travel
If your interest in China involves guidebooks, lots of trains and regular sending of postcards, the best place for up-to-date information is the Lonely Planet's thorntree message board. It's populated by a range of travellers, ex-pats, foreign teachers and students, and just about any question will get an answer. It also maintains its own comprehensive list of links, including a link to this very site - so it must be good.Another useful source for the serious traveller is the Oriental List. This is a mailing list maintained by Peter Neville-Hadley, author of a book or two about China. It's strictly moderated, and any question that can be answered by looking in a guidebook, or isn't travel-related will be binned. I very rarely post to the list, but I do subscribe as the messages are often very interesting. Not the place to ask 'how do I get to Tibet?' or 'where is Beijing?'
Beijing
English language magazines aimed at ex-pats in Beijing have websites with a range of articles and bar, club and restaurant listings, along with classified ads for jobs, accomodation and language exchange. Have a look at Thats Beijing and City Weekend.Xianzai.com runs a number of different email newsletters, covering events, jobs, language, accommodation and more. They are aimed at the more highly-paid of us (of you), but still useful.
weblogs and diaries
Sinosplice.com has a comprehensive list of weblogs operating out of China. They're even colour-coded so you know which ones won't be accessible from China.I will recommend two weblog sites myself. The first is The Shanghai Diaries, a well-written and professional site run by an American writer living in Shanghai. The second is run by a young American woman teaching in a remote town in a remote province in a remote part of China, and can be found here
Another site well worth looking at is Chinaweblog.com, though it's more of a resource for Chinese politics and economics than a personal diary.
Of course, there's always my own here
Chinese language links
There are numerous 'we will teach you Chinese' sites on the internet. I've never used any of them, so I can't tell you which are any good. If you have used them, let me know. For a much more comprehensive set of links , try Marjorie Chan's Chinese links, which have been maintained for 7 years. The following are my recommendations.Clavis Sinica is a program designed to help learners of Chinese read Chinese text, and I used it when doing some of the translations on this site. Although the software is undeniable slow, it is actually a very powerful tool when you get used to it. There is a free downloadable demo version.
Zhongwen.com is a site built around an online dictionary, but also contains a wealth of useful information about learning Chinese and Chinese culture.