Job Discussion Forums

[thegoodprofessor]

HI folks,

I would like to move to china from my present position teaching, but I don't want to be in a polluted area yet I also don't want to be in a small back country village. Is there any compromise between the extremes?

I've 10 years experience, TESL cert. and a good Master's.
and would like to find pay that is satisfactory to my credentials and experience.

Hopefully I am not asking too much. Would love to hear from anyone with advice?

[MisterButtkins]

I think you are asking too much.

[kukiv]

Hi prof - I'm afraid an honest answer to your question wont be very encouraging. China has 1.3 billion people - and with the recent improvement in economy - a huge number (growing bigger by the day) are clamoring after all those life-style luxuries that we almost take for granted back home. The result is a road system heaving with fume belching traffic - where the weather patterns found in much of China - cloudy, in the summer very humid and often very wind-still - seems to give most cities, even those cited as being cleaner dense layers of smog.
Then there is the construction, so many new homes combined with the trend where it seems the Chinese are hell-bent on covering the whole country in concrete - housing, road-building and industrial project spring up literally everywhere. This phenomena is so indescribable that you have to see to believe!!!!!!!
Throw into the mix noise pollution - if you did get to work in one of those better known areas that combines a lot of FT jobs with a green environment - such as Yangzhou - then you'd have cope with massive crowds of screaming tourists,, whose noises are then drowned out from all those businesses advertising their wares to this modern version of the masses.
Even out in the countryside - regardless of region - you meet frightening cases of pollution - especially from mining and rural industry - which often seem to operate outside any environmental control, where water courses suffer through effluent spill-offs and the air is fouled by emissions. So bad is this problem that certain rural areas have been marked as cancer hot-spots - but seemingly only after there have been many deaths and some brave person has raised the alarm.

I'm afraid if an unpolluted environment is really important to your FT lifestyle - then China isn't the best choice. When people start to give suggestions of locations - Kunming, Hainan or Yangzhou all come to mind - these places are going to be cleaner than the worse of polluted China - but when compared with what we'd call clean and unpolluted back in the west - well they're all pretty filthy!!!!!!

[Old Surrender]

Dalian isn't too bad. It's about as polluted as, say, Los Angeles.

[mike w]

The grasslands of Inner Mongolia - but maybe not so much call for FT's.

[Blingcosa]

Qingdao's pretty good man - I'm from New Zealand, so I got pretty high standards. It is far from truely clean but it is pretty good by Chinese standards. In Shenzhen I was always spitting in the street from all the pollution, that stopped in Qingdao. Hell, the 'Qing' in Qingdao even means green.

Macau is pretty clean too. Good luck getting a job there though. Even if you can find an employer, they pay about half what you get in the Mainland for a much more expensive city.

I've heard good things about Dalian and Xiamen, but haven't made it there yet.

As far as suggestions about Hainan, Yangshou or Kunming, I think you're about 10 years took late for them - they've all gone to crap. Again, just going by reputation - haven't actually made it there either.

Good luck. When you find your Asian paradise, private message me.

[LanGuTou]

[struelle]

The name of the game is a cleaner, more convenient, quiet, and easier place to live *relative* to other places in China. If you're looking for that in absolute terms, you simply won't find it in China. Namely, every city or location will have varying degrees of unbelievable crowds, traffic jams, pollution, and so forth.

So on this note I'd recommend Xiamen, Dalian, Guilin, Nanning, and Kunming.

[KarenB]

Hainan has the best air quality in China, but there aren't a lot of uni jobs, and the GOOD ones have the same teachers there for years on end, so may not have many openings. But if you can find a job in Haikou at say...Hainan U, or Hainan Normal Univeristy, it is fairly clean.

Avoid Sanya -- it's beautiful and clean, but none of the schools are very good to work for (except maybe Sanya College, Hainan U). Avoid Qiongzhou U at all costs -- horrible place.

There's a school in Qionghai, Hainan (Hainan College of Software Technology), that's currently looking for a teacher. But you'd be the only foreigner in a very small town
Dean Shang Zhi Qing
Email: [email protected]
Mobile phone: 86 13976968586

[shenyanggerry]

Go north! The further north you get, the lower population density, the less pollution. It is cold there in winter but you can buy a good coat.

In Harbin, the sky is actually usually blue...

[killian]

weihai. NE vacation home centre of the rich. incredible beach location (not for surfing thou). clean air.

[waxwing]