Job Discussion Forums

mgafunnell · Joined: 29 Jun 2007 Posts: 89

Greetings all,

I'm an experienced teacher heading for Shanghai in September. Any advice on what to bring?

Anda · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 2199 Location: Jiangsu Province

Reading material for yourself if you like reading. Most things here will cost much less than one's home country plus excess baggage is very expensive.

It would be an idea to post your home country and your interests. Also what type / age students will you be teaching. Will you be working at a university or an instutite.

brsmith15 · Joined: 12 May 2003 Posts: 1142 Location: New Hampshire USA

First and foremost: a sense of humor and a boatload of patience. Here in the city you'll experience just about everything and anything from the 40 year-old guy driving the most expensive Mercedes they make, who has an MBA from a prestigious western university, speaks English like a native-born, is suave and sophisticated -- - to a pot-bellied, wart-faced guy with a butt sticking out of his mouth held in place by his two remaining teeth that have never seen a toothbrush, who urinates in public and spits everywhere. His old, soiled, frayed clothes makes him look like something your dog got ahold of and savaged.

Forget everything you've ever learned because here most things are backward to the way it is in the west. As a very simple example, todays' date, July 7, 2007, here is written as 2007.07.07.......Oooooo a lucky number indeed!! In most countries pedestrians have the right of way, then bicycles, then cars. Here it's the reverse. The bigger and noisier the vehicle, the more "right" it has. Might makes right

Next, any medications you might need, although there any natural substitutes. My health care pros at the VA in the US had me on 3 blood pressure meds. I dropped two of them and switched to a TCM. BP went down even more.

You can get about anything here in Shanghai. I even found WD-40, which has been called men's cologne.

If you want to send me a PM, and your email address, I'll forward the 2-3 pages from my book on China ("Living in the Shadow of the Chairman") about what to bring and what not.

cj750s · Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 6:58 am Post subject:

bet they dont have grits

SnoopBot · Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 740 Location: USA