Some tips on Changing Rooms, Sealing Rooms, Visitors, Reception Desk, Cleaning/Room Service, Common Rooms, Kitchen, Laundry, and Dorm Phone. 

Changing Your Room:

To change your room, go to building 19 and inform them that you wish to change your room. They will need a legitimate reason for room change. Some sample reasons would be it's too noisy on your floor and you are losing rest affecting your studies, or there are people who smoke in the hallway, or something's wrong with your room, or you're having problems with your roommate/suitmate, and etc. When changing your room you can also politely request the vacant room of your choice. If they still give you trouble changing your room, you CAN close your room and open up a new one, but you will have to start all over with the Zijing Discount Rate chart.

Sealing Your Room:

During the major holidays, such as Chinese New Years Spring Break and etc, Zijing will offer a special "seal your room" service. This is useful if you will be away on vacation for more than 15 days or so. You will qualify for a cheaper rate per day (usually half price) for that duration. I think this is how they pass onto you the savings in electricity and water while you are away and not using your room. They will post up flyers in the dorms letting you know the deadline to seal your room by.

What you do is move everything that you are going to take with you out of your room, unplug all electric appliances. Also, I moved my mini-fridge into the shower so it wouldn't melt and leak all over my room, as many of my friends have experienced. Tell your reception desk you are sealing your room, they will have you sign a waiver. Then take your Student ID, Passport, and keys to Building 19. They will hold your keys, check to make sure you have enough balance, and etc. until the day you return.

Visitors:

Everyone is allowed to visit you, but no one is allowed to sleep over. Visitors are required to sign in at the Reception Desk and sign out when they leave. There has been a case in Building 21, Fall Semester of 2006, where a friend who visited, signed in, did not sign out, and the Receptionists came knocking on the door at nearly 3am in the morning. They then escorted this guest out with a security guard, and locked the door to the elevator so that anyone going into that building had to request them to open the door to get to the elevator. There have also been plenty of cases where student have been able to keep guests in their room overnight successfully. So it seems to be based on luck, how friendly you usually are with your receptionists and how careful your receptionists are.

For those who don't want to cramp their guests into their tiny dorms, you can open a hotel room inside Tsinghua with your student ID at an affordable rate for your guest. The hotel is located on the west side of campus, near the hospital. It is called Jinchun Park, located in area G2 on the Tsinghua Map. It is also conveniently located near where the campus shuttle drives by.

Reception Desk:

They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, tirelessy for your safety and service. They are generally friendly people to practice your Chinese with and can answer basic questions. Here follows their phone number:

Building 19 - 515 33508
Building 20 - 515 35019
Building 21 - 515 33548
Building 22 - 515 33545
Building 23 - 515 33553
Zijing Management in Building 19 - 515 35500 & 515 35501

Cleaning/Room Service:

The cleaning staff in Zijing Dormitory cleans student rooms 6 days a week and the common areas everyday, even on major holidays. Room service generally consists of restroom cleaning, floor dusting and mopping, dusting of windowsill and etc, trash removal, and making your bed Mon - Sat. One day a week, they will in addition change your bed sheets. They are also the ones who are responsible for inspecting your room when you checkout and/or seal your room. Each room has a "Do Not Disturb" sign that you can use if you don't wish for them to clean your room.

Common Rooms:

Each floor has a common room, located by the elevators. There are several different types depending on the floor. They usually consist of classroom type desks, sofas, or small round tables with chairs. The procedure to use these rooms are usually to go to the Reception Desk, check out the room, and they will go up with you to open it. When you are down, go back down and close the room, if there are others in the room after you, then notify them, so that you will not be responsible for stolen furniture. These rooms used to be more free and always open, but after several thefts of chairs, framed wall art (they are quite ugly, I wonder who would steal these), and etc, they have become more strict and are usually locked when not in use.

Kitchens:

At the end of the hallway, not sure which end, there are kitchens available on all the even floors for buildings 20, 21 and 22. For building 23 they are on floors 2, 5, 7, and 9. These kitchens are simply mid-sized rooms with a large sink, counter space and plenty of wall outlets. You'll need your own stove, utensils and etc.

Laundry:

Laundry machines are available on every floor of building 20, 21, and 22. Dryers are available on floors 4 and 7. Building 23's washing machines are on floors 2, 3, 6, and 7. These washing machines use magnetive sensitive keychain tokens. Go to building 19 office to purchase one of these. You will pay a small deposit, and pay a set fee for 10 washes. When you need to do laundry, make sure it's plugged in. Press the power button on the machine. Then swipe your magnetic keychain laundry token over the small circular marking on the washing machine. Water should start pouring out and you will see a number displayed indicating how many uses you have left on your token. Washing will be about 1 hour and the machine will beep when done. The machine also accepts fabric softener in the designated area.

Please note that they only provide cold water for washes and that the washing machine is very harsh on your clothes compared to what I was used to in the U.S. It is recommended to buy one of those white mesh washing bags and putting your delicates in there, rather than throwing it into the wash directly as there's a good chance it'll get chewed up pretty hard in there. Dryer's work similary with the same laundry token.

Laundry tokens are 10RMB for deposit each, then 30RMB for 10 washes. Recharge for 30RMB at Building 19. When you return your token you will receive 10RMB deposit back.

Tsinghua also provides laundry service such as pressing of clothes, dry cleaning, machine washing and hand washing. The ground floor of Building 18, out near the bicycle parking area by the reception desk. If you can't find it, just ask the receptionists there. One load of laundry for machine was is 5RMB, then another 5RMB to dry. When you drop off your clothes, you will also pay, then you will get a receipt with the pickup date and then just come back with your receipt on the pickup date to retrieve your cleaned items.

Laundry Service Business Hours:  9am - 10:30pm everyday except Tuesdays which is 1:30pm to 10:30pm.

If you don't see the Laundry Service person there, or the door locked during Business Hours, she may be in the restroom. Check with the receptionist. 

Dorm Phone:

The telephone provided in each room has it's own number. Check the display to see what your phone number is. It should be 8 digits. For people who are off campus, they must use the full 8 digits to call you. For people on-campus they can simply dial the last 5 digits of your number. This includes most all campus phone numbers, not just the dorms.  The phone by itself can only make on-campus, 5 digit calls.

To make off-campus calls, and/or long-distance calls (cheaper than on cell phone), go to Building 19 to buy a Tietong phone card. You can also purchase these phone cards in the Tietong shop in the Student Center where the classroom are located. You will pay a fee for your Tietong card, then you will need to buy a recharge card to charge it, similar to how cell phone SIM cards work here.

So go home with your two cards and plug your Tietong card into your dorm phone. Lift the handset and press the button on your phone that says recharge in Chinese, the characters look like: 充值。Make sure you have the passcode on your recharge card scratched off already, then punch in that code according to the prompt. If you need help, have the Tietong salesman recharge it for you with their phone, or ask your receptionist for help.

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Moto Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 22-01-2011 03:46 You topic read? Report

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