Preparation and packing before you leave your hotel

Passport, and a way to pay

Bring the passport you travelled on. Registration for a visitor is built around it. A photograph of the data page on your phone is a useful spare, not a substitute. If someone else is paying, they need to be there or you need a card that works.

Hospital windows commonly take Chinese bank cards and, in many places, a major foreign card or a phone wallet. That is not guaranteed at every till. Carry some cash in yuan as a fallback. Our fee is not paid at that window. Theirs is. The two must not be mixed in your head or in your wallet.

Clothes that survive the room

For acupuncture you will uncover only what they need. A loose top beats a turtleneck. For tui na you stay clothed; soft trousers are kinder than tight denim because the work is done through fabric and you will be asked to bend. For cupping and gua sha the back or shoulders come out. A button shirt is easier than something that only comes off over the head.

Moxibustion leaves a smell on cloth. If you have dinner after the visit, a spare shirt in your bag is dull and useful. Gua sha uses oil. Do not wear the one thing you cannot wash in a hotel sink. Shoes that come off without a fight help; you will be in socks on a treatment table more than once.

Marks, photographs and the rest of your week

Cupping leaves circles. Gua sha leaves redness, sometimes in streaks. Both can last days. If you have a beach, a sleeveless event, or photographs you care about, say so on the form and again in the room. You can ask them to work where a shirt will cover, or to skip that part. That is a preference, not a negotiation we can promise they will meet — but it is much easier to have in English, out loud, before the cups go on.

Acupuncture can leave tiny dots. Tui na can leave the skin flushed. None of this is a secret we spring on you; it is why those therapies are described before you choose them. If a mark worries you afterwards, the written summary will say what the practitioner said about it, in English, so you are not guessing from a mirror.

How the hours actually go

Plan for about 2 hours per area you asked us to cover, including registration and waiting. Morning slots fill earlier. Afternoon slots run into the end of the outpatient day. We would rather you keep the rest of the calendar light than stack a Great Wall bus on the same morning.

Eat something ordinary before you come. You may be asked to wait after needles before you rush for a taxi. Bring water. Leave sharp political opinions and complicated medical theories at the hotel — the useful answers are the plain ones: where it is, when it started, what you already take.

Under 18, pregnancy, recent surgery, prescription medicine, or an ongoing condition managed at home: tell us on the form. None of those rules you out on its own. They change what we ask the hospital, and they are better in an email than as a surprise at the desk.

What we will send you once a time is set

The confirmed list is shorter and more specific than this page: which gate to use if the building has more than one, whether the desk wants a photocopy, and whether the hospital prefers cash at a particular window. We would rather you have that the night before than invent a general packing list that pretends every building is the same.

If you are coming from another city the same morning, tell us. A delayed train is a reason to move the slot, not a reason to run through registration out of breath. The companion can wait. The queue will not wait for you in any useful sense — it will simply have moved on.