Who This Helps

  • Travelers who need emergency Chinese phrases in mainland China.
  • Visitors preparing for police, ambulance, fire, traffic accident, medical, or passport-loss situations.
  • Travelers who need offline cards that are short enough to show quickly.

Before You Start

  • Save emergency numbers and embassy or consulate contacts offline.
  • Prepare one card each for police, ambulance, fire, traffic accident, passport loss, allergy, and hotel help.
  • Keep cards short enough for a stranger or staff member to understand immediately.
  • Include your hotel name, address, room number, and emergency contact.
  • For medical emergencies, show symptoms, allergies, medications, and insurance details.
  • For passport loss or police matters, keep a passport scan but expect the original or police report to matter.
  • After the immediate danger, document names, locations, reports, receipts, and contact numbers.

Common Failure Cases

  • You show a long translated paragraph during an emergency. Use a short card: “I am a foreign traveler. Please call 120. I need medical help. This is my location.”
  • You lose your passport. Ask hotel staff to help contact police, then contact your embassy or consulate with your passport scan and travel details.
  • You are unsure which number to call. Use 110 for police, 120 for ambulance, 119 for fire, and 122 for traffic accident; ask hotel or nearby staff to call if language is a barrier.

Source cross-check

This answer was checked against State Council: 12345 hotline coordination with 110, 119, 120 and 122 and International Services Shanghai: What to do in an emergency. A third source, NIA: China Immigration Service Hotline and English website, was used where the answer depends on implementation detail or traveler-facing handling. Additional support from U.S. Embassy & Consulates in China: Emergency contacts was kept when official rules and platform execution need to be separated. Where sources use different scope or dates, the guide follows the current official or most directly authoritative source and keeps platform or traveler-facing material as implementation context only.

FAQ

What are the main emergency numbers?
110 police, 120 ambulance or medical emergency, 119 fire, and 122 traffic accident.
Should phrase cards be bilingual?
Yes, but the Chinese text should be short and direct so nearby staff can act quickly.
Is 12367 an emergency number?
No. It is the NIA immigration service hotline for immigration-related consultation and services, not a replacement for police, fire, or ambulance emergency calls.