Beijing

Generally no visa is required for Japanese visitors staying 15 days or less. A visa is required to stay longer than 15 days or if traveling for special purposes. Note that the type of visa varies with the travel purpose. For tourism, obtain a thirty-day tourist visa (L visa).

Your passport should be valid for at least six months. It should also have at least two unused visa pages.

When visiting from Japan, it is prohibited to bring the following items into China.

These cards are on a single form, but are often found separated into halves.

The scope of tax exemption is up to the equivalent of 400 cigarettes of smoking tobacco and an external device worth up to 5,000 yuan.

There is a one-hour time difference between China and Japan (12:00 in Japan is 11:00 in Beijing). With Beijing time as the standard, different time zones are not established within the country. However, in the eastern and western ends of this large territory, calculation leads to a time difference of roughly 4 hours, and there are cases of an unofficial Xinjiang time (Beijing time -2 hours) being used in the Xinjiang-Uighyr Autonomous Region.
Daylight saving time is not observed in China.

Possessing land that is approximately 25 times the size of japan, Climates range from the Frigid Zone to the Tropics.Beijing is located in a Northern part of China, but it is not as cold as the northeastern and other parts and is comparatively more comfortable temperature-wise.

In China, although taxes (service tax, city maintenance and construction tax, etc.) may be charged when lodging at hotels (not uniform rates). Under the value-added tax (VAT) refund system, you can receive a refund on the VAT when leaving China for purchases of 500 yuan or more at designated stores if you complete the required procedure.

Tipping is generally not required as there is no custom for tipping in China.（When receiving assistance from a porter, tip about 10 yuan） Service charges are added onto lodging fees at many middle and high class hotels, and tipping is unnecessary in those cases.

When purchasing video software such as DVD, BD or VCD, take note of both the broadcasting system and the region code. The broadcasting system in Japan is NTSC and China is PAL. To play PAL in Japan, a PAL compatible VCR, video player and TV, or a video player that can convert PAL into NTSC is required (BD is compatible with both). The DVD region code for China is 6 and Japan is 2, and the BD code for China is C and Japan is A (does not apply to VHS and VCD). Although the code for the video software and video player must match in order to be played, it can still be played if either is all-region compatible.

The color of the postal service in China is dark green, so the mailboxes are in dark green, not red. For airmails to Japan, postcards are 5 yuan and sealed letters are 5 yuan (up to 20g) and above.

China's national holidays are a combination of the western calendar and the lunar calendar (Chinese calendar), and it should be noted that they include movable holidays that are observed on different dates each year. There are also national holidays and memorial days that fall on specific dates. Additionally, China is a multiethnic nation and there are unique festivals for each ethnic group that are not official holidays but many of which are very interesting to see.

The official language of China is Standard Chinese, a language that was created based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin which is spoken by China's most dominant majority ethnic group, the Han race. Different ethnic groups have their own official languages. Additionally, even Mandarin which is spoken by multiple ethnic groups is divided into the Northern dialect, Wu (around Shanghai), Min, Yue and Hakka dialects as a result of the large territory of China. Each of these dialects differs so greatly that speakers of differing dialects cannot converse with each other. English is often not understood on the streets.