Packaged food question and more

As a first-timer planning on visiting China the first 2 weeks in December, I have a couple of questions. Can packaged foods be brought in from the US? This would be granola bars, etc. for plane rides. Also, is personal safety an issue in Beijing or Shanghai? I have not seen anything posted regarding it. Thank you!

Bringing your own food supplies to China strikes me. Are you only planning for the flight trips or for China travel. If you're not happy with food onboard that you can always stock up. In addition, when getting around China, you will find convenience stores are easily found in the cities and sell a good range of both Chinese and western-style snack foods. Supermarket can be seen everywhere. Before visiting ChinaWe just exercised normal caution, as you would in big cities anywhere, and never had a problem. Likewise, personal safety was not an issue. We walked all over the central areas of Beijing and Shanghai, day and night, and always felt perfectly safe. Chinese cities would rank low on any threat scale I can imagine and certainly lower than many American cities.

Hi, I agree. China is one of the safest country in the world.  You need to be little careful about your self-belongs. But you don't have to worry about your personal safety when traveling in big cities. There are theaves try to steal from your pockets, especially at bus station and train station.  Keep your hands on your bags or hang your back bags in front is better when at crowds.   It is not so terrible like bombing or othter things. 

See the post in this forum, beware of the pickpockets

I felt safe there, safer than at home, particularly at night. In fact, I often walked home to my apartment quite late at night, on my own, and never felt even faintly threatened. I agree that there's always a risk of pickpockets in crowded areas, and the little day backpacks are not smart - I noticed the local Chinese girls always had their handbags slung diagonally and clamped tight under their arm or in front of them. Food -- the supermarkets tend to be in the basements of the department stores, if you hanker after western food, and there's always alot of corner shops/street stalls with packaged biscuits etc. which are cheap and good.