living in china

[Ego_Extrodinaire]

Originally posted by Hermes3X
dude what a miserable attempt at flaming you, omar.


Anyway, What would be the best advice for not getting screwed Like blooming lotus?

If you must work while you're there

A. NEVER comprimise on visa status and always chase it up with your employers before it expires within 1 month of arrival max!

B. take plenty of back up vitamins and stock up on pantry items / back up staple foods and digestive aides ( both ways ) whenever you can, because you never know if or what's going to be available.

C. If you sign a contract, expect at least half of it to be pure BS.

D. Before you come, have reserve $$ kitty. ( preferabley enough for a flight home + temp accom / travel / phonecalls / and basic living for a few days - ftnght

E. No matter how badly you feel about your contacts, stay on as friendly terms as possible. At the end of the day, that is the law. Remember, best of friends and appreciating their innocence in helping you. Be leanient with them and understand as far as work goes , comprimises will happen.
If there ever occurs a contractual breach, know that as far as the law ( and your school ) is concerned, it will always, regardless of circumstance have been your fault and your breach and they did all they could to accomodate your "needs"( btw , which food and salary is not always part of).

F. always ask your employer for your passport back. Give them a photocopy for their files.

G. Unis will generally look after you better, so if you can swing it, try for work with one of those.
cheers

H. know and remember the phrase " wo yao chu wang ( raise intonation) ba) ( phonetically war yow chu wung baah) ( translation :- I want to go to an internet cafe) , because for 2 - 4 rmb per hour, if you get stuck for calls, internet access can be your best friend.

[Hermes3X]

Originally posted by omarthefish
They hire Spainish teachers at the foreign language university in Xi'an but assuming you are white, you can get a job easier and better paid for teaching English even if it isn't your native language.

Sichuan would be a fantastic place to live. Not the best place to study the language as they have a fairly strong accent and the dialect is not so close to mandarin as a northern dialect would be but the mountains are as beautiful as the women and the food is nearly as spicy.

Having a friend thene with the 'guanxi' is a HUGE help for a newbie to China.

how different is the dialect from mandarin? That is if I were to start learning a bit of mandarin here in the states could I take care of myself until I get slick with the sichuanese? Is it like Speaking Madrid Spanish and traveling through Mexico City or Buenos Aires or is it like speaking Madrid Spanish and traveling to Italy? Or Worse France (worse for the language difference. I am actually one of the few americans who's actually profrance. anyway....).

[Ego_Extrodinaire]

In Sichuan, they will be speaking mandarin and you should be fairly easily understood. Often when they say " budong " ( don't understand ) , they just don't like you or don't want to talk about it.

there are esl jobs throughout the world. for more info, check the international job board at www.daveseslcafe.com

or www.news@eslemployment.com

for taiwan www.tealit.com

Ps: for a good on-line cv / resume template goto www.monster.com

PPs: scan all of your docs, a recent pic, relevant certs, refs and have them on netfile. If you need a new job pronto, it's going to save you

[Hermes3X]

Netfile? Please Explain. I think I know what you're talking about, but I'm not sure.

[Ego_Extrodinaire]

store it on your email account as a draft in most easy / user / recipient ready format you can manage. Sometimes, attatchments, links etc won't open there because networks are different / govt sporadically controls availabilty/ access and so forth. Cut and paste onto then from a word file to your mail account if you must.

[omarthefish]

Originally posted by Hermes3X
how different is the dialect from mandarin? That is if I were to start learning a bit of mandarin here in the states could I take care of myself until I get slick with the sichuanese? Is it like Speaking Madrid Spanish and traveling through Mexico City or Buenos Aires or is it like speaking Madrid Spanish and traveling to Italy? Or Worse France (worse for the language difference. I am actually one of the few americans who's actually profrance. anyway....).

Technically they speak Mandarin all throughout the coutry. In Sichuan they speak it poorly. As a rule northern provinces speak more standard. Your metaphore of speaking Madrid Spainish and going to Mexico City is applicable.

If someone speaks Sichuanese it's like you other example of studying Spainish and then going to Italy...actually worse. More like France. When I say "dialect" I mean a real dialect. In China the dialects are closely related but truly separate languages. I think the analogy to Spainish and Italian is generally pretty good but then the southern dialects are ****her away from mandarin than the northern ones. I can understand most of the Shaanxi dialect just from living here long enough but go to Shanhai and you'll be hard pressed to find a native Chinese not from the are who can understand anything at all that they say.

Anyone who is a high school graduate will speak proper Chinese though. It's the law. All classes other than foreign language classes are in Mandarin. The TV is dubbed in Mandaring. The radio is mandarin and so are all the VCD's and DVD's.

As a rule, I disagree with this:

F. always ask your employer for your passport back. Give them a photocopy for their files.

Never let them have your passport in the first place. If they need it to process your Visa they can invite you down to the PSB with them together. You can give your passport to the PSB (gong an ju) and you can come back later to pick it up yourself.


A more serious misconception here:

you should be fairly easily understood. Often when they say " budong " ( don't understand ) , they just don't like you or don't want to talk about it.

You are vastly underestimating the difficulty of learning Chinese. Maybe after living there a few months you should be easily understood by I speak fro personal experience. I remember the blank and confused stares from hotel clerks when I first got here even though I had 4 years of Chinese study under my belt and I have enjoyed translating various other foreigners unintelligible Chinese into Chinese that the Chinese can understand. I tend to be better at understanding the Chinese spoken by foreigners than they are for 2 reasons:

1. I can understand an American accent better than they can. ie I know which sounds they are TRYING to pronounce.

2. My mind picks up the grammar and poor choice of words better since I went through that stage.

Actually I think I was always prett good at understanding Pigeon in any language. Anyways, I had friend who lived and studied in Xi'an for nearly 2 years and then moved to Sichuan. He told me he could hardly understand anything they said over there. Even many of the university people had thick accents that made it difficult for him.

[Ego_Extrodinaire]

there are certain words though, that regardless of provincial dialect are going to sound the same or reasonably close enough. given cultureshock being what it will be, I think the budong thing vs really not understanding advice could help a guy save a whole lot of time trying to rephrase or change intonations.....

[Serpent]

Or perhaps, Michelle, even the Chinese realise in an instant that you're a complete loon and continually pretend to not understand you in the hope that you'll go away.

[Ego_Extrodinaire]

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