Buying away. Bring a big group to bargain for things, including cell phones (which you want, believe me...and if you get a nicer one it and you have a GSM network at home like Cingular, you can probably use it at home.) Make sure they set up for phone for you at the shop, though. I bought a nokia that can interface w/ Outlook and most importantly, has a keypad that flips down to allow me to write Chinese characters, a feature I strongly recommend. For the phone, 100 yuan of slowly disbursed calling time, a Chinamobile simcard it all cost me 950 kuai (note, cheap less-featured phones can be bought without the sim card at guomei for 450 kuai. If you get a GSM phone, though, don't buy their China Unicom sim card, come here and buy a China Mobile (zhong guo yi dong) sim card. If you want CDMA (worse reception but free incoming calls), you'll need to get a China Unicom phone, probably at guomei.
EAP China! Robert Klein