a forum · 论坛
China,
explained
for foreigners
Guides to visas, address registration, money, housing, healthcare and getting around — built from official government sources, each one dated and linked back to where it came from.
Read in your language
What is covered
Topics
- Visas & Entry 38
- Arrival Admin 35
- Money & Banking 35
- SIM & Connectivity 18
- Housing & Costs 49
- Work & Study 41
- Healthcare 41
- Getting Around 37
What “ALunTan” means
LunTan (论坛) is Chinese for forum — a place where people ask and answer. The a in front makes it a forum: one place to get a straight answer about how things actually work here.
Why another China guide
Most English-language advice about living in China is second-hand, undated, and copied from a forum post written years ago. Rules here change often — visa-free transit alone was rewritten twice in two years — and stale guidance costs people money, appointments, and sometimes their legal status.
Every page carries a verification date and links to the official source it came from, so you can check it yourself. Where a fact could not be verified against an official listing, it is left out rather than padded in. That is why some cities list seventeen offices and others list one.
Who writes it
Guides are written by Fang Qinghua (房庆华), certified community grid worker (社区网格员). That is a grassroots Chinese community role responsible for local population registration and resident records — the same offices and procedures foreign residents deal with when registering an address.