As a first-timer planning on visiting China the first 2 weeks in November, I have a couple of questions. Can packaged foods be brought in from the US? This would be granola bars, etc. for plane rides. Also, is personal safety an issue in Beijing or Shanghai? I have not seen anything posted regarding pickpockets or parts of town to avoid. Thank you!

karric, before visiting China I read that if you were to strike pickpockets anywhere it would be in and around train or bus stations. We just exercised normal caution, as you would in big cities anywhere, and never had a problem. Likewise, personal safety was not an issue. We walked all over the central areas of Beijing and Shanghai, day and night, and always felt perfectly safe. Chinese cities would rank low on any threat scale I can imagine and certainly lower than many American cities.

Bringing your own food supplies to China strikes me as a bit of a "coals to Newcastle" exercise, especially for plane trips of (typically) only 1-3 hours. On our flights at least (Shanghai-Beijing, Beijing-Dalian, Dalian-Shanghai) snacks were served, and if you're not happy with that you can always stock up at the airport shops. In addition, convenience stores are easily found in the cities and sell a good range of both Chinese and western-style snack foods. Be assured, you won't starve in China!

Yes, agree with Neil, China is one of your safest countries. Having said that though, you need to be a little careful as there are a lot of itinerants in the big cities, looking for work, and they might get a little desperate and try to steal from pocket or bag but nothing violent, just keep your hand over your bag or whatever in crowded areas or wear backpack at the front or side.

As to snacks, you can bring them in no problem. It is possible to buy foreign snacks but you have to go to a big supermarket and of course they are more expensive. The food on Chinese airlines is awful IMHO so go ahead. You can buy all kinds of nuts and dried fruit here and there is a great brand called Oishi who make yummy potato chips if that is your bag.

Maybe Neil could recommend other Chinese snacks, but if you're very health conscious you may want to be cautious.
Have fun.

We brought a box of granola bars to China (something we've never done before on a trip) and were pleased that we did. We found ourselves in situations where we didn't have time for lunch and the bars hit the spot.

As far as safety is concerned, we never felt unsafe anywhere we went.

Fenno, I must admit that I wasn't all that impressed with the snack food on Chinese domestic flights - but the worst case is you go without food for a whole 2-3 hours, and it's been scientifically proven that a healthy human can survive this level of privation Maybe I'm not the best person to give advice on this, though, as I mostly have a good breakfast and dinner and skip lunch.

Thank you so much for your responses. Now I have some idea of what to look forward to on China Air!

Just as an indication, a couple of mornings we planned to get an early start and didn't want to take too much time over breakfast. So the night before we went to the "Quik" convenience store around the corner and bought fruit juice, vacuum-packed smoked ham, crackers, yoghurt, instant coffee, sugar and milk, put it in the fridge and ate in our hotel room. We also bought some fruit from a street stall. Nothing was imported and everything was of at least acceptable quality. This wasn't in an area frequented by western tourists, either.

I've seen a few posters advise that this or that (e.g. toilet paper, cosmetics etc.) is hard to find in China. This is nonsense - I can only assume that they didn't try the neighbourhood shops.

Enjoy your trip!