Regardless, I waltzed into a China mobile shop and not only did they just give me sim card, they even let me pick my phone number. Sadly there were none with 1701 in, which would have been awesome.
The lies I've heard about this country are just stacked one atop another. Next step is to open a Chinese bank account because apparently I'm not allowed to do that either.
No way you can get a bank account. Your social credit score is far too low. I don't even believe you're allowed to leave your room.
Actually, you can just lie about things you can trivially disprove on the basis that most people won't try to disprove it
Fortunately, nobody actually lives in China so nobody can call you out on it.
You may have an issue getting a bank account without a 居留证 (residence permit), which are only granted with certain visa types (basically the visa gets you in, which is converted into the permit, and also takes a page on your passport). Your permit is tied to your place of residence, and you need the place of residence to open the bank account. That being said, I don't know what visa you entered on, and that may be entirely dated/anecdotal information by this stage wrt tourist visas so why not go try.
I've got a 2 year tourist visa and yeah it's glued into my passport. Maybe I could get that coverted. I'll look into it.
Two year visa (L) with entry requirements (e.g. 30 days maximum stay before leaving and returning)? Unless I'm mistaken, L visas cannot be converted into permits. You'd need to apply for an X (xuexi/study) or Z (gongzuo work) to be eligible for a residence permit. Other visa categories including M (maoyi/business) and F (fangwen/special visit) also limit how long you can stay at a time, same as an L visa.
When I was there, they also had two subcategories of X visa - short study (fewer than 180 days) and long study (180+). Only the latter was converted into a residence permit.
According to the China Daily website, you can apply for visa changes after arrival, subject to some general conditions, and specific conditions for specific visa types. https://govt.chinadaily.com.cn/s/202204/01/WS62d8bbd1498ea2749279ef2b/guide-on-visa-extension-change-and-reissuance-for-foreigners.html
Commonly, people will hop over to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mongolia or South Korea depending on where they are in China and what's convenient/cheap and apply for a new visa at a China Visa Centre in that country.
Asking at an Entry Exit Bureau can't hurt if you wanna fully explore what your options are. It'll be a good part of your day gone, but could be informative. Of course this is also kinda putting the cart before the horse. If all you want is a bank account and it turns out you don't need the permit for that, then it's moot.
Edit: also please do report back because I'm super envious and wish you every success
At this point I'm just seeing where this will possibly go. But the more I see of China the more I feel I want to live here.
I remember paying someone on Aliexpress $5 to make an account on some Chinese-only videogame for me a while back. The one with Shrek and Naruto that was a League of Legends clone. I've thought about doing it again with Douyin but... meh.
Hexbears using VPN to get inside the anti-fascist firewall.
let_me_in.mp4
The one with Shrek and Naruto that was a League of Legends clone.
Does anything NOT incredible happen in China?
All they needed was my passport. I did this in Guiyang. Regardless, it was a massive relief now having one, owing to so many services requiring you to confirm with a mainland number.
Maybe having a two year L visa was also a requirement.
