Guides visits, relocation, work, and daily life in Beijing: attractions, neighborhoods, rent, visas, transport, food, and the local app ecosystem. Use when planning a Beijing trip, itinerary, or Great Wall day, choosing where to stay or live, renting an apartment, setting up WeChat Pay, Alipay, a SIM, banking, or a VPN before arrival, when apps stop working behind the Firewall or AQI wrecks outdoor plans, getting a Z visa or work permit, comparing tech salaries, teaching English, filing expat income tax, launching a WFOE or startup, picking schools or hospitals, having a baby, learning Mandarin, or wrapping up and leaving China. Not for the rest of China — pair with the china skill for other cities.
Guides visits, relocation, work, and daily life in Beijing: attractions, neighborhoods, rent, visas, transport, food, and the local app ecosystem. Use when planning a Beijing trip, itinerary, or Great Wall day, choosing where to stay or live, renting an apartment, setting up WeChat Pay, Alipay, a SIM, banking, or a VPN before arrival, when apps stop working behind the Firewall or AQI wrecks outdoor plans, getting a Z visa or work permit, comparing tech salaries, teaching English, filing expat income tax, launching a WFOE or startup, picking schools or hospitals, having a baby, learning Mandarin, or wrapping up and leaving China. Not for the rest of China — pair with the china skill for other cities.
User preferences and memory live in ~/Clawic/data/beijing/ (see setup.md on first use, memory-template.md for the file format). If you have data at an old location (~/beijing/ or ~/clawic/beijing/), move it to ~/Clawic/data/beijing/, and say in one line that you moved it and from where.
Configuration
User-dependent variables. Defaults apply until the user states a preference; store them in ~/Clawic/data/beijing/config.yaml.
Long-arc residency: expat taxes, having a baby, learning Mandarin, exiting China cleanly
Not for other Chinese cities: payment/app setup transfers to Shanghai or Shenzhen; neighborhood, rent, and hukou specifics do not — route to the china skill.
Quick Reference
Topic
File
Visitors
Attractions (must-see vs skip)
visitor-attractions.md
Itineraries (1/3/7 days)
visitor-itineraries.md
Where to stay
visitor-lodging.md
Tips & day trips
visitor-tips.md
Neighborhoods
Quick comparison
neighborhoods-index.md
Chaoyang, CBD, Sanlitun
neighborhoods-downtown.md
Haidian, Zhongguancun
neighborhoods-tech.md
Dongcheng, Xicheng (Historic)
neighborhoods-historic.md
Shunyi, Changping, Tongzhou
neighborhoods-suburban.md
Choosing guide
neighborhoods-choosing.md
Food
Overview & dining scene
food-overview.md
Beijing & Northern Chinese
food-local.md
International & fine dining
food-international.md
Best areas for dining
food-areas.md
Dietary, alcohol, practicalities
food-practical.md
Practical
Moving & settling
resident.md
Leaving China (exit checklist, pension refund)
leaving.md
Transport (subway, DiDi, bikes)
transport.md
Cost of living
cost.md
Safety & laws
safety.md
Weather & AQI tips
climate.md
Local services (banking, SIM)
local.md
Career
Tech industry & salaries
tech.md
Jobs beyond tech (teaching, labor law)
jobs.md
Expat income tax (IIT, six-year rule)
taxes.md
Business setup & WFOE
business.md
Visas (Z, X, M, residence permit)
visas.md
Startups & funding
startup.md
Lifestyle
Culture & customs
culture.md
Healthcare & insurance
healthcare.md
Schools & education
education.md
Kids, ayi, having a baby
family.md
Learning Mandarin
mandarin.md
Expat lifestyle & social
lifestyle.md
Driving & car ownership
driving.md
Anything else / unclear
Ask role + timeline first, then load the closest file above
Core Rules
1. Route by Role AND Timeline
Same question, different file: "where should I stay" → visitor-lodging.md for a week, neighborhoods-choosing.md for a move. Ask which before answering (skip the question when role is set in config or obvious from context). If the user is already inside China without a VPN, only suggest solutions that work behind the Firewall — app-store links, Google Docs, and gmail-verification flows are dead ends.
2. Pre-Arrival Sequence (order matters, each step gates the next)
Install and TEST a VPN — cannot be downloaded once inside China.
Set up WeChat + Alipay, verify with passport; link Visa/Mastercard (supported since 2023). Alipay "Tour Pass" alternative: load from foreign card, 90-day validity, ¥10,000 cap.
Save every address (hotel, meetings) as Chinese characters — drivers cannot read pinyin.
Book Forbidden City ~10 days ahead; it sells out.
If they arrive with only step 0 done, triage in this order — payment before maps. Details: visitor-tips.md, local.md.
3. Payments: Mobile-First, Cash-Last
Set up BOTH WeChat Pay and Alipay — vendor coverage differs and some merchants take only one. Carry ¥500-1,000 cash as backup: legal tender, but small vendors often cannot make change. Foreign cards work only at international hotels and malls. A dead phone = no payment, no DiDi, no ticket: a power bank is financial equipment here.
4. Language Baseline
Assume zero English outside international hotels and Sanlitun: taxi drivers, government offices, hospitals (non-VIP), and most restaurants operate Chinese-only. Default toolkit: Amap or DiDi in English mode + camera translation + addresses saved in characters. Survival phrases and Beijing-accent notes: culture.md.
5. Current Data (Feb 2026)
Canonical detail lives in the aux files; this table is the summary. When quoting, state the date — rents and salaries drift.
Item
Range
Canonical file
1BR rent, CBD/Guomao
¥10,000-18,000/mo
neighborhoods-index.md
1BR rent, Sanlitun
¥9,000-15,000/mo
neighborhoods-index.md
1BR rent, Zhongguancun
¥6,000-10,000/mo
neighborhoods-index.md
Senior SWE (5-8 yrs)
¥50,000-80,000/mo
tech.md
Subway single ride
¥3-10 (distance-based)
transport.md
Taxi flagfall
¥13
visitor-tips.md
Hotpot dinner for two
¥150-300
food-overview.md
International school
¥200,000-350,000/yr (bilingual from ¥100,000)
education.md
IIT effective rate at ¥720,000/yr gross
≈18% (worked example)
taxes.md
6. Registration Is a Hard Deadline
All foreigners register with the local PSB within 24 hours of arrival. Hotels do it automatically; private residences and many Airbnb hosts do NOT — then it is on you. Re-register within 24 hours after every address change and after each visa renewal. Skipping it surfaces later at visa renewal: fines, delays, possible deportation. See visas.md, safety.md.
7. Transport Default: Subway + DiDi
Subway for anything near a line (¥3-10, English signage, add 3-5 min at each entry for X-ray security); DiDi for the rest. Flagging street taxis rarely works — drivers take jobs via DiDi. Worked example, Great Wall day: DiDi to Mutianyu ≈ ¥300 round trip split among passengers vs ¥200-300/person on a tour — a group of 3+ should DiDi. Driving is a trap: license plates are allocated by lottery with years-long odds (driving.md).
8. Weather and AQI Gate the Plan
AQI >150 → mask outdoors; >200 → move the day's plan indoors (museums, malls, hotpot), N95 if you must go out. Check daily; canonical thresholds in visitor-tips.md.
Bad-air season = winter heating season (mid-Nov to mid-Mar). Best months: Sep-Oct.
Never plan around Oct 1-7 (Golden Week) or Chinese New Year: peak crowds, closures, surge prices.
Winter -10°C, summer 35°C+: itineraries need seasonal restructuring, not just packing changes (climate.md).
9. Neighborhood Matching
Profile
Best areas
Why
Young professionals
Sanlitun, CBD, Guomao
Nightlife, expat scene, walkable
Expat families
Shunyi, Chaoyang Park area
International schools, space; Shunyi = car required
Tech workers
Zhongguancun, Wudaokou, Haidian
Commute to tech campuses
Students
Wudaokou
PKU/Tsinghua, cheap, Korean food
Budget-conscious
Tongzhou, Changping
Half the rent, 40-60 min commute
History/culture
Dongcheng, Xicheng hutongs
Character; check heating/plumbing before signing
Default (unsure, mid budget)
Dongzhimen/Sanyuanqiao
Central, Airport Express, moderate rent
Hukou & Work Permit Context
Hukou (户口) is household registration for Chinese citizens; Beijing hukou is among the hardest to obtain and gates local schooling and property. Foreigners are outside the hukou system — their equivalent gate is the work permit tier.
Work permit tiers: A (top talent — points score 85+, or qualifying achievement), B (professional — degree + 2 yrs experience typical), C (temporary/intern). Tier determines renewal ease and family visas. Points come from salary, education, experience, HSK level: visas.md.
Practical consequence: a B-tier offer letter with salary near the bottom of market range weakens renewals — negotiate salary partly as an immigration asset.
Output Gates
Before answering, check:
Did I identify role (tourist/resident/worker/student/founder) and timeline?
Are my numbers from the canonical file, quoted with their date?
Does my advice work behind the Firewall if the user is already in China?
Did I flag the 24h registration whenever the user mentions arriving or moving?
Did I apply config.yaml values (dietary, budget_tier, aqi_alert, home_currency) instead of the defaults they override?
Traps
Trap
Why it fails
Do instead
Arriving without VPN
Cannot download one inside China; cut off from Google/WhatsApp day 1
Install + test before boarding
Only one payment app
Some vendors take WeChat only, others Alipay only
Set up both, link cards to both
Skipping PSB registration
Surfaces at visa renewal as fines/delays
Register within 24h; confirm your landlord/host actually did it
Relying on street taxis
Drivers take DiDi jobs; empty cabs pass you by
DiDi app in English mode
Buying a car
Plates by lottery, years of waiting; unrestricted driving impossible
Subway + DiDi; plate math in driving.md
Underestimating AQI
200+ days cluster in winter; no mask = sick, plans ruined
N95s in bag, purifier at home, indoor backup plans
Treating cash as primary
Vendors can't make change; queues form behind you
Cash is backup only (¥500-1,000)
Booking Badaling
Most crowded Wall section; 2h+ cable queues on holidays
