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ord2world

Hello,

I'm currently back in Spain and absolutely love it. However I made a huge mistake in coming to the south. More money can be made in Madrid. I lived in Bali and Vietnam.

Where would you go if you had a bachelor's degree in liberal arts and about four years of teaching experience? Oh yes...you'd like the opportunity to save money too. I'm considering Guangzhou, Kumming or any of the cities in southern China. A place where I can ride my motorbike and there are ample opportunities to supplement my income with private lessons.

I hate cold weather, love street food and big cities. I've been doing a lot of research, but I can't seem to decide on a place. I don't want to go back to the United States to do any visa processing work.

Thanks!

Becca

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

Since China seems to be your target country, you'd get more responses if you posted over on that forum.

ord2world · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 8:53 pm Post subject:

It's not my target (or dream) country. I gave it as an example. I don't know where to go.

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

ord2world · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 9:42 pm Post subject:

I'm not sure where to go. I'm open to going anywhere. I'm asking for suggestions. Some people warned me about this site, but I don't know who else to ask.

I don't want to work in the EU. No money to be made here.

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

From the US, presumably. That narrows the options down as well.

In Europe a US citizen with the OP's minimal quals has very few options, as she seems to be aware. Doesn't have the quals to get decently paid work in the ME. Ditto Latin America.

Asia is about it. Probably it was indeed good advice to post on the China forum; you might reconsider doing so.

hdeth · Joined: 20 Jan 2015 Posts: 583

I've only spent a day in Guangzhou but it was my girlfriend and I's favorite city in China. Excellent food and a great transportation hub for exploring SEA. The food there will probably be closer to what you're familiar with, though it's a big enough city you can find plenty of different cuisines. It's massive with what seemed like a pretty nice subway/sky train system. I don't know if you can use a motorbike there legally. They're technically banned in most major Chinese cities, aside from it being kind of a pain to get a license. Electric scooters don't need a license but if you're into motorcycles that might make you feel like a bit of a pansy. If you've lived in Vietnam, think of Hanoi or Saigon but somewhat more organized, significantly more modern, but almost as noisy. Also with some really bad air pollution certain periods of the year (I don't know about pollution in Vietnam...wasn't anything visible when we were there). I don't know how bad the air pollution is there but seems like every Chinese city has a couple bad months. I would suspect crop burning during the warmer months but I have no first-hand experience.

The chief complaints I read about where a lack of nightlife/concerts/that sort of thing. I'm probably moving to a smaller city south of there in a couple months.

If you want to save any real amount of money it's basically China, southern Japan, or Taiwan in Asia. You could save more money in China and there's a larger variety of jobs but it's not everyone's cup of tea.

Taiwan is an amazing place to live and visit but sounds like the job situation there is not that great and getting worse. I've visited there several times and it would be near the top of my places to live in retirement.

ord2world · Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2015 11:25 am Post subject:

Thank you for answering my questions.