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Here are important phone numbers you need to be aware of in Shanghai.
Police - 110
Although Shanghai is rated as the safest city in China (according to sina.com), you still need to be aware which number to call during emergency. I call this number once every two months. :-D When I see any emergency on the street, no matter whether I am involved, I just pickup the phone and call them. The last time, I got spam advertisement SMS to sell fake certificates to me (they claimed they can create all kinds of certificate and document, including marriage certificate, national ID, graduation cerficate... anything you can imagine). 110 was happy to get my report and I suppose they will call the number in the SMS.
Fire - 119
I never dialed 119 since I have never failed to put off fires I made in my kitchen. :-D. I have called 119 in Beijing once by mistake. It was a funny story. Someone sent me a SMS from number 10119. I called back but the number was invalid. I thought, "maybe it is a phone number out of Shanghai". As the dialling rule specified, I tried to add a 0 in front of the number and dialed again. 0 - 1 - 0 - 1 - 1 - 9 -------. Then someone answered the phone "Hello. How can I help you?". I realized I have called the 119 in Beijing. Now I understand that 10119 means a SMS from a SP with ID 1011.
Hospital - 120
Never called, and hope don't need to call this number. Why there is no single number like 911 for 110, 120, or 119? It is rare that people need to call 119, but don't need 120.
Internet Service - 16300
No matter where you are, 16300 is the number to help you connected to Internet. Create a dial-up network and loging with user name: 16300 and password: 16300. You are just 10 seconds away from Internet. The fee will be included in your (or the telephone owner's) telephone bill. After struggling to install brandband and wireless, I finally returned to the 16300 Internet age in my home.
Consumer Complain - 12315
Are you a tough customer? If you are, dial this number when you feel angry about any product or service to complain. It (sometimes) works.
Legal Consultants - 12348
Having questions about law? Dial this number. China is changing its style. People like to go to court to settle things down. It helps me to learn my rights before I talk to a manufacture or service provider.
Transportation - 96900
For all your transportation questions, dial this number about how to go from one point to the other in the city - by driving, bus, metro... It is useful. The last time I called this service is the day before yesterday, when I was in bad need of a gasoline station.
Yellow Page - 114
Ops. 114 is the number I dial before I dial the other number for most of time. :-D Just kidding, but they are very helpful to get a phone number by a name.
All these numbers are obvious to local residents, but as Shanghai Slim commented:
WJS, great work! Thanks also for the consumer hotline phone number! This kind of information is difficult for "foreigners" to find.
Posted by Jian Shuo Wang at June 18, 2004 11:14 PM
Copyright: You are free to redistribute this work, as long as you keep this disclaimer
and this link: http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20040618_frequently_used_phone_numbers_in_shanghai.htm
Foreigners all over Shanghai are throwing their hats in the air, cheering and shouting "Thank you Wang Jianshuo!" :-D
Posted by: Shanghai Slim on June 20, 2004 5:49 AMThanks for the info, there's been so many times that me and my wife have been so frustrated but unsure what we can do. Now we know how to get more information. It's too bad customer service isn't that well developed in China yet.
Posted by: Gene on June 28, 2004 4:09 PMplease tell me what is this number in shanghai 00 86 21 19086201
Posted by: vijay on August 2, 2005 12:30 PMHow can I find my old friends in shanghai?
The city has changed so fast, is there a phone directory?
Great information.
Which of these services offer help in english?
George747
Dear friends,
I'm from Brazil, my English isn't good and i'm looking for the Best Buy phone number or Best buy website in china. I'm going to Shanghai on the end of this month and i'm thinking in buy a laptop there, because i have an American Best Buy Gift Card with same credit, them i need to know if they accept it and how much is a Sony Vaio 2G - 250, 14.1".
Please, could you help me to find their phone number...Thanks a lot. Ricardo