Which city for TEFL- Nanning, Wuxi, Rizhao, Baotou

luckylucky

I've got a second interview for a teaching job in China. I've been given a choice of the four very different locations above. I know precious little about these places except the bit of googling I've done since getting the email this morning.

Weather is a bit of a factor to me - I've got used to living in sunny Portugal and Spain

Nanning is quite a big city near Vietnam and it's easily the hottest but looks like it rains a tonne there as well.

Wuxi is near Shanghai so I could easily do a day trip to probably ne of the most important cities in the world and what I imagine would be a fascinating place.

Baotou - Is in Inner Mongolia - not far from Mongolia itself - this place could be a fascinating place and kind of place that few westerners ever get to - that sort of appeals to me - but bejaysus the weather in winter is savagely cold

Rizhao is on the coast facing South Korea.

Nanning at first glance appeals to me the most, as I imagine I would be able to get to see Vietnam and possibly other South East Asia countries too while I'm there. But I'm far from having made up my mind. So if anyone can help me with their experience of China, particularly in regards to one or more of these places that'd be great.

Caonima

luckylucky wrote: »

I've got a second interview for a teaching job in China. I've been given a choice of the four very different locations above. I know precious little about these places except the bit of googling I've done since getting the email this morning.

Weather is a bit of a factor to me - I've got used to living in sunny Portugal and Spain

Nanning is quite a big city near Vietnam and it's easily the hottest but looks like it rains a tonne there as well.

Wuxi is near Shanghai so I could easily do a day trip to probably ne of the most important cities in the world and what I imagine would be a fascinating place.

Baotou - Is in Inner Mongolia - not far from Mongolia itself - this place could be a fascinating place and kind of place that few westerners ever get to - that sort of appeals to me - but bejaysus the weather in winter is savagely cold

Rizhao is on the coast facing South Korea.

Nanning at first glance appeals to me the most, as I imagine I would be able to get to see Vietnam and possibly other South East Asia countries too while I'm there. But I'm far from having made up my mind. So if anyone can help me with their experience of China, particularly in regards to one or more of these places that'd be great.

Wuxi. It's a bigger city so the salary should be better than if you're in the sticks. And you can always drop over to Shanghai and visit me

luckylucky

Caonima wrote: »

Wuxi. It's a bigger city so the salary should be better than if you're in the sticks. And you can always drop over to Shanghai and visit me

Thanks. I think the salary is the same for all locations and believe Nanning is a cheap city so my salary would probably go further there than Wuxi. Nanning is also a big city - almost 7 million. But I'll bear Wuxi in mind seeing as I can pop over to visit you

Caonima

luckylucky wrote: »

Thanks. I think the salary is the same for all locations and believe Nanning is a cheap city so my salary would probably go further there than Wuxi. Nanning is also a big city - almost 7 million. But I'll bear Wuxi in mind seeing as I can pop over to visit you

There's no doubt you'd get more bang for your buck in a cheaper city, but it usually comes with a price, such as not many expats and no nightlife. You're better off going to a city like Wuxi, because you can always take trains at the weekends to other nearby cities and have the craic.

luckylucky

Caonima wrote: »

There's no doubt you'd get more bang for your buck in a cheaper city, but it usually comes with a price, such as not many expats and no nightlife. You're better off going to a city like Wuxi, because you can always take trains at the weekends to other nearby cities and have the craic.

Thanks Caonima. Good points, though on the other hand a place that's cheap where I can save a bit of money for a while would be good (have ran up a bit of an overdraft! ). Also if I'm in an area where there's expats it'd be too tempting to just hang around with them, I like the 'craic' as much as anyone.

However in the part of Spain I'm living now there's bugger all expats and it forced me to start learning Spanish and to integrate. I'm aware it'll be much harder to learn Mandarin (and/or the local dialect) and unlikely to ever truly integrate I imagine but I'd like to take the opportunity to live outside of the ex-pat bubble at least in the short term if that makes sense.

circadian

Wuxi or Nanning. Shanghai is an amazing place so being close to it is a plus. The area around Nanning is beautiful and a short flight to the likes of Chengdu and Guilin. I have a few mates in Chengdu and they loved it. It was probably my favourite Chinese city barring Hong Kong.

Caonima

luckylucky wrote: »

Thanks Caonima. Good points, though on the other hand a place that's cheap where I can save a bit of money for a while would be good (have ran up a bit of an overdraft! ).

Transferring money back to Ireland can be a pain in China. Westerners are capped on the amount we can transfer each time, and it's small, usually only Y3,000 (~e340), and if you're with Bank of Ireland like me then you'll get charged not only a fee for sending the money from China, but also a fee when the money arrives in Ireland :mad: My advice, if you want to send a big swedge of money back home after a few months, get a Chinese national (e.g. your future Chinese girlfriend) to go along with you and she can send a much higher amount with a lot less hassle.

luckylucky wrote: »

I'm aware it'll be much harder to learn Mandarin (and/or the local dialect) and unlikely to ever truly integrate I imagine but I'd like to take the opportunity to live outside of the ex-pat bubble at least in the short term if that makes sense.

Don't bother with the local dialect, just stick to putonghua (standard Chinese). If you're in a less expat-populous place, and you need to fend for yourself, you'll pick the lingo up much easier. Find a person to teach you, but buy a book first that you can learn from. It's not actually terribly difficult to learn Chinese if you put a little effort in.

luckylucky

Caonima wrote: »

Transferring money back to Ireland can be a pain in China. Westerners are capped on the amount we can transfer each time, and it's small, usually only Y3,000 (~e340), and if you're with Bank of Ireland like me then you'll get charged not only a fee for sending the money from China, but also a fee when the money arrives in Ireland :mad: My advice, if you want to send a big swedge of money back home after a few months, get a Chinese national (e.g. your future Chinese girlfriend) to go along with you and she can send a much higher amount with a lot less hassle.



Don't bother with the local dialect, just stick to putonghua (standard Chinese). If you're in a less expat-populous place, and you need to fend for yourself, you'll pick the lingo up much easier. Find a person to teach you, but buy a book first that you can learn from. It's not actually terribly difficult to learn Chinese if you put a little effort in.

Thanks for the infos - the banking thing sounds a pain, though I doubt I'll be able to transfer big sums anyway, the bank that I have the overdraft with is a uk bank but I imagine the same will apply.

lol on your future Chinese girlfriend... well I'm single now so guess that's a possibility, whether Chinese women will actually be interested remains to be seen..... anyway running ahead of myself - haven't even got a job yet, just an interview

Caonima

luckylucky wrote: »

lol on your future Chinese girlfriend... well I'm single now so guess that's a possibility, whether Chinese women will actually be interested remains to be seen..... anyway running ahead of myself - haven't even got a job yet, just an interview

It's more difficult to stay single here, in all honesty. No end to the girls in China, and Chinese girls can be the sweetest girls you'll ever meet. Makes learning the language off a girl kinda difficult as you usually end up knocking boots with the girl who's supposed to be teaching you.