Just a question of curiosity really.

Are any of you actually living/working in China?

Sort of - living/working in Taiwan. Why?

Just a question of curiosity really.

What an odd question, if you really have no reason for asking. But I also live in Taiwan.

I had lunch in Chinatown today.

Nope, but I'm in love with Chinese characters.

I ate gyoza last night.

Curiosity is just as good as reason as any. If you do not like the question you need not answer.

Would you prefer another whiny how do I get to x....my country is the pits...its my dream .... type thread?

N.B still, some info may be usefull as China is sometimes a second choice for those that did not get to go to Japan.

Well in that case, who had oatmeal for breakfast today? Oatmeal is sometimes a second choice for those who did not get to eat eggs. Just curious if anyone had oatmeal.

I had dim sum.

N.B Though I fail to see why oatmeal would be a second choice to eggs, would not something like Bacon or sausage be more likely? consdering the nature of egg.

eggcluck Wrote:China is sometimes a second choice for those that did not get to go to Japan.

Taiwan not China, no one in their right mind would immigrate to China. Sorry...

I respect you opinion but why do you think that way?

While the red tape is annoying, my experience has been far from terrible so far. If I can get through the culture shock I think I will quite like it here. I am living like a king compared to what I had in the UK.

Advantages of Taiwan over China:

- Taiwan is a 1st world country, has been for for at least 30 years. Very little poverty here. People aren't totally obsessed with money.
- Excellent national healthcare system (cheap and convenient), good public transport.
- Higher wages for teaching English. As a new teacher I get $600NT per hour (£12.70). I work around 60-100 hours a month, living cost is dirt cheap ($20,000NT pcm) so potential for saving up money is huge.
- We have proper internet. Access to Facebook, youtube, bittorrent etc. I can't imagine studying a language without the the latter two..
- Freedom of media. TV shows Western films, soaps, news etc. Newspapers report on actual world news, domestic scandals, corruption etc
- Tastier food.
- Hotter girls.
- Friendly open minded people. Everyone loves us Westerners here!

That said, if you were moving to Asia to study Chinese, the lower living costs and more standard Chinese might make China a better proposition. Also I hear it's hard to get a full-time job here now, so might not be an option if you need to find a job fast.

I have to say (while trying to avoid over-generalizing here...) that girls from Shanghai are hotter than those from Taiwan.

Taiwanese girls are SO hot. I walk around drooling most of the time. Don't tell my wife. Hey, look but don't touch, right? But I would believe that Shanghai girls (and 蘇杭 girls, from what I've heard) could stack up favorably against Taiwan girls.

I don't know what part of China you mean when you say "more standard Chinese", but the vast majority of China's population don't speak standard putonghua. In fact, I'd argue that if you study in Taipei and don't succumb too much to the local accent (mainly not distinguishing z/zh, c/ch, s/sh), you'll end up with a very clear, neutral accent that anyone will be able to understand. Not to mention your tones will likely be very clear (Taiwanese Mandarin uses very few neutral tones).

Let's also not forget that in Taiwan (at least in the north) you're not treated as some strange object from a distant land to be gawked at. Sure you get some stares from some people sometimes, but the vast majority of people just don't think it's all that weird that you're there. Not at all like the time I spent in Shanghai, when I felt like an intruder any time I was outside.

But I do disagree that "no one in their right mind would immigrate to China". I almost did, and I may yet end up there next school year. I follow the grant money.

This is interesting:

wikipedia Wrote:In December 2004, the first survey of language use in the People's Republic of China revealed that only 53% of its population, about 700 million people, could communicate in Standard Chinese. (China Daily) A survey by South China Morning Post released in September 2006 gave the same result.[citation needed] This 53% is defined as a passing grade above 3-B (i.e. error rate lower than 40%) of the Evaluation Exam. Another survey in 2003 by the China National Language And Character Working Committee (国家语言文字工作委员会) shows, if mastery of Mandarin is defined as Grade 1-A (an error rate lower than 3%), the percentages were as follows: Beijing 90%, Shanghai 3%, Tianjin 25%, Guangzhou 0.5%, Dalian 10%, Xi'an 12%, Chengdu 1%, Nanjing 2%.

Funny what you say about staring in Taiwan. I was stared at so much in Taipei, much more than Japan (or maybe they just hide it better). Rural china though is indeed crazy.

Not to mention that "can speak" and "actually speaks in daily life" are two different things. Most of my friends here (foreigners, but it demonstrates a point) have two accents: classroom and street. If you don't 捲舌 in class you get scolded, but if you do on the street you get told you "have a weird Beijing/mainland accent" or asked if you studied in Beijing before coming to Taiwan. Similarly, if you're taking a putonghua evaluation, you're more likely to put on your best retroflex and erhua whether you use them in daily life or not. And let's not even talk about the fact that 53% of the country getting up to 40% wrong on said eval is pretty dismal.

I can't speak for rural China, but even on freaking Nanjing Road in Shanghai, I was the subject of intense interest. And I'm not even unusual looking, just a pretty average white guy. I get some looks in Taipei but they're as often followed with smiles as not. And I have no problem striking up conversations with anyone: store owners, random people on the street, old people, young people, whoever. Everyone is really friendly. In Shanghai I felt like anyone who was willing to talk was also willing to try to scam me.

I wonder if those results are skewed by illiteracy though. I'm sure a lot of older and particularly rural people can't read and may have received little if any schooling. Not to mention young kids. You can't really expect them to have mastered putonghua yet.

Other than Japan, S. Korea and Taiwan seems to be appealing too, interesting.