Job Discussion Forums

[GeminiTiger]

Anybody have any information on this city?

Ive seen some nice pictures and the weather seems decent......

Uh.. so anyone know anything else about Wuhan?

[Alex_P]

The air quality of Wuhan seems to be the subject of some concern to several persons on this board but nonetheless I do not share their relative concern. That being said, here we go.

It's a great medium-sized Chinese city with a lot of history. The people are quite friendly and the regional cuisine is quite good. All of my friends who have taught in Wuhan (in government schools or universities that is -- I cannot attest to the private sector) have quite enjoyed their experience. Many have stayed several years. Half of the city is on one of the river, half is on the other. Train connections in-and-out of Wuhan are great as it is a hub city. By Chinese standards the cost of living is rather moderate so do not expect Shanghai-type or Beijing-type salaries. But then again one of my friends had a 120 square meter apartment (new).

If you have a job offer, you may wish to run the school through www.englishschoolwatch.org or www.eslteachersboard.com (School Reviews) to see what kind of feedback you receive.

All-in-all, if I had a decent job in a decent government school in Wuhan, I would take it. But that's just me.

[BlondeAussie]

I live in Wuhan and have done for the past 14 months. The weather is NASTY. It would be alright if it just hot hot and stayed hot, but it changes so much in a few days. Not too long ago we had a few days of warmth after a hellish winter. "YAY!!", we thought. We were down to only two layers of clothing, not six. Then it snowed. Two weeks later, I was wearing short sleeves to class. Then it rained for three days and we were back in our winter woolies.

The pollution can be frightening. I had to go across the river the other day and from the Wuchang side of the river I could not see the Hankou river bank. Other days, it's not too bad. Just bring your asthma puffer. (or a spare pair of lungs)

There's not too many tourist-y things to do. The Yellow Crane Tower, Hubei Museam, Ancient Lute Pavilion, Guiyuan Temple and East Lake all have their good points and bad points. Avoid the zoo. Avoid going to the bathroom in the zoo unless you happen to be wearing long, rubber, Wellington boots or fishing pants. eeeewwww.

For times when you need a fix of other foreigners, the Blue Sky Cafe is always packed. I personally can't decide if I like the place or loathe it. My opinion changes everytime I go. There are a couple of decent foreign restaurants and thousands of great Chinese ones.

The people vary between friendly, curious, astonished and outright gobsmacked to see a real life foreigner walking down their street. Wuhanese have a reputation for being fairly hot-tempered, they blame it on the weather.(!)

I like the city and have had many bad experiences and many good ones.

Check out www.wuhantime.com for further info, it's fairly good.

[Chris_Crossley]

I've been living in Wuhan for more than three years altogether now, with more to come.... The other posters have pretty much summed up the city, so enough said.

Also, you might like to a search on Dave's for anything to do with Wuhan. I have a few things to say about the city, since I've been here for so long!

[Roger]

It's worth a thought that Wuhan is composed of three major cities that sit side by side between two rivers, one of which is the Yangtse. I personally found WUCHANG, on the south bank of the Yangtse, to be fairly attractive, especially around the East Lake park and its universities, also HANKOU on the north bank with its colonial style buildings (whatever remainsthere).
It is mid-way between Peking and Guangzhou, which translates into excellent train connections to the south and to the North, but less good ones to Nanjing and Shanghai.

The CLIMATE is variously described as murderous, and not without good foundation: summers tend to be excessively hot (temperature hovering around 40 degrees!), winters can be very cold too with snow a distinct possibility.

I personally find Hubeiers friendlier than most other Chinese.

If I remembert well, a British pair wrote an account of their one-year stint as TEFLers in Wuhan in the 1980s titled "Dragon in the East" (not sure I got it right), and it was a lively and revealing story (read it 3 years ago). The pair had a very favourable view on Wuhan and its people but a less-than sanguine one on the education system and its purpose of indoctrinating young people. Judging by my own experiences, not much seems to have changed till now.

[ContemporaryDog]

Roger, do you know where I can find this story?

To the OP, I've been in Wuhan for 2 years, and probably will sign yet another (mostly due to laziness).

The winters are pretty bad, comparable to London, but the weather around now is pretty decent, warm most days. Summer it does get VERY hot! But not as hot as, say, Delhi in the summer. basically high 30s.

Oh, and the weather rarely goes below freezing in the winter either (Ludwig claimed it got to -20 regularly which is bollocks). The main problem is that the schools don't heat their classrooms. So even though it might not be extremely cold, you feel it cos of lack of heating at work.

As to the Blue Sky Cafe which the guy mentioned above, that's not bad, although pricey (mostly frequented by Engineers on western salaries).

Check out the 2 bars associated with the poster Misutabiru. I'm not sure about the current state of them (he said he is now unaffiliated with the new one ,Vox, which I still haven't been to) but the old one, which I think is still open (but check with him) is a really nice, laid back (and very cheap) bar with a great music selection (if a bit hard to find!).

The food selection is getting better. There's a passable Indian restaurant now up near HOng Shan Square in Wuchang, called Indian Kitchen. Its again a bit pricey in local terms (30 yuan per dish) but the food is OK, if not as good as the food in places around East Ham where I used to work in London. No Mexican as yet, but there is also a very good Thai place called the Golden Elephant, which is a bit pricey too, but still cheap compared to what you'd pay for the same thing in London.

Local food, barbecues, jao zi, etc, and higher end chinese restaurants all pretty good.

The air quality is the major downer to Wuhan, unfortunately - it is terrible. Not sure if its the most polluted city in China - I saw a list where it wasn't even in the top 10 - but it is pretty bad.

That said if you aren't tied to anywhere in China its not necessarily the best place you could come to!

Also agree with Roger that its a reasonably friendly place. People don't stare 'too' much. At least comapred to mrs cd's town where they look at you like you are some kind of alien.

[ContemporaryDog]

Oh, and no fish and chip either.

Wuhan fish is all boney and shitey. Not like the gorgeous fish I got used to in Thailand.

[BlondeAussie]

As for western restaurants, the Italian restaurant Giano's has just reopened. Real wood fired pizza, lasagne, canneloni, pasta alfredo...yummm. It's somewhere in Hong Shang district on the Wuchang side of the River. The lady that runs Giano's lived in New York for a while, so she knows pizza.

On Jiang Han Road there's another restaurant called Supreme that does decent burgers, some pasta and steak. All the staff speak English, and it's run by a lady that used to live in Canada.

At the other end of Jiang Han Lu, there's another Thai restaurant. I've heard good things, but have yet to go there.

As for fish and chips, I'm reasonably sure that the local speciality of Wuchang fish have all died from natural causes or committed suicide. Not nice.

Some of the temples (Guiyuan Buddhist Temple, Changchun Taoist Temple and Baotong Zenist Temple for example) and the Moshan area of East Lake can be lovely if you manage to go there on a quiet day.

As for staring, I've found that it's a bit of a problem for me. The people on my street are all familiar with me now, but when I venture further out I get the "ai-oh" gasp and pointing. Maybe that's because I've got long platinum blonde hair, blue eyes and other significant physical attributes.

Just for the record, I'm a girl, not a guy.

[ContemporaryDog]

Actually I found the pizza at Giano's a bit disappointing. I went expecting the real McCoy and it wasn't that fantastic...