Job Discussion Forums

[Bluejayk]

My girlfriend is moving there in January from America (for a non-teaching job), and I'll be moving up north so we can be together. But I can't find much useful information about this city. Supposedly there are dozens of Universities, some kind of planned educational town. Well, I'd love to find one to teach at, and maybe study at concurrently. But I can't find any ads for any colleges, just one middle school which hasn't written me back.

Is this a decent city to live in? It's supposedly about an hour from both Beijing and Tianjin, so I've got an image of the worst sort of exurban sprawl in my head.

Any background info, insights, experiences or contacts would be much appreciated!

[nolefan]

It's actually one of the cleaner places in Hebei.

It is indeed a university town where all the majors unis from Beijing and Tianjin keep campuses.
A little trip to Wikipedia would inform you that it is also home to the longest walking street in the world.

Not a bad place by any means

[Sinko]

I passed through there about 3 weeks ago, Jake, and it looked like a really nice "small city". Lots of clean streets (by Chinese standards) and a lot of new, modern buildings.

You would be wise to know you are close to both Beijing and Tianjin and any medical or administrative emergency is only a short distance away. I would assume most of the Unis and Colleges are centralised at either of the 2 big cities nearby (BJ and TJ), so I would suggest you contact the major teaching establishments at these places to find out about any vacancies. I know Tianjin University has a campus there.

Overall, a nice place. I recommend it.

[Bluejayk]

great, thanks for the info, this makes me feel better about going up there.

What's the rental market like in that part of the country? I live in downtown SZ, with a very, very central location (50 meters from the subway) and a great view of downtown. I pay 1/2 of the rent on a 3500rmb/month apartment. I'm hoping a nice apartment in whatever resembles 'downtown' Langfang would be much, much less. Can I get a nice 1 bedroom apt. for less than 2000 in your average smallish city in NE China?

[JacquesP]

Have no personal experience with Langfang, but I have with Cangzhou, which is a bit more to the south. There it was possible to rent a 'downtown' 3 bedroom apartment for less than 500 RMB/month... Langfang might be a bit more expensive because it's closer to Beijing, but less than 2000 shouldn't be a problem.

[Qinjingyou]

I spent two years in Langfang, at the Oriental University City.
Langfang is a pretty nice small city. There are things to do there, plenty of restaurants, etc. Bus to BJ is more like two hours, FWIW. The train also stops, you can get to Beijing or Tianjin that way.
The Langfang Economic Zone means there's a good bit of stuff going on there. There are several large dept stores with lots of stuff.
Housing is cheaper than Beijing for the most part. There are some nice places there too.

The Oriental University City (东方大学城) has a bunch of branch universities and a lot of private schools. Usually fairly easy to get a job there. The usual caveats about private schools apply.