(No Agent) Home Stay in Beijing

[wensente]

Hey friends,

I've searched google and this forum and found no (recent) topics about arranging a homestay without an agent that will rip you off and provide a miserable experience. I'd much much much prefer to find and communicate with a family directly and probably make the family richer/save money myself!

I'm looking for a 6-10 week stay in the summer in Beijing, (specifically as close to the DongCheng area as possible).

Unfortunately http://www.beijinghomestay.cn/ is down. I doubt any english language website can fulfill my intentions. Therefor I was hoping anybody here would have some experience finding a Chinese host family directly! Chinese roommates could also be swell. What would be a good chinese website I could post on? My Chinese isn't great but with the aid of a translator and time i can navigate my way around a 中文网站 (I had one suggestion of tianya(天涯), anybody know about this website?). Or if somebody did find a reasonable agent that provided a good experience, I would also like to hear about it.

I would really appreciate any help!

-vince

[AucklandLove]

The whole homestay concept in China does not seem to be that developed. I am staying with a Chinese homestay family at the moment and they are great, but that was organised by my school. I asked them how they decided to become a homestay family and they said it was some family connection to one of the school's staff. I am not sure if I wanted to stay with a family in China without having checked it previously myself (or someone else has). Not sure if that would be practicable, but what about staying in a hotel first and then looking around yourself once you are here?

[wensente]

A homestay isn't something I can arrange last minute. It's unfortunate it's so difficult.

There's definitely a website missing to arrange all this. Time to start learning code.

[skylee]

OP, you are not going to use wensente in China, are you? 文森特 does not sound / look very good IMHO. If you drop the "te" it would be much better. (Sorry about going off-topic.)

[wensente]

you are not going to use wensente in China, are you?

Why is that? It's Vincent Van Gogh's Wikipedia official name. I suppose i would indeed shorten it to just 文森 seeing that names are only two characters.

Some other friends have suggested: 文山， 文姜， 文胜. But i like literary forest the best.

[skylee]

Official name of Vincent Van Gogh? AFAIK he is usually referred to as 梵高.

文山 is also good.

[hibicc]

Hello we are going to come up with a website soon. www.homestay.org.cn

[wensente]

Just a personal update, I used http://www.workbeit.org/. As far as agents go, they're probably one of the best. I've had a good experience communicating with them, not too pricey, and have a lot of good experiences from other people.

I opted for an agent because the private match really wasnt working. I posted on some forums with no response. Furthermore, I posted on couchsurfing but didnt find what i was looking for. So at this point using an Agent is the most practical sollution for somebody with no 关系in beijing.

[roddy]

Have you actually started your homestay yet?

[wensente]

I have some matches. I need to choose which one is best suited for me. I will start July 1st.

[roddy]

Wensente, how was your homestay? Would be really useful for future homestayers to hear about your experiences. 

[wensente]

(good thing i get e-mailed when there is a thread reply)

it was a great experience!
I got lucky and picked a company that actually provides great service. Its BEiT. They're not too expensive. Give you several options. Will help you out if you need extra help. Check on you from time to time. Other than that they leave you alone, which is what i wanted. 

The family was fantastic, friendly, active, rich, everything you could want. This is of course a lot of luck. If you see this post and you're looking for a homestay in Beijing soon, PM/e-mail me! I can get you into contact with my family, they're looking for more english or german speaking people of all ages to stay with them and teach their kids.

Ask me any questions here and i'll be happy to respond!

-vince

[alexblg]

Hi Vince,

 

I tried to contact you by PM but I can't since I just registered. I am coming to Beijing in February and would really appreciate to hear about your experience there. Also, get some info about the family you stayed at.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Alex

[Garrett]

Hey Vince,

 

I am in the same situation as alexblg, I can't private pm you. I was hoping to hear more about your experience! A home stay seems like a great option and something I am looking into.

 

Excited to hear from you.

 

Garrett

[roddy]

Folks, if you have any specific questions post them here so everyone can see them and, if Vince logs back in and replies, the answers... If he wants to give you contact details we'll sort that out...

[JJohnny]

Deleted

[malomlus]

Hello, 

 

I'm looking for a homestay for the month of July 2017 in Beijing. I would prefer to teach English in exchange for staying with the host family so that way I don't pay for the homestay. Does anyone know of a good source or families in Beijing?