Job Discussion Forums

[The Hungry Yeti]

Anybody living or working in the Fuzhou. What is is it like? I have a Uni offer there.

[mat chen]

I think you are lucky. It is an area renowned for educators in China. If places are advertised then usually there is a turn over of teachers. Fuzhou is not a place you see adds for. Wish I could join you.

[slayer6719]

I,m in Fuzhou. Its a nice enough place. If your going to be working in an University you will probably be in the new university compound 30 or 40 minutes out of town. There is a small expat community here and the locals are friendly enough. Western goodies can be found if that is what you want though you may need to do a little hunting around for them. Most of the FT's i have met in my time here have been here for several years and all seem to like the city.

[The Hungry Yeti]

30-40 mins? Not bad. How easy is it to get transportation?

Is the city expensive? Any word on the new university compound?

[hippo]

Which Uni is it?

I worked at a uni in Fuzhou, out at 'student town'. Student town is about 50 minutes by bus from the centre of the city; but chances are you will be a little closer than that, meaning about a 30 minute bus ride and prob a change of bus to where ever you live. IMHO the public transport in Fuzhou is excellent [the buses] and I'm sure that you'll be able to get around no problems no matter where you are in the city, even out at 'min ho', the student town.

Beware, however, living out there. The uni might offer you accomadation on site. I knew people that did live there, and didn't moan too much, but it is a pain to get into town on a saturday night etc, and there is SFA out there, except students and cheap eateries. By the way, if you are new to China, it might be good to know that Chinese uni students are different to western students, so living in a uni town maybe not be the fun you would imagine it could be.

As for Fuzhou itself, it's OK. Very Chinese style, if you get my meaning. Not many expats at all, and not an international place, which is ultimately why I left. Western goods are expensive and kinda hard to come by, the nightlife is average, the people are great [although very conservative] and the putonghua is pronounced very differently from the 'standard' Beijing accent. It's a big city [7 mil odd] but has a small town feel.

It's not an expensive place to live at all, one of the advantages in it being a 'small' town. A taxi anywhere over the city won't run more than 20 usually. A meal at a typical chinese restaurant [rice, vege dish and meat dish] would cost about 25, the bus cost 1, a coke cost 2... ummm yeah. It's cheap basically. Oh, except 12 warm crap beers in a nightclub will run you 150.

Feel free to PM me if you want a run down on the reputations of the various unis there [I'm not going to trash them in public ]