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smellymelly
Joined: 13 Oct 2007
Posts: 59
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 Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 1:12 am Post subject: Cheap cities to live/teach in |
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| What are some decent and cheap capital cities to live in, in China? |
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patsy
Joined: 07 Oct 2004
Posts: 179
Location: china
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 3:18 am Post subject: |
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Welcome to Xining, qinghai.
Rent is about 400-500 kuai per month for a decent apt.
bowl of noodles still about 3 kuai, decent meal with rice 5 kuai
electric bill about 27 kuai per month
blind massages for 39 kuai
problem is that there aren't many jobs available, better if you come as a language student. |
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vikuk
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 1842
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 4:19 am Post subject: |
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| bowl of noodles still about 3 kuai, decent meal with rice 5 kuai |
I hardly ever eat at western restaurants - I don't really eat at many luxury restaurants - but I would really like to question the above definition of decent.
If you can eat, day in day out, on cheap noodles and the 5RMB dishes - then more power to you - but OP be warned - for some folk that diet tends to get a tad tedious after a while 
Just out of interest - how many of you guys survive on that kind of food????
By the way I think the massage price is bit of a rip-off - here you can get pro-massage (blind and seeing) for 25RMB for the full hour!!!! |
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TangWolun
Joined: 06 Jun 2008
Posts: 51
Location: Shanghai
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:14 am Post subject: You can eat well |
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I think that you can eat quite well and nutritiously for about 10Y/ meal if you need to budget. My first experience with street food was not so good but it's a matter of acceptance of your circumstances.
If you are not on a high income you can do very well by accessing the net and the wealth of recipes here...... and buying (negotiated) good fruit and vegetables in the local markets.
This will get you friendship, acceptance and respect amongst the locals - so get stuck into learning the Chinese words for differen types of fruit and vegetables aswell as some useful common use sentences and questions.
Hope this is positive advice for you
Happy Days
TangWolun. |
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Moon Over Parma
Joined: 20 May 2007
Posts: 819
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:08 am Post subject: Re: You can eat well |
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| TangWolun wrote: |
| I think that you can eat quite well and nutritiously for about 10Y/ meal if you need to budget. |
Warning: generalization that does not apply to all of China. Go to cities like Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wenzhou, Taizhou, Changzhou, Wuxi, etc. and 10RMB for a "nutritious" meal where you can "eat quite well" is basically some crap noodles, jiaozi, and a Pepsi (at best). Maybe in Gansu and the podunks 10RMB gives you a wide berth, but for anyone fresh off the plane: finding decent eats for 10RMB a meal will take you some time, if they still exist at all.
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| If you are not on a high income you can do very well by accessing the net and the wealth of recipes here...... and buying (negotiated) good fruit and vegetables in the local markets. |
The same "local markets" that are carts alongside the street food that you had a bad experience with? Does your employer supply a decent kitchen? There are still more than a few universities that seem to offer a cold water-only tap, an electric hot plate, and a microwave. Some great environment for cooking! How about the fact you have to elarn a tremendous amount of Hanzi to get a lot of the ingredients a recipe online requires... and that's IF your local markets carry more than the most base ingredients. Otherwise, it's a few RMB to the nearest city, and a lot of RMB for taxis, which pretty much defeats the idea of "cheap eats" home cooking for teachers fresh off the plane or working in a uni located in a no-man's-land "university town."
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| This will get you friendship, acceptance and respect amongst the locals |
No, it won't. At best the vendor will respect your patronage. If locals aren't gawking at you they are going about their own business and allowing you privacy. Be careful of romanticized observations of mundane activities in China that are presented as sweeping truisms..
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| - so get stuck into learning the Chinese words for differen types of fruit and vegetables aswell as some useful common use sentences and questions. |
This goes without saying, but it won't happen overnight, and you're just as likely to benefit from studying menus at restaurants so you can always know what you want to eat wherever you go and don't have to rely on scouring the internet for recipes that you might not be able to prepare because you can't get the ingredients in your city without a headache, or worse: you have to make do with a dying, aging hotplate to prepare these magical recipes with. |
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TangWolun
Joined: 06 Jun 2008
Posts: 51
Location: Shanghai
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:59 am Post subject: |
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Moon over China
Thankyou for your informative reply.
You obviously know so much more about China than I do.
I feel I've been corrected!! LOL
TangWolun |
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TangWolun
Joined: 06 Jun 2008
Posts: 51
Location: Shanghai
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 9:26 am Post subject: |
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I thought I might share a few photos with forum fanatics who go back a few years.
........................
edited out by TangWolun sun 22nd June 2008
Last edited by TangWolun on Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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vikuk
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 1842
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:03 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| I think that you can eat quite well and nutritiously for about 10Y/ meal if you need to budget. My first experience with street food was not so good but it's a matter of acceptance of your circumstances. |
Kind of sums up the exciting life of ex-pat perks and luxuries that the China FT may have to endure |
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kungfucowboy83
Joined: 25 Jan 2006
Posts: 479
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:26 am Post subject: |
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| well in his defense if you cook chinese food at home 10kuai a meal is no problem. when my wife cooks it's usually around 15rmb worth of stuff for the 2 of us. |
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patsy
Joined: 07 Oct 2004
Posts: 179
Location: china
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:29 am Post subject: |
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jian bin for lunch 2 kuai in xining, delicious omelette type concoction.
mian pian 3.5 kuai , delicious and made while you watch in a tent
beef noodles and they throw in a hard boiled egg for free 3.5 kuai big bowl |
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kev7161
Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 5880
Location: Suzhou, China
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:59 am Post subject: |
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| Geez, don't any of your schools feed you? I mean, the food may not be glorious (ours sure isn't!) but you may get the same sort of dishes/quality at your school that you would in hole-in-the-wall joints or trolleys out on the street - - for free! Then you can live it up on the weekends and splurge on KFCs or Mickey D's! |
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rebecca_lr24
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:22 am Post subject: |
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You know that in China there are a lot of decent and cheap cities you can live in. What do you mean by decent? In fact, different people have different idea of the living condition.
For I live in China, I only can tell you some decent cities compared with the other cities in China. As long as you do not live in like Beijing or Shanghai those famous big cities, you will spend little money on your life. I recommand you the city Hangzhou, Qingdao, Dalian and Xian. Those are very beautiful cities with historic interests. Welcome to China and teach foreign languages there. |
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wulfrun
Joined: 12 May 2008
Posts: 167
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| Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 8:56 am Post subject: |
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here in shijiazhuang (capital of hebei, near beijing):
school cafeteria 3-5 kuai for healthy meal, with suan mei tang or dou jiang to drink
local restaurant 4 kuai for big bowl of noodles, 7 kuai for big gaifan rice and dish
all healthy, and pretty good. |
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vikuk
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 1842
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| Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:38 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| I recommand you the city Hangzhou, Qingdao, Dalian and Xian. Those are very beautiful cities |
Anbody who can call these grey, dirty, ugly, poorly planed concrete monsters beautiful - have obviously never lived in a beautiful city.
The only talk of beauty with Chinese urban planning can be given to discussions surrounding which location is more beautiful than others - and even then it could be an idea to swap the word beauty with ugly - which is less ugly than the other!!!!
99.9% of old china has been knocked down and turned into some concrete eyesore. The few old places that have been conserved are now so overrun by tourists that any fun of visiting and exploring can soon be turned into a rather stressful experience.
If you are looking for an oriental idyll that's based on a fantasy of living among the pagodas - please don't come to China  |
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james s
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
Posts: 676
Location: Raincity
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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rebecca_lr24 wrote:
| Quote: |
| I recommand you the city Hangzhou, Qingdao, Dalian and Xian.Those are very beautiful cities with historic interests |
Are you sure that all of these cities have history? Qingdao is like 20 years old since the feds made the inhabitants move out and developed it, as of the other cities, the history has generally been wiped out, in favor of new bldgs.
rebecca_lr24 wrote:
| Quote: |
| Welcome to China and teach foreign languages there. |
I understand that you are doing what you have been told to do, and you are doing the best that you can by being as polite as you can, but I can tell you have no idea. That is not all that a laowai is good for. |
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