Connecting a Chinese TL-WR702N TP-Link Router

The Bank card is just there to show the size. It's not that expensive....

After installing XBMC media centre on my Pi it was obvious it also needed access to my wireless network. I already bought an USB wireless dongle but it probably was the wrong type since I could not get it to work. So I guessed it would be easier to connect it to simple wireless router or bridge. Just some device with a standard Ethernet connection that would connect to my router and just pass the data on.
The cheapest option seemed to be the TL-WR702N nano router at DealExtreme. At only US$18,- this is an absolute bargain. The description mentions it comes with a Chinese user manual but an English version can be found online so what could go wrong?

Well, more than expected.
Following the instructions in the English manual does not let me connect to the router at all. The LED blinks when connecting the LAN cable but no communication seems possible.
The instructions tell you to set your PC to a fixed IP address of 192.168.0.1, Subnet Mask of 255.255.255.0, and Gateway to 192.168.0.254. It should then be possible to ping 192.168.0.254 but that does not work at all.
By monitoring the ethernet interface on my PC using WireShark I noticed that there is actually some communication but it is showing 192.168.1.253 as the source.
And indeed setting the IP address on my PC to 192.168.1.10, the subnet mask to  255.255.255.0 and the default gateway to 192.168.1.253 solves the connection problem. It can now be reached using 'ping' so the next step is to point the browser to 192.168.1.253 . The username admin and password admin brings up the routers homepage...in Chinese....:

All Chinese...But I added the translations

 

Fortunately it is pretty simple basic HTML page so you can copy and paste the Chinese texts into Google translate which reveals the texts as shown in the image above. And from there it is not too hard to recognize the menu's as they are in the English manual.
This is the operating-mode select window:

And this is the DHCP selection window:

Now it's not immediately clear what is the right mode to use. I would expect 'Client' would be the best choice, but both 'Repeater' and 'Bridge' modes also offer the LAN option on the Ethernet port so they will work as well. Probably 'Repeater' is not such a good choice since this will also try to repeat data from other wireless devices which could slow down the datastream to the Pi.
Here are the three steps you need to set up client mode:
From the main window click the 'Setup Wizard' (second item from the top):

Select 'Client' and click the continue button. Next is the 'Client mode setup' . The easiest way to select your local network is to click the 'Scan network' button. This will bring up a list of available wireless networks from which you can select the right one. This will then automatically set the SSID and MAC address.

The Chinese version

The English version (from the manual)

 Now you can select the security mode from the first drop-down box. If you select WPA2 you can enter the password for your network in the lower text-box.
Click the continue button, and the router will reboot in client mode.