1．What Is Chinese Homestay?
Chinese Homestay is a safe and affordable housing for international students, interns, travelers, and visiting professionals who want to come to China. For international students, it is an opportunity to live in a friendly home with a Chinese family, experience the Chinese lifestyle and culture up close, and practice your Chinese language skills. For International interns, travelers and visiting professionals, it also is a convenient and economical temporary housing solution. Homestay is an especially attractive form of accommodation for stays that range from a few weeks to several months.

2．Is Homestay available all year round?
Yes! Anytime of the year is a good time.

3．How much money should I bring?
Generally speaking, China is a very inexpensive place to stay. For example, campus cafeterias offer a single dish meal with rice for as little as 6 RMB (no more than 1$). Local Chinese restaurants offer meals for about 10 - 15 RMB (no more than 2$). If you are living with a rent-free host family, your actual expenses are nearly nothing except for entertainment and transportation. So we do not encourage you to take a large sum of cash or travelers checks from your own country unless you want to buy lots of personal items during your staying in China. Participants enrolled in longer courses may wish to open a Chinese bank account and transfer funds from their home country.

4．Can I get a part time teaching job while doing a homestay?
Yes, every city in China is in need of qualified English or other languages teachers, particularly in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Gunagzhou. The minimum hourly pay of language tutoring is 80RMB (10$), the average pay per hour 120 RMB (15$), some up to 250RMB (30$) per hour, based on your teaching experience and qualifications. So if you are interested in teaching, we are always willing to offer you full or part time job placement, please e-mail us your resume and one of your recent pictures.

5．What kind of visa do I need to do a homestay in China?
A tourist VISA from the Chinese embassy in your country. You can e-mail us for details. If you come for more than 3 months and you plan to do some part time teaching jobs, we will take care of changing your visa from tourist to business.

6．Is it safe to do a homestay with us?
Yes. Staying in Beijing, the capital city of China, you will be far away from the various crimes and enjoy the safety city life. In addition, all the host families are reviewed and screened by our Home stay Coordinator to ensure you a relaxed, comfortable family atmosphere.

7．What will I do if I don’t enjoy my host family?
The Homestay Coordinator will do the best to match you with a suitable Chinese family. However, sometimes personality conflicts cannot be avoided. You must understand living in an entirely different new country, you have to deal with an entirely different new culture, you are asked to make every effort to adjust to Chinese culture, including food, customs and daily life routines etc, but are encouraged to speak to the Homestay Coordinator if problems arise.

If the problems persist and cannot be resolved, the Coordinator will act in an unbiased manner to find you another suitable free placement. But if you still can't get along with the new family and want to move on, you have to pay for the same sum of placement fee as you initially paid.

However, this seldom happens in the past. On the contrary, most foreign guests and Chinese host families get along quite well and even make life-long friendships.

8．What is the communication language at my host family?
It depends. If you apply for a homestay for the purpose of practicing Chinese language, your Chinese host has the responsible to help you practice Chinese. You have to be asked to speak Chinese when you are with your Chinese host. But do not worry, as almost all Chinese can speak a bit of English. If you can not understand what they are saying in Chinese, ask them to explain it in English.

If you apply for a free homestay, which means, you are rent free for your entire stay in the host family. You are asked to give the family member one hour private language tutorials per day in return for their meal and lodge. The rest of the time you can speak Mandarin. Many families will be happy to tutor you Chinese and help you to improve your conversation skills.

9．Can I get assistance and help from my host family?
Absolutely! Your host family will be happy to provide all the necessary info and first hand help during your stay.

10．Will I have my own room?
Yes. Every Chinese host family has one private room for you to live.

11．What items will be in my room?
Your room is fully furnished with a bed, desk, lamp, wardrobe (or closet) and air-conditioning.

12．May I smoke in the house?
Yes, but only with the permission of the host family. Some host families will ask that you smoke in the balcony or outside the unit.

13．May I make my own food?
Yes. Of course! Although China is famous for its variety of delicious foods, you can easily get the western food in the Chinese supermarket near your host family and cook by yourself.

14. I am a vegetarian, is that a problem?
Don't worry. Please specify this with your application and we can arrange either a vegetarian family or a vegetarian friendly family for you.

15. Can I use the host family's telephone?
We suggest that you use your own phone in your room. Most of Chinese host families will provide you with private telephone in the room you live. If not, you can ask your host to register for one at a cost of around RMB 200 (about US $25). It’s very cheap to make a local call while long distance calls should be made using a calling card.

16. Can I get access to the Internet?
Most host families are using ADSL to get access to the Interest, it takes 120RMB (15$) per month. Generally speaking, the friendly Chinese families will not charge you for your use of Internet.

17. Can I do laundry in the Homestay?
Yes. Of course.

18. Will I be able to watch television?
Yes. All the living facilities in the public area of unit will be available to you.

19. Can I have guests come to the homestay?
Chinese people are very friendly toward international visitors. They will be very happy to get to know your friends. But you had better give your host family a notice in advance.

20. Can I join the family's activities?
Yes, of course. The hosts are willing to treat you as a family member and welcome you to join their activities.