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Q: Have you gotten used to the hard mattresses & lumpy pillows here?
I was surprised to find that Chinese people love rock hard mattresses (sometimes it's just a wooden plank with a blanket over it it seems) and pillows filled with some of kind of beans. The bed in my flat is also much harder than anything I've been used to but I have slowly grown accustomed to it. The lumpy pillows? Not so much.
I travel with my pillow!
I came to China from UK with US bought (goose) pillow. I replaced it last year with 'some animal down' stuffed bag from China. It is bigger and harder than my old goose down US.
I was looking for imported pillows in HK, but all prices seem too expensive. I paid some US$ 60 for very good quality pillow in US. Same quality pillow from Australia cost in HK more than HK$ 1500.
So, I'm pillowless at the moment.
JanShanghai:
ouch! My down-filled pillow is one of my most prized possessions. It comes with me even on vacations.
On the topic, my bed in China is the worst I've ever had. I can hear and feel the springs labouring as I move around. Good thing I'm a heavy sleeper.
I kind of like the hard bed, although last time I was back home, and slept in my old room at my parents, man that was comfortable. Anyhow, the pillows are useless to me. I have a "mermoryfoam" pillow (yup, it's a local brand, they failed to spell "memory" correct)
It is actually supposed to be good for the back to sleep on a hard surface. Looking at Chinese furniture construction, I think maybe also it is a consequence of a 5000 year tradition of making furniture of random pieces of garbage wood (we have a sofa that looks very western, except the colors I'd call it stylish, if you flip it and look inside, the frame is made of pieces of wood in different colors, randomly botched together)
i bought a soft pillow here but i still hate the mattress here, it is terrible. piece of wooden shit. Funny thing is they look very soft like 20cm heigh (the mattress) and i threw myself on the bed because i expected a soft mattress, almost broke my arm-.-
put alot of blanket on the mattress but still too hard
Other than at the nicer hotels, the beds here are horrible. I was going to buy one of the mattress pad toppers they have for sale at IKEA, but balked at the idea of shelling out $100 usd or more for the one I wanted. Ended up bringing back a 1.5" memory foam mattress pad from the US for about half the cost. It's made a night and day difference, sooooo much more comfortable now. 
I know your pain ,
The tiled floor is softer than our Bed
Soft mattresses don't give me the back support I need so I don't mind a hard mattress as long as it's not kitchen floor linoleum. Currently, I sleep on a hard mat and it's the best I think I've ever tossed and turned on.
As far as lumpy pillows go, I toss them on the floor. Nothing is worse for neck support than a pillow, lumpy or not. I used to use down-filled pillows until I read that down (and even synthetic-fill) pillows can induce all sorts of weird respiratory ailments or exacerbate or cause allergies that can ultimately affect your physical wellbeing.
Yeah. I'll take a hard mattress over a cheap and lumpy marshmallow mat, flip it every 6 months, "fumigate" it once a year for dust mites, and set it out in the sunshine when the sun shines for a day or two.
Now, what to do about the sheets...?
Red_Fox:
Afterthought: Come to think of it, one of the best damn mattresses I have ever slept on was an inflatable air mattress. I plumb forgot about that. The only problem - and it really isn't a problem - is that when the air temperature in the room goes down (or up), so does the temperature of the mattress. So you got to make sure the room is adequately cooled or heated, according to the season of the year and your personal preference for nighttime comfort.
Yeah, an air mattress. Fucking comfortable. But not so good for the inverse...
I have a theory about why there are so many people in China. The beds are so hard that when a couple goes to bed and the bed is so uncomfortable they can't sleep so they do other activities?
Rin:
I was thinking the opposite. Too uncomfortable to do other activities, so straight to sleep.
No, I purchased a memory foam mattress topper from sleep max in Shanghai online. Freakin great. Best 2200 RMB I have ever spent.
CharlieB:
I am not sure, but I don't see why not. I have had mine for 3 years now and it is fabulous. You can contact the slumber maax dealer in Shanghai and they could let you know.
I bought a pillow, synthetically filled, I won't use down filled. And bought a spring mattress in the market for 100 kuai. Still a little uncomfortable as it's a Chinese brand, but way better than the thing the school provided me when I first arrived... an inch thick bean filled terrible thing, almost broke my leg and arm on it dozens of times.. I complained and told them I wanted a spring mattress, they bought over another one inch thick bean filled thing to lay on top of the other......
And the bean filled pillows! What's with all the beans??
Totally used to them, but I'd go back to a soft, nest like mattress in a heartbeat. And the pillows - I use a combination of soft and lumpy. I've managed to make the lumpy pillow fit the shape of my head perfectly.
I actually managed to find a mattress with the perfect consistency in Beijing. Not too hard, not too soft, extremely comfortable. It's the best damned mattress I've ever laid my fat ass on. It's what you'd expect a soft, fluffy cartoon cloud to feel like.
I seriously missed my bed when I was in France.
Oh yeah, and the pillows suck in China. Always too hard/thick or too soft/thin.
