. The fact that I still don’t have a bank account includes the fact that I also don’t have Wi-Fi. But I will have a conversation on Monday because this is unacceptable.

Yeah, I stand up at 7 am today and tried for the first time the shower. You need to put your student card in, and you have to pay for every 5 (?) seconds. At least you don’t spend more than one 元. The problem is that water is not draining. After 3 Minutes, the small bathroom was flooded. Anyway, I went to the meeting point at 8:15 am and waited for the others. Again, I was on the way with Namira and Ri. But this time, I also got to know Ahniyah, her mom (both from the east coast) and two other nice guys. One from Indonesia and one from somewhere in Africa with a Ph.D. of computer science (but I don’t know their names, I just know Ahniyahs name because she wrote me haha).

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Ok, the goal was to set up a bank account. So, one volunteer with perfect Chinese guided us to the next bank. We were there too early, so we had to wait several minutes. Finally, the bank opened, and we got the message that we need to wait 12 days until we can open our bank account. What a mess. We were absolutely not happy with that situation, so we rested for some time thinking about our next steps.

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The problem is Chinese banks can register 10 foreigners a day only (what the fuck?). Because there are so many foreigners right now, we have to queue up. We decided to go to another bank as the queue may be smaller. To go there, we used the subway system for one station. Then we continued walking, and we finally arrived at the bank.

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Arrived, the service person said that we have to wait as well. But “just” 7 days instead of 12. We queued up for this bank, but it took us hooours. Notably, some of us had to change money which was a complicated and long-lasting procedure. We filled some forms for our bank accounts, and they said that everything is ready in 7 days. So, in 7 days we need to go there again and get our card.

We walked all the way back to eat something. Like yesterday, I did not eat anything, so I was starving again. We went to one of our dining hall in the university, and it was the first time I ordered in Chinese. Nice experience!

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It was already 2:30 pm and the last campus tour started at 3 pm. We went back to the registration building, and the girls paid for their dormitories. Because Ahniyah doesn’t have electricity, her mom had a profound and loud talk with the administrator. I felt sorry for the administrator because her mom is really spirited and she was complaining about all the shit here happens (but she was sooo right). Typically, Chinese don’t complain about everything, so the administrator was faced with all the problems with the organisation, building problems, that we can’t leave the dormitory after 0 am and so on. The result of the conversation was that Ahniyah and her roommate can change the room for having working electricity.

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Sadly, my new friends missed the campus tour (because of the conversation), so I joined it on my own. They showed us some nice places (i have known the most of the showing places) like a market full of fresh fruits and vegetables, a better working ATMs and the building where we can register for our WiFi account. They also took several photos (I mean, they are Chinese, of course, they do photos all the time).
Yeah, that’s pretty much it for today. After that, I just did some basic stuff like buying water and just went to the dormitory. I slept from 5 pm to 10 pm because we walked the whole day and I was exhausted. Unfortunately, the last dinning hall closes at 9 pm resulting in missing dinner again. :'(

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Now, I’m sitting here on a park bank and writing this post with personal hotspot and a lot of mosquitos. I really want to show you the area here. Hopefully, Wi-Fi works on Monday. Then you get photos and a more high-quality text (because then I can check with google translate and look for more vocabularies haha). I wish you a good day! I just have 50 Minutes left to enjoy the nice weather outside until the dormitory closes. See you tomorrow!