Job Discussion Forums

[Jazz2000]

Hi,

Have been in China, Tianjin, for a few weeks and loving it. But I have one big problem, I can't call home. I'm trying to call England. Everyone else here is American and using some internet BigZoo thing, but that appears to require an American address.

I tried the old fashioned way of just dialing international codes, but that didn't work. Someone said something about a phone card, but I'm not exactly sure.
How have other Brits been doing this? Is there a way of calling back without a card or do I definately need one? Does anyone know of any internet phone companies that don't have a ten second delay?

Thanks.

[Sonnet]

You need a card - a number of little kiosks in the city ought to sell them - if you can't find any, ask your local management at the school. I think a 10RMB IP card gets you about 15 minutes back home or so - I'm going from memory here though so that might not be gospel. They're crackly but fairly delay-free and not too overpriced, I found.

[Sekhmet]

From what I remember (also not being in China right now...) the ONLY way of ringing the UK is with a phone card. My worst memories of living in China all revolve around the payphone provided in my flat that was great for ringing out, but receiving calls was a nightmare!!! On top of the deeply frustrating 10 second delay and the irritating beeping that happened every few seconds, the phone would only allow incoming calls of up to 2 minutes!!! So on the rare occasions when I managed to contact my family, they had to keep ringing me back. So in that situation, email is better...
Actually, the phone system was one of my reasons for moving to Egypt!!!!

[Louis]

Yep. Get an IP201. How to use:

First: Hit 2 (English)
Second: Card #
Third: PIN #
Last: Number you are dialling (00 44 --------)

Never pay face value for these... A 100 RMB card should cost 50, or 2 for 80. Ask people for the best place to buy these.

[ChinaLady]

I set up an EKNO account a couple of years ago. more expensive - but the connections are great - no matter where I am or what country I am in or calling. it is through Lonely Planet - or used to be. and I have an e-mail address that is not as crazy as Yahoo.com
charge the account through a credit card or have mum put some money on it. try EKIT.com.
yes, the IP cards are cheaper BUT the connections are horrid.
like, how often do you call home? e-mail is wonderful for those long explanations.
smile, you're in China.

[Ace]

I'm long-sighted, so I wear reading glasses...number one...does anybody else freak out about how DARK China is? I keep telling my schools to buy me reading lamps (apart from the fact that their ghastly lighting fixtures are designed so that bulbs are very difficult to replace, you can rarely buy anything stronger than 40 watts and they seem to burn out after two weeks anyway...)

The real thing that annoys me...computerised printing...it's becoming smaller and smaller...

I admit I need to wear glasses, but even so...the long telephone card numbers are invariably illegible to me. Same with so many other products of computerised printing...

Try reading instructions to new products...of course, it's even worse in China...the Chinese characters seem big enough, but the English...well, admittedly the instructions aren't usually much use when I get a student to transcribe them...wonderful material for a lesson in clear English...but they usually have one crucial unguessable fact hidden somewhere among the verbiage, like "you have to turn the button around fully twice to actually get a result"...(my mysterious washing machine...my students and friends couldn't even cotton on to this when they read the instructions in Chinese...it took about a month before any of us could figure it out...)