Job Discussion Forums

[hoyao]

I've been offered a university teaching job in Wuzhou City, and it's been a bit tricky researching this place. I ran a search on the forums, and only two posts showed up, both just mentioning the place off-hand, and no actual topics on Wuzhou. Hopefully you guys can tell me a bit about what you've heard about this city and your experiences here. I'm wondering how developed it is by Chinese standards. And, uh, I already have some experience with this, but if you can give me a heads up if there's a lot cockroaches there, and if they're the big kind, I'd really appreciate it. I'll have to deal with it, but it would be less traumatizing to learn about it here than when I flip on my bathroom light in the middle of the night.

Also, the pay is 4500 RMB a month for 14-20 hours a week and free accommodations. I know I'm going to have to factor in other things, but given the compensation and the city, what do you think about the offer? It would mean a lot to hear any feedback you have.

[xiao51]

Wuzhou...

If you like warm, sometimes very humid weather, lots of green, palm trees, although not in abundance, etc., etc., then this place is perfect for you. No winter at all, by any standards. Very, very, very rainy summer -- the climate is typical tropical/subtropical, divided into a rainy season (late spring until early fall and a dry season, mid-fall until late spring). Abundant sunshine in the dry season, abundant rain in the rainy season.

It's a rivertown, there is no other way to put it. It's Guangxi Province, and that province, IMHO, has got to have some of the friendliest people in all of China. The city is close enough to Guangzhou that you can zip there back-and-forth on a weekend if you miss the bright lights but there is also a hydrofoil to Hong Kong and buses to all over Guangxi (Beihai is great).

The RMB you talk about is very, very standard uni gig RMB. You won't starve on that money but you won't buy a luxury flat either. That being said, your buying power in Guangxi is probably 10x that of Guangzhou and Guangdong -- just be sure to bargain hard everywhere you go.

The city has some dingy parts to it, and it can be a little polluted, like many things in China, on a bad day. Still, all-in-all, if this is your first gig in China, Guangxi Province is a great place to start, provided you are a warm-and-hot weather person. There are flowers in bloom, or at least some kind of flowers, in this city. Open airmarkets where you can find most everything that you need -- if you crave Western things, well, then just hop on a bus to GZ or order them in from taobao.

Since it's a uni gig, maybe the uni would not be adverse to your working a second part-time job. If so, you will be able to pick a few part-time gigs in this city without much difficulty.

Finally, I would venture that at most there might be 20-25 foreigners in the entire city so the natives will not be foreignered-to-death.

In your shoes, I would take it unless you here something really, really, really VERIFIABLY terrible from a foreign teacher already on site.

BTW, one last big caveat I forgot to mention -- the city suffers from recurrent flooding during the rainy season. Parts of it tend to be underwater at least once every 1-2 years. Thus, do not take an apartment on anything less than the third floor of any building unless you want to swim your way home.

[hoyao]

Thanks so much, Xiao, for getting back to me, and I'm definitely glad you found this thread! This is exactly the sort of detailed information I was hoping for. And I appreciate the much needed reassurance, as most of the posts I read when researching are filled with a lot of negativity. Ultimately, there's probably going to be aspects of teaching in Wuzhou that I'll wish could be better, but I agree that for a first job, I should be happy about it in a lot of ways too. And the bit about the floods is really important stuff, so thanks for that. I'll make sure my apartment is high off the ground, and you might've saved me a catastrophic headache.