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Q: Is the cost of living pretty even across all of China?
I live in Beijing, and some of my friends from Fujian say the cost of living (apart from rent, the big one) is actually more expensive in their hometowns than it is here. The cost of fruits, vegetables, even going to the restaurant is more expensive. They said it was hard for 3-4 people to pay under 800 RMB in a good restaurant.
I don't doubt them, but at the same time I wonder how that's even possible? Apart from rent, is the cost of living in the big cities not that different from that in other cities?
You live in Beijing, a 1st tier city like Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. I live on a 2 tier city, a provincial capital.
From where your friends are giving you the information I have no idea, but in my opinion, they are very wet.
I do have a 190 sq meters apartment, two stories, overlooking the local river, 5 minutes from downtown. This apartment will rent for 15,000 to 20,000 Rmb/month in Beijing, here I pay 3,000, and next August will drop to 2500.
If I need fruits and vegetables, I do go to an open market, cheaper and better than at a supermarket or Walmart. And if I do visit a nearby town or village, I do stock up on fruits and vegetables at even cheaper prices.
I can go to a Western Restaurant here in town, depending on which one I can pay from 68 to 300 Rmb for a sirloin steak dinner from New Zealand or Australia. A normal Chinese dinner on a normal restaurant will cost maybe 60 to 80 Rmb per person, including beers.
The only time I have paid 800 Rmb for a dinner it was to celebrate the birth date of the wife of a dear friend, but we were 16 persons eating.
I can have one hell of a good life here for 6,000 Rmb per month, dinning out 2 or 3 times per week, and with no monetary controls at all. Can you do that in Beijing ?
PS: I will give you one more to compare. The local equivalent of Boston type lettuce at my local open market is one Rmb per head roughly. Recently I went to a local nearby town, called Gua, and there at a stall I bought 6 of them for 2 Rmb. And for 8 huge tomatoes I paid 3 Rmb. Yes, they do sell by weight, but I recall the number of items and the cost, not the weight in jins.
I highly, highly doubt it is more expenve in the provinces than in Beijing. Maybe if they're trying to maintain the highest possible standard of living in a city less geared to it, it's possible?
I live in Urumqi, the apartment I live in rents for 1,600 per month and it is big, comfortable and central, albeit with a few quirks.
I suppose it is possible for three people to spend 800 at a restaurant if we actually set out to find the most expensive restraurant we possible could and then also drank a fair bit. But a meal at the most expensive western restaurant here will run you about 80, I've never paid more than about 35 per person for a Chinese meal, and that was a relative splurge for my birthday, with a fair bit of beer involved also. The cost of a nice plate of food is about 15 quai, a basic noodle soup is 7 quai.
Oh, transport here is 6 quai flagfall for a taxi and a flat rate of one quai for a bus.
No way, if you are around a well developed city, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Huangzhou, Tianjin, Dalian, prices are much higher, but you go away from these places and you will see a drastic difference
