Job Discussion Forums

[gregoryfromcali]

[gregoryfromcali]

[Aristotle]

Chinese culture dictates that all things not like themselves are bad.
Particularly when those things are very good or so much better than what the person making the comparison identifies with.
Mao Tse Dong has failed.

[Drizzt]

Well Gregory, it depends where you are.

If you are on line three it closes are early as 9 p.m. I remember I was coming back from Hua Dong Shi Fan Da Xue to catch line three to switch back to line two and was to my surprise the last train had already passed (9:05 p.m.).

You say taxis are everywhere, but I'm specifically referring to relatively inexpensive modes of transportation. Sure if you are on a Western salary it's cheap, but taking into account how big Shanghai is, taking a taxi across town is quite impractical when on a teacher's salary.

[gregoryfromcali]

My point is that at this point of the thread we're comparing Shanghai to Taipei.

In Taiwan too people from Taipei are considered unfriendly when compared to people to outside of the big cities.

This is something that happens everywhere. Even in Hungary, which essentially has only one major city, the capital, Budapest, you'll find that people outside of the capital say that the people in Budapest are rude.

It's simply a generalization and it shouldn't be taken into consideration when one is trying to decide what would be the best choice for their EFL career.

The Shanghainese are much more Westernizer than most mainlanders. (With the exception of the subway which brings out the worst out of everyone.) I would even say that I see Shanghainese people as being more polite than most mainlanders because of the Western influence.

For example as far as hacking and spitting I don't see it here as much as I do in most Chinese cities.

So again the question is how would you compare Shanghai to Taipei?

In my opinion Taipei has the money, but I think Shanghai is a much more interesting city and partly because it's the mainland which I think is currently a very dynamic place to be regardless of politics. And on top of that there are a lot of opportunities here outside of teaching English.

P.S. At City Supermarket and Walmart you can find everything you'll need to make good Mexican food.

[Drizzt]

I understand what you mean when referring to the impersonal atmosphere common to most large, developed cities. I also agree that for the most part Shanghaiese are not as "rude" in a certain context (i.e.-spitting, staring, etc.)--although cutting in line has obviously not been adopted in many places!

What I'm referring to is a specific reputation that Shanghaiese have acquired--that of treating non-Shanghai Chinese as second-class citizens.

If you are Chinese and live in Shanghai, yet you don't speak Shanghaiese...don't expect equal treatment.

Maybe other big cities in China has a similar atmosphere, such as Beijing, but I seriously doubt there is this sort of dichotomy that you find in Shanghai!

Next time you run into a person from Anhui, Zhejiang, or Jiansu, ask them their opinion of Shanghai people. Perhaps their answer will add some validity to this generalization.

Oh, and one other thing, you said:

"I would even say that I see Shanghainese people as being more polite than most mainlanders because of the Western influence."

I agree with this statement, IF you equate the Western conception of etiquette with the quality of the person.

Sure, people in backwater China spit, ask about your income, stare at you like an endangered species...but I swear, you will never find more hospitable, bend-over-backwards-to-help-you-out people anywhere. I personally spent a semester in Shanxi, and met some of the most wonderful people in my life there.

By the way, I'm not trying to paint a dark and foreboding picture of Shanghai. I've met great people here as well--hell, even my girlfriend is Shanghaiese. I'm just saying the general attitude of many native Shanghiese is aloof, condescending, and arrogant; even moreso than in other large Chinese cities (with the possible exception of Hong Kong).

I've yet to go to Taipei, so I cannot make a comparison. I'm simply offering my personal experience of Shanghai.

[gregoryfromcali]

First of all, "All generalizations are lies."

If they were true they why would you have a girlfriend from Shanghai?

Before you try to justify Chinese generalizations about the Shanghainese why don't you try to justify Chinese generalizations about the Japanese?

Or instead let's just stick with the facts as to what would be a good place to teach English.

I'm not on this thread to prove anything. The reason why I'm posting so much here is because I feel like I have a lot to contribute.

A few months ago I had every intention of moving to Taipei.

I worked in Guangdong, Hangzhou and I've travelled to different cities in the mainland.

To be honest the majority of the mainland is not for and I like Chinese a couple of times a week but that's about it.

After visiting Taipei I was convinced that it had to be the best "Chinese" city for a FT.

They have plenty of good English bookstores, good food, people wait in line, people don't break out into arguments over every disagreement, McDonalds serves breakfast (you can't go wrong with pancakes and hashbrowns) and they've got satellite TV.

I had contacted a lot of different school in Taipei. But some didn't bother contacting me perhaps partly because I look Chinese. But the ones that did contact me were the big chain schools.

Which I was fine with as I knew they could give me a lot of options as to where to work and I knew they would help me get my papers.

But what didn't offer me was a two day weekend.

Although I would have liked to make the kind of money I could have made in Taipei, working six days a week and with the possibility of split shifts just wasn't what I was looking for.

I had been through that before in China and I know that you can't produce great lessons when you're working that much.

On top of that I didn't see the point of being in Asia if I'd spend almost all of my time in an English school.

I was coming to Taipei to study martial arts not to work myself to death.

Then I visited Shanghai and I found a city that offered everything Taipei offered but with much more reasonable hours.

Here I can find good pizza at Papa Murphy's, good Mexican food from the things I buy at Walmart, any DVD you could imagine from Monty Python's Flying Circus to Discovery Channel documentaries, plenty of good martial artists, and a huge expat population if that's is what you're looking for.

And as far as the money situation goes I do actually know of some people who make $1500 US a month and that's pretty good considering you could live in Shanghai for $500 a month including your rent if you're not out partying every night.