Many visitors in China pride themselves on their struggle to speak in Chinese - and rightly so. But on my recent visit I developed a little trick that helped me enormously. When I foresaw a need to communicate - shop, taxi, booking counter - I asked a friend to write my needs on a piece of paper in Mandarin. I simply showed my paper to the person concerned and I got just what I needed. It saved a lot of painful sign language.

Normally, when the 'little green man' is flashing at pedestrian crossings, it is safe to cross the road. But in parts of China this is not the case. Even when it is green for pedestrians, traffic turning from the right may pose a problem, because it also has green signal. Better to be alert, even on green.

Those who arrive in China from other countries often find to their dismay that their electrical appliances cannot be connected because of different plug systems. It is important to have a traveller's multi-plug in one's kit. It is also important to know the voltage compared with one's own country.