Job Discussion Forums

[coolrcdad]

With so many choices in such a large country, I'd appreciate feedback from experienced teach-in-China members about the cities they are working in or have worked in. Pros and cons would be great, such as the availability of a true China experience versus over Westernization, cultural and social things to see and do, climate, countryside, etc. Thanks.

[amandabarrick]

Living in Nanjing has many benefits. Because it is the historical capital, there is a lot of history here and the Nanjing Musuem, Dr. Sun-yet-sun mosoleum, The World War II monument, and many other sites are great. In addition, Nanjing was the traditional center for education and there are many many schools and Universities to find teaching jobs. It is a large enough city to have plenty of social activities to do, and because it is not as westernized as Shanghai or Beijing, one can truely experience China. Few people speak English, and they are very friendly and hospitable. However with new construction and as this city becomes more and more developed, skyscrapers and commercial buildings are ever more present, taking away from the once traditional and cultural feel. The climate is extremely hot in the summer, Nanjing is known as one of the 'ovens' of China. The winter is very cold and wet, but doesn't experience any snowfall.
Westerners in Nanjing can also find several western products, which smaller and less developed cities lack. It is also strategically situated near the Yangtze (changjiang) river, and is only a few hours from Suzhou and Shanghai. It also borders anhui province, and one can take a bus trip to yellow mountain (huangshan), a scenic destination.
What is lacking is a reliable public transit system, such as a subway or light rail. The countryside is limited, and if you want a more small town rural experience this is not the place. Modern construction has taken over and few traditional Chinese architecture is left. Suzhou is much better for that. If you want a more rural experience, western China would be optimal. You don't get much more countryside than western China.
Hope this helps.
AB

[coolrcdad]

Thanks Amanda. This is just the kind of info I am looking for.

[Newbs]

Hangzhou is pretty good. Apart from the much lauded and, I believe, overated lake, there are great gardens and a good range of hills just to the west, with trails. Pollution, by Chinese standards, is not bad.

Also western cuisine on offer, and places you can get coffee and most other items which can be hard to find at times in China.

Shanghai is just a bit over 2 hours away by train if you want the really bright city lights.

[Roger]

Wipe all the big names of places off your list as potentially rewarding experiences - in big cities you simply survive, and do little else. It is a frenetic and unmitigated life faithfully imitating western consumerism and stretching it to the most painful extent.

Chinese culture is on the way out, not so much because of modernism as such but because of party diktats that were handed down in the 1950s and 1960s.

Anyway, here is my tentative list of cities that I would recommend either for their generally congenial hospitality or for their benign climate:

Kunming, Yunnan: Climate excellent, but rotten social structure and a lot of underhandedness; job scarcity;
this applies to the whole of the province although you are unlikely to get any job offers anywhere else.

Guizhou province:
Balmy climate though very polluted due to the barrier mountains that shield this province against the interior and trap the pollutants from the coast and from local sources. Poor, with lots of non-Chinese tribes, very scenic spots and local culture. Main city: Guiyang. Unexpectedly many FTs there, but none outside.

Guangxi Autonomous Region:
Hot in summer, cold in winter (hot meaning 35 to 40 degrees, and very humid!); nominally a non-Han area though the nominal tribe of this "province" are Chinese speakers of the ZHuang minority that are forgetting they are a distinct ethnic group. Few jobs in the beautiful places, more jobs in less-than-attractive Guilin and Nanning. Alternative: Beihai on the South China Sea. Interesting though small town.

Guangdong province:
China's economic powerhouse, especially the Pearl RIver Delta with its 20'000 sq km land mass and a population of nearly 40 million. The most polluted urban jungle stretching from Hong Kong all the way to Guangzhou, and back to Macau. Take your pick of Zhongshan, Shunde, Foshan, Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou, - all overpopulated, though rapidly modernising and westernising, with the most job offers in China.

Farther inland lies ZHAOQING - apart from SHANTOU in the EAST, the only town I would recommend for the experience of a mildly modern yet sufficiently traditional setting. Good colleges.
The climate in Guangdong is hot from May through November, and very humid in July and August.

Fujian province:
Climate similar to Guangdong/Guangxi, longer winters though. Less interesting than Guangxi, a little more interesting, perhaps, than Guangdong; interesting town: XIAMEN on the coast. Fuzhou is the capital but uninspiring. Small towns such as Putian or Sanming have few jobs and would not keep you interested long enough!

Jiangxi, Hunan and Hubei: Central China, not much to say either in negative or in positive terms. Underdeveloped, with a few communist-era industrial centres and chinaware production centres from the imperial periods; generally uninteresting, with poor transportation links.

Shanghai and surrounding areas: Similar to the Pearl River Delta - highly-developed, high incomes, frenetic economic life but a little boring for those who don't want to spend money for entertainment. Expensive too. Climate: Hot in July and August - up to 38 degrees, and very cold in winter, but thanks to central heating in homes, bearable.
Cities: Suzhou, Hangzhou and Nanjing: these are the prime tourist destinations with cultural legacies worth enjoying. Nanjing in particular has been very welcoming for foreigners over the last few years.
Farther afield: Ningbo, Wenzhou, Wuxi - nothing to write home about. Relatively good job prospects though.

Ddalian, Qingdao and Changchun: Good jobs, bearable climate though extremely cold in winter; modern cities (not traditional at all although some colonial relics can be seen).
Qingdao: Shandong province, coastal city, European touch thanks to its architecture dating back to German occupation for 14 years. Good climate, good jobs.

Peking, Tianjin and Hebei: China's political centre, lots of jobs; not everybody's cupof tea as a location (close to the Party's home).

That's where most people end up in China; the vast rest - Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet are more or less off limits, with some noted exceptions: Harbin, Xi'an, Urumqi - if you like a relatively isolated outpost with occasional round-eyed visitors but hardly anything in the way of western-style life.

[coolrcdad]

Thanks for taking the time to post so much and in such detail Roger. How long have you worked in China?

[Roger]

How long have I worked in China? A few years too many... 2 years in Hong Kong, many more in the mainland.

But I know most places from my backpacking days before I took my first job; I toured China for one year and a half.

[Old Dog]

Roger, you've got me totally bamboozled. Lately, you've taken to advertising that you spent 1 year and 4 months/ 16 months/ and now 1 and a half years backpacking in China before you began your first job here.

You have established that you came here in August or September 1994. Now let us begin your travels at that date since, if they had preceded Sept 1994, you'd be claiming rather more time in China than you have always claimed. And it would be unlike you to fail to exaggerate.

So, if you backpacked for, let's say, 16 months from Sept. 1994, then that would take us to late 1995 or early 1996.

But according to you in earlier posts, by 1996, you had lived in an air-conditioned villa with other ft's as you taught English literature in some school and where you fled 4 months short of your contracted period on account of a dispute over Mrs Gaskell or whatever. You then worked in a tutorial centre where, 1 year on and having become quite famous, your boss consigned you to "smallish" Ji'nan where, after 5 weeks, you were raided by the police. By then, apparently, the girlfriend had "dumped you" and fled to a faraway home. (Could this be the Chinese "wife" you are currently attempting to be rid of and who behaved in an unseemly way in your up-market condo purchased in 1999, thus raising the eyebrows of the genteel neighbours?) After that you did freelancing around Luohu in downtown Shenzhen until the handover of HK (July 1997) when you took up a 2-year appointment in Hong Kong.

This doesn't add up to me. If you did 1.5 or so years of backpacking, then there's something wrong with the timelines relating to your first, second, third and fourth jobs.

Or is this latest backpacking claim made to bolster your claims to first-hand knowledge of climate, architecture, general ambience, important personalities there well-known to you (aided by the Lonely Planet Guide and the DuPoop or whatever guide) of virtually every city and backwater in China.

I've just re-read your earliest epistles and can find no reference to your backpacking career there. The only hint I find is your claim to the possession of a backpack whilst in your second job when you seemed to have been short-on for comfort and possessions.

Please unscramble for the many, many people who depend on your gospel for accurate information about China. I'd hate anyone who is as confused as I am to think that, maybe, you may occasionally tell a porkie or two.

[coolrcdad]

I'll stay out of this one . . .

[millie]

Hello Old Dog,

You may have read Petulia Pet’s recent post (where has it gone now?); the ambitious young lady who was going to cram an academic career of some 8 years or so into 8 months. I know the purists among us sneered and derided her but I was less judgmental.

I notice that some other posters here live in the realm of fantasy and make-believe where time and place contract and expand to suit the requirements of the ego.

However, at least Petulia Pet would have some papers to prove that she did in fact go on such an odyssey.

I am thinking of living in temperate Qingdao soon.
Although Roger suggests that one should accept a heater if it is offered, I think I will just pass on the artificial warmth. In fact, as I tromp around in the snow, surveying the delights of Haier Street adorned with idyllic neo-cubist architecture on both sides and the wind whistling a tune around my ears, I will simply be toasty warm with an inner glow fuelled by my incessantly repeated mantra “temperate”.

If not Qingdao, I note that some on this board say that Jinan is pretty OK too.
Well, I believe it.

Anyway, I must run now: I have an important letter from a very notable person waiting for me in Hong Kong where I must pick up my new flat screen TV (LCD or plasma type). I don’t really know the difference between these types of TV’s but nonetheless it is going to look just wonderful in my grand luxury apartment that is well out of the reach of most body here.

Keep up the good work and please don’t let that irritant called reality get in the way of a ripping yarn.

M

[Roger]

And, may we know ('we' including my humble self!), what this is to you, Old Dog, where I have been in all these years? Are you investigating? Detective Doggie?

I think you can verify my claims in the archives; there hardly is any room for contradictions. But your reckoning is a little erroneous.
The one year and a half of backpacking PRECEDED my career as a teacher in China; it happened from 1992 through 1994, with a half year period spent in Russia and Europe.

My first job was teaching Literature in 1994 (September through March 1995), and lasted exactly one term; my second one was in Shenzhen. jMy then boss asked me, after one year and a renewal of my contract, to follow his wife to Ji'nan; I agreed saying, however, I would oblige only for a limited period. You can now begin to query my intentions if you so please; that job taught me a lot about the legal side of teaching in China, things that even my Chinese boss didn't know, for instance the fact that my work visa covered only Shenzhen and no other locale. This is why I was "raided" - as you so quaintly put it - in Ji'nan by the police, then put under house arrest until my boss paid a fine and fired me. Yes, he penalised me for his own stupidity.
The girl you mentioned was my long-term flame in Shenzhen who chose to return to her native Yunnan and is notrelated to my current wife. Both women would offer plenty of interesting details for Chinese character study, but we are discussing in this thread CHINESE LOCALES AS PLACES OF WORK, not the downsides of international relationships.

I have always made it pretty clear, I should say, that I have a backpacking past that precedes my teaching career.

[Roger]

[millie]

[Old Dog]

You old rogue, Roger. You know you are telling porkies now but, I guess, once you get on that porkie merry-go-round, you've just got to keep spinning.

Why has your backpacking odyssey never hit the airwaves until recently? And why have you always declared your stay in China to have begun with the beginning of first term, 1994? I find this strange in one given not infrequently to going one better, to engaging in a little exaggeration. After all, if someone has been on the Beijing - Moscow route once, you've been there twice. If someone has 10 yuan stolen, you had an entire collection of valuable stones stolen from you in a remote Tibetan Valley by Big Foot or a band of rogue monks. If someone is thinking of buying property, you've already bought an up-market condo years before. If someone is feeling a bit down, you've had family disasater after disaster. If someone is feeling comfortable and accepted in China, you are the toast of every bus stop in your city. On and on it goes in its predictable way. Yet you would have us believe that when you have defined the totality of your stay as, say, 10 years, that it was, in fact, 11.5 years. Really!

I suppose it's possible that you could, after all, be modest. Though why your modesty should have extended to reducing the true length of your stay in China, I don't understand. You have consistently dated your arrival here to 1994. Need I quote you? And there has never been any suggestion that your defined length of stay here covered only your "teaching" years - until today.

One would have thought that if you arrived in a country, backpacked for a year and then taught for a year, you'd say you had been two years in the country. But you would now have us believe that those two years need only be defined as one year since you were only teaching for one year.

This is what happens when you tell porkies, body. Eventually, they do not add up. You own a backpack we know which you sometimes carry in front of your belly but I'm not sure that that is evidence of a career as backpacker for 1.5 years during 1993/1994.

Your backpacking adventures appear to me to have been constructed only recently - is there any evidence in your writing from 2002 to the contrary? - to bolster your claims to intimate knowledge of every nook and cranny of China.

Roger, it seems to me your nose must grow longer by the day.

[amandabarrick]

If one were to be looking to work in a city in western China, in your opinion what are some of the best according to the pros the OP is looking for? Chengdu, Guilin, Chongqing, Guiyang, kunming, Mianyang, Nanning? I think Western China would be a much different experience and have incredible countryside.
AB