Living Costs in China

I feel like the most commonly asked question when traveling abroad to another country is how much money should I bring with me ? And I would feel that’s a fair question as the currency rates and bank fees can start to accumulate… For the Canadian Dollar to the Chinese Yuan, the ratio is about 1:5, meaning that 1 Canadian Dollar equates to approximately 5 Chinese Yuan give or take, depending on a certain day and fluctuations with the market. Anyways, the question is probably, what can 5 Yuan get me ? Well it is hard to say as it definitely depends where you plan on living in China. Like any other country, living in a big city such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou comes with higher costs of living including rent, food, transportation, whereas, my current location, Wuxi, as mentioned before is considered a second tier city, so the living expenses are no doubt are lower than those in the big city. I’ll just list a few comparisons between typical expenses between my life in Wuxi versus back in Toronto.

Food (If your eating in the school cafeteria) : Since it is “discounted” for students, most places you cannot pay with cash, you load money onto a student card, like a meal plan system and keep loading money whenever you run out. A meal typically costs anywhere between 5-10 RMB. And so, with the three meals a day rule: max you could spend a day on food could be 30 RMB  ($6 CAD) if you just stick to eating at school. In Canada, any decent sized meal for lunch or dinner runs close to $10 CAD unless your down to eat at McDonalds Value Menu every meal haha.

Food (Outside of the school): Without a doubt, food outside of school is definitely more expensive and depending on where you go eat, the usual style is for each person to pick a dish and the final bill is split between the number of people in the group. Still, from the number of times I’ve been eating out, I’ve paid anywhere between 20-45 RMB for my portion of the bill ($4-$9 CAD), which is still significantly better than back at home where even a basic restaurant could be from $8 CAD to possibly $30 CAD ( I think maybe one of the more expensive meals, ie. all you can eat sushi )

Transportation: So far, I’ve only taken the subway and taxi so maybe I’ll further comment once I’ve experienced other transportation methods. For the subway, the amount you pay is dependent on which stop you get off at and which stop you got on, so basically overall distance traveled (prices can range anywhere between 2-6 RMB, so $0.40- $1.20) whereas in Toronto it does not matter the distance traveled, the fee is the same whether you are getting on for one stop or ten stops (about $3 CAD). As for the taxi… it will depend what time of day and where you are getting on/off so hard to make a comment on this one.

Living: For my time here, I am housed in the International Student Dorm which is typically 1500 RMB for 6 months, but since I am only here for 3 months, it’s 1500 RMB for 3 months…. ($300 CAD for 3 months) which is still incredible considering an average room for rent, not considering the heart of Toronto would be around $500-600 CAD a month. Although I do have to say the dorm is not ideal, we have to keep in mind it’s a dorm first of all and second I am in China so the room and washroom won’t be sparkly/shining clean but I am pretty blessed to not have a roommate and my own washroom/shower.

Entertainment: So far……my entertainment has consisted of eating food and going to a club/night bar twice and a movie once and eating with friends outside of the school. So in terms of watching a movie, average costs range between 20-30 RMB ($4-6 CAD) which is even cheaper than our half price movies on Tuesday which have raised their prices to $7 or $8 CAD in recent years. For going to clubs/nightbars, I’ll discuss those more in depth later but there is no cover/admission fee as there typically is in Canada and there’s no obligation to buy drinks if you don’t want.