Job Discussion Forums

[yeswereserious]

We've been hoping for a post in Chengdu, but haven't managed to nail one down yet. We were offered a position in Luzhou, but haven't been able to find any really glowing reports about the city. Anyone know anything about it? We had been hoping for Chengdu because while it is a major city, it has a reputation for its relaxed lifestyle, and family-friendly city plan (parks, etc).

Luzhou seems to be a fair way from Chengdu and Chongqing, and we're wondering if we may not find, most importantly, adequate medical care nearby.

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

Describe "adequate medical care".

[struelle]

My advice: don't do it.

Luzhou is yet another one of the multitude of what I could call '3rd tier cities' that are perhaps between 100-500 thousand people in population. Sounds like a lot of people, but in Chinese terms that is a small city.

I would guess that these kind of cities house the majority of the 'urban' population within a province, and these cities really border on the countryside in terms of actual feel. Usually these cities are the center of a prefecture within a province. So the prefecture contains a vast land area, including the *actual* countryside. The government gets away with saying the urbanization rate is increasing so much because they include the countryside population as part of the prefecture that has the urban name.

To make a long story short, there's not much out there, and it's a rather rundown, noisy, polluted, and uncomfortable place to live. I cruised through there on a bicycle 3 years ago from Chongqing --> Yongchuan --> Luzhou. Don't ask why but it made for an educational experience to learn about more of this land we call 'zhong guo'

Steve

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

i've passed through Luzhou myself once in my travels, and the population is a lot more than 100-500,000 people. i dont know how many but wikipedia lists the population at 4.8 million. i come from a "city" of 80,000 in Canada and you can drive from one side to the other in 10-15 minutes if you hit the traffic lights right. As a reference point - anyone who's traveled throughout Sichuan, Kangding has a popn of about 100,000 and one can drive through that place very quickly. Kangding is no Luzhou.

as for "third tier cities" in china (third tier as in of lesser economic or political importance), i've been living in one of them (a bit smaller than Luzhou but still over 2 million) for the past five years and its actually quite nice. the air is (relatively) cleaner, its a bit more spread out, you can be out of the city in about 20 minutes on the long distance buses (unlike shanghai where the city never seems to end), and the pace of life is a lot slower than major cities. if you're 25 and just out of uni, then you may not like it.

as for medical care, i've been to a few chinese hospitals in a few cities over the past 6 years, and if you have no life threatening problems (outpatient stuff), the standard of care is fine in my experience. you'll need a translator if you don't speak chinese which makes the whole experience a bit more stressful and time consuming, but the doctors i've seen know what they're doing and usually prescribe the same medication (along with a bundle of chinese medicine) that i take back home for the same chronic problem.

if you're worried about more serious medical issues, you'd better head to shenzhen or guangzhou or some other city where the health care is better or where you can head off to hong kong more easily. but buy your own medical insurance in that case because the medical insurance the school provides (many schools provide insurance now through PLCC) wont cover health care outside the local area i suspect.

[kukiv]

[robinasia]

I lived in a small town outside of Luzhou for a year and made the trek into the city at least once a week. If you're worried about medical care--don't be. There is a medical school in Luzhou with quite a few English-speaking south Asian students and some more than adequate hospitals.

I wouldn�t say to ignore the advice of Struelle & the others but people just passing through obviously have a somewhat different point-of-view about the place than those of us who have actually lived there. There are some areas that are rundown and crowded but this is Sichuan not Jiangsu. Polluted, yes, but it�s in the Sichuan pundi, the same as Chengdu, so that�s to be expected. When I lived there the population was about 700,000 in the city proper and it does get crowded downtown especially on weekends. One McDonalds, one KFC (although I�ve heard they�ve built a 2nd) and some decent coffee shops when you need a steak.

As far as relaxed goes, I assume you�ve never been to Chengdu. The people in Luzhou have the same relaxed attitude typical of eastern Sichuan without the added stress of big-cityliving.

[Rinski]

Yes, i'd like to know about Luzhou. I have been offered employment teaching there. Also Hejiang was mentioned. Is it nearby? Whats it like?

A third tier city? Really?

[kukiv]

We spend most of our time traveling around Sichuan - our work is in rural areas, but we often live in in so-called third rate and even off the scale type towns - and although Luzhou isn't on our route we spend plenty of time in E Sichuan and know the area.

These type of places tend to be more highly polluted than the bigger cities - not much serious enforcement of rules, and all efforts are made to to encourage industry, seemingly at any cost. Much of the dirtier industry that isn't wanted by the Chengdu region is pushed out towards these areas.

As for social life - well think brain-drain - as in if you're local, have good qualifications and prospects then you escape this kind of town and head for a big city. What is left tends to be a lot of people connected with development and high levels of local corruption (these places have very tight gaunxi chains) - the night life and social scene of these kind of towns are not exactly bohemian paradises - in fact they're not exactly anything but a lot of folk trying to get wealthy, very quickly, by any means possible.
As for culture and style - well all that was unique and cultural in the way of architecture has long been knocked down and replaced by concrete - that's how the new rich make their dosh!!!!!

[robinasia]

Luzhou is a �third-tier� city�but for me that�s a good thing. There used to be about 15-20 foreign ESL teachers�most at the middle schools in town, one teaching at the police college, some in the villages scattered around Luzhou. There are also about a hundred south Asian students at the medical college�many of whom speak excellent English. There�s a western-style bar with a pool table near McDonalds and an Indian restaurant near the medical college. When I was there, some of the foreigners hooked up with the police college students for bike rides around the countryside and with the medical college students for cricket and soccer. A decent social life with a good mix of foreigners and Chinese is definitely possible. Your school should be able to get the phone numbers for you of the other middle schools foreign teachers.

I don�t recommend living in Naxi (upriver from Luzhou) or Hejiang (downriver)�you�ll be at least 40 minutes by bus from Luzhou and you�ll likely be one of only 2 or 3 teachers there. Your students will be very poor (the wealthier students board in Luzhou) and have little or no grasp of English. These are also the students that don�t really have a need for learning English�very few of them will make it past high school and you�re probably the only foreigner they�ll ever meet. This just makes teaching them that much harder. Classes in Naxi used to be quite large�70+ students. Most schools in Luzhou have classes of 45-55. Naxi & Hejiang are very polluted�Luzhou slightly less. Plus, the laowai! factor increases the further away from Luzhou you get.