We've visited four cities in China and each time we get a guide for the first day. Once, the hotel reservations clerk said he'd be delighted to be our guide. As it turned out, he was unavailable and one of the girls behind the desk filled in on her day off. In every case, the guide seemed to be a freelancer (usually licensed, sometimes not). Interestingly, the car & driver were the expensive part. The car was always of very high quality and the driver never spoke any English. We very much got the impression the car+driver were in some way government supplied.
In all cases the guides were excellent. Friendly, knowledgable, good English, lots of flexibility, and never walked us through their cousins tourist trap. And the car seemed to have the ability to magically materialize exactly where we needed it to.
I would strongly recommend a guide, car and driver because you can cover so much more territory. Either speak to your hotel, or check tripadvisor, or contact Miki Wei who runs a guiding business in Shanghai but can also recommend and arrange guides in Beijing. Expect to pay around A$200 for the lot. No need to tip your guide or driver, but do invite the guide (not driver) to join you for lunch. Take a small gift and decide on the day whether you want to part with it or not.
There are many wonderful signs in China, but here's one I enjoyed. It's at one of the GWOC sites, and shows the location of every "you are here" sign. Not wrong; just not helpful
