So you want to come to China: Making friends!

Making friends:

The major cities in China all of websites like: Shanghai stuff, The Beijinger, Changchun friends, and (my city's) QHD connect. Finding these websites is great, you can find apartments, friends, roommates, and Chinese classes on their as well as jobs, bars, and “what to do this weekend.” If you're looking at going to a city find the city's page (see if they have one) and look it over so you know if you want to be there or not. Get an account before you get there, even make friends! 

There are two types of friends in China, the Chinese ones and the foreign ones. Having a mix is good. Do not only make friends with foreigners! Do not only hangout with the people at your place of work! But I also recommend not only having Chinese friends. Yes, you're in a new country and learning from the locals is awesome, but I can tell you from experience it gets really frustrating to have to grade your English all the time and not have anyone who undersands that pizza should not have fruit and corn on it! (if you come here you'll understand this statement) and that you do not believe in any way that you will get diarrea from getting your feet wet (this is a real concern here). 

Of course when I write this I assume everyone will take it the way I mean it. Not every Chinese person is the same just like not every "foreigner" is the same just like not every American is the same. I write this because I have known way to many people in the last year who get extremely upset by generalizations, but this is my general experience. When I talk about Chinese people I usually mean the ones that are crazy enough to hang around foreigners or have the courage to talk to a foreigner. In China you will meet Chinese born people who have spent lots of time abroad and have a very worldly point of view or ones who have never stepped foot out of their own country but are snarkier than your American friends. You will also meet foreigners who (for lack of a better term) "have gone native" and don't seam to be able to even speak their own language properly any more. Who knows who you'll be able to have a good conversation about "home" with and who you'll be able to complain about strange Chinese tendencies to. Sometimes Chinese people are the people with the most cynical views on China and it will be foreigners who get (overly?) sensitive about an off-handed comment (or full on rant) about your Chinese boss. You never know!

Make Chinese friends!!! They are wonderful. Don't be afraid. The worst thing about Chinese people I've met is that they have a tendency to be too friendly... Do don't be worried. You can make a best friend in China overnight and that friend will be prepared to help you with anything - I mean anything. The majority of Chinese people feel that you are their guest because you're in their country and they want you to have a good experience. Not to mention they hope you'll host them if they ever make it to the US, which they know is unlikely. Some Chinese people don't like having foreigners in their country, but I feel like that number is shrinking and being replaced by people who are positive about foreigners or just confused by us. 

Don't be intimidated by trying to make friends in China, it's easy. In small communities where their aren't a lot of foreigners, they will be happy to add you into their group. And Chinese people will think you're super cool! In bigger cities it's easy to find like minded people through big events, groups, or through online forums. Remember that it's easier to make friends from your own country when abroad than it is to make them in your own country. Why? Because if people have been gone from home two days, three months, or ten years they will crave a little piece of "home."

Most foreigners in China think that making foreign friends is easy enough but they get intimidated by making Chinese friends  This is what I have to say, even if you just meet a Chinese person in an English corner or at a social gathering you can still ask them to hangout with you, you can ask them to join you for dinner, or invite them shopping with you! The Chinese people I have met have all been super nice, especially the ones who you'll meet at social gatherings with a lot of foreigners or at English oriented activities, and of course English majors in college. 

I've met most of my Chinese friends at an English corner I frequent at a local cafe. After English corner is finished I say I want to go to dinner and there's always a group of at least five people trying to figure out where we should all go. It can be fun. 

Chinese people will try to baby you. I don't even think this is a generalization, I think it's just reality. I've lived in China almost a year and my waiban (professional foreign wrangler) held my arm while crossing the street yesterday! No matter how much I insist I understand the Chinese language I still get an excited "You understood me?" from my friends after responding to something they say in Chinese or even worse, applause from my students when I talk to their teachers in Chinese or when I call out a kids name from seeing the Chinese character (embarrassing). 

In fact, I generally believe that Chinese people think we foreigners commute from our home countries, and don't actually live in China. 

So your Chinese friend is telling you what restaurant to eat at and what to (and not to eat). Yes, this can be annoying, especially for us very (overly?) independent Americans! Advice? Get over it! If nothing else it's funny. Plus, your Chinese friends will introduce you to the best restaurants, the best foods, the best places to shop, and the best attractions to see. I promise. So what if you didn't understand what your Chinese friend said was the main dish served at their favorite restaurant and all of a sudden you're presented with the largest bowl you've ever seen and the only thing in it is duck heads? What if the rich dad of a student you've been helping tries to show off his wealth by buying you the most expensive thing on the menue and that happens to be sea cucumber? What if you get hot pot and your friends who are concerned about your health order cow stomach because in China they believe eating stomach is good for your stomach (and they similtaneously believe you can get diarrea from everything)? None of these things will kill you, I promise. Be adventurous! You're in China. Also, you'll get major props (gain a lot of face) from your Chinese friends for trying this stuff . 

Don't be afraid to ask for help or for what we think of as "favors." Honestly I was MIA for a few weeks once because I had an extended stay in a hospital. What happened when I told my Chinese friends about it after? I got yelled at, by all of them - for not telling them about it! Every one of them said they would have taken off work in a heart beat to be there for me. I had to talk a woman I work for out of coming to visit me, she just kept texting me things like "I'll be there in half an hour!," "What should I bring?,"  and "I'll cook you dinner!." I told one of my friends about being in the hospital and he actually stopped his car, turned to look at me, took my hand and said, "I hope that during your time in China you never have to go to the hospital again, but it you do - CALL ME!" 

I've had Chinese friends book me train tickets, help me buy stuff online, give me a place to stay, introduce me to students to tutor and people who want to hire me. I even got to be the international component for a design firm for one whole morning once because of a friend (and got paid a few hundred dollars for me "inconvenience"). I've gotten modeling jobs, free drinks, and someone even taught me how to play Mahjong! Foreign friends can be just as helpful. People who've been in the city/ China for a while don't mind you asking for help. I can tell you this for certain, because now I'm on the other side. I get people calling me asking for addresses in Chinese, to talk to their taxi drivers for them, or just for a good place to get a salad. 

If I could stress one thing to people who are new to China it's don't be independent. Take a break from the pressure of having to earn everything through hard work, do everything on your own, and pay for everything. Just sit back and let people take care of you for a change. If you're having a problem don't struggle with it on your own, you're in a community based society now not to mention surrounded by a (security) net of ex-pats. Enjoy the experience! 

So you want to come to China: China and Contracts

To be upfront - this will probably be the most frustrating part of your stay in China. I've already planned a post where I talk about laws and the general Chinese state of mind when it comes to laws, but for now I will say this - it's not anything like the way you think of a contract. The intended name for this future post is "In China laws are more like guidelines really," and anyone who's been to China for an extended period of time will tell you the same thing. Chinese companies and companies in China in general are completely fine with blatantly lying to you to get you to the country and get you working for them. When you bring up these blatant lies the Chines people will mostly just give you a confused look, which my friends in China and I just refer to as a Chinese person's face - aka they don't care.

Warning! This kind of behavior is not just common with Chinese companies! Don't get fooled by western companies claiming to be better, they're just as bad. If you've considered working in China as all you have already read about/ heard about "horror" stories about people thinking they're going to work in a major city and getting shipped out to the rural country-side where they take your passport and don't pay you. The truth? This happens, you need to be savvy and you can't be too trusting - ever. Things to make sure of before you leave: look-up information about the place you're going to move to - do not trust the info the company gives you, find information about the job from another source than the one you're going through, make sure they show you a sample contract, and lastly make sure your sample contract says you will be holding onto your passport! Moving to a new country is a lot about trust. You will have to hand over your passport eventually to get a visa, and yes this is scary. To make you feel better about this make sure you have a copy of your passport and register with your local embassy when you get to the country before handing over your passport.

Sometimes foreign companies are the worst with taking advantage of foreigners. Why is this? They look more trustworthy to us, it's easier for them to replace you, and it's easier for your actions to follow you back home. The worst working conditions for foreigners in my city are at the school I work at and at a British owned company. And my school sources foreign teachers through an American company.

I'm not saying this to scare anyone and I'm definitely not saying it to stop you from coming to China! I just wish I had been less trusting and done more leg work before I came here and I want to pass that on.

My experience? I will get into it after I get home, but I will say it included a lot days when I felt frustrated, angry, and taken advantage of. Even talking to other people who came to China through the same program as I did were horrified when they heard some of the stuff I (and other people from my program) went through. I had people frequently ask me why I stayed with my company, and why I didn't get my company and local press involved with my situation. My answer? I did try to get my company involved and they told me I was SOL and there isn't local bi-lingual press here. Know where you're going and if it's your first time - make sure there's a strong foreign community.

Contracts and China:

Laws and contracts are really more like guidelines in China. They aren't followed accept sometimes they spring up to bite you on the ass. Visa laws aren't generally followed, your Chinese company/ employer will not understand the laws. This isn't their fault. Laws are rarely followed in China and can change in an instant. For example, during the first few months I was in China thousands of foreigners were kicked out of Beijing alone due to having improper visas. These visas had always been okay before even though they weren't legal, but the government wanted to get rid of foreigners during their transition of power so they took advantage of the law to suit them. Then they changed the visa laws in states close to Beijing. Many people who thought they could simply leave the country to renew their visa (aka go to Hong Kong, Russia, Mongolia, South Korea or any other place close by) had to go back to their own country to get a new visa.

I had a Z visa and they are amazing. If you can go through a company who can get you one then do it, especially if you want to stay for a few years. It's a visa and a living permit and can be renewed for up to five years. You do not have to leave the country to get it renewed. You can get it renewed through a new company. You can leave and re-enter the country as many times as you want with it. And it's valid for a year at a time.

Many companies will give you a three or six month visa. Then you have to leave the country to get it renewed. Your company will pay for the flight or give you money equivalent to the cheapest flight you could get out of the country that you can spend towards a vacation location of your choosing (sometimes). So, if you bought that round trip ticket and are staying for more than a year, this could be your trip home! You might get paid for one ticket twice.

Try and make sure you know what you're getting into, especially if you're new to coming to China. The contract should talk about housing, salary, overtime, stipends, hours, and holidays/time off/ sick leave. You should get free housing and/or a living stipend option. This money is in addition to your salary. With the free housing option you often still have to pay for electricity, water, gas  internet, and heating. Unless you have an on campus residence, then those things are covered. Which can be nice but if they have on campus housing still ask if there is a stipend option. I got stuck living on campus in an active class building in an old classroom with active classrooms next to me. When schools start at 7 am, don't end till 10 and run 6 to 7 days a week living on campus can be a nightmare There are also curfews, and it's not unheard of for schools to lock you out of your building after 10 at night. Though it might be nice to live on campus for long enough to find an apartment and a roommate and save up some money, it's not the best long term plan. Stipends are often just your salary but they're given as a stipend so they're tax free, I'm pretty sure it's anything above 6,000 (about $1,000) a month is taxed, so you'll often see a salary of that then a stipend for the rest. If your salary is high ask what it is after taxes. Make sure teaching hours and office hours are clear. Most jobs have between 16-18 teaching hours a week with 30-40 hours total. Some will say a number of classes, honestly about 10 a week is common though this depends. You should get Chinese holidays and at least vacation time equivalent for western holidays. So, you might have to work Christmas, but they'll let you pick another day off. It's more common to get the holidays, but some jobs will give you a different day off in the same week so you get a three day weekend instead. Some places are stickt about sick leave, I don't recommend accepting a company that is! When you're really sick you don't want to be thinking about who's covering your shift or how you're not getting paid for that day. Companies should also pay for at least half your medical expenses and bring you to the hospital. The hospitals here are completely different, and you don't want to have to navigate them on your own especially not when you're sick!

So you want to move to China: Flights

Air travel/ flights:

Get a round-trip ticket, it's worth it. I booked my ticket only a few months out and by then a one way ticket was about $1,000 (you can get them cheaper if you plan further ahead which I recommend) and the round trip was a little less than $1,300. It was a no-brainer to pick the roundtrip.

Yes, I was a little worried I would want to stay in China and I was waisting the extra money. But to be honest most schools in China reimburse your airfare (sometimes only up to 8,000 or 10,000 RMB this is something to look for in your contract or ask about/ clarify), I knew my contract didn't have a limit so I wasn't worried about paying the few extra hundred, and I knew it could end up saving me in the long run.

Here's the process. When you book your ticket you can book a return flight for any date up to a year from when you're purchasing the ticket. This means your return flight is not the actual time you're coming home and you will have to change the return flight -eventually. This is a simple thing to do but it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with your air carrier's policies before it's two months before you want to leave and they tell you you're no-longer eligible to rebook! Lets be real - Airline companies suck! But that's exactly the reason you should know as much information about them and the process as you can so you don't get caught off-guard. 

Note that it's often the policy that booking agencies (aka a travel agent) can't change your flight, you have to do it yourself. When you change your flight you can change it for any date up to a year of when it was purchased, but again you can only book a flight up to a year from the time you're booking it as well. This means it's unlikely you can use your return ticket after two full year contracts, but there are many holidays during the year that you could come home during, and I'm sure it'll help you get your luggage - aka souvenirs - aka awesome cheap Chinese stuff home!

Two bags. I highly advise you find a company that gives you two free bags when you're traveling economy class. It's great if you only want to bring one bag there (though it's hard to do, remember most suitcases weigh up to 10 pounds by themselves!) then great, but you'll want more than one to come home with, I promise. Also, a lot of air lines have a policy where a second additional bag costs more than the first. What do I mean by this? Maybe you book through a company and you only got one free bag then you pay the $200 to get a second bag on the way there, then you'll have to pay $500 to get a third bag home.

If you need to take a domestic flight with all of your luggage that is not a connection flight where your luggage is checked through... I had to do this. You should know that domestic Chinese flights have a check bag limit of about 40 pounds. They weigh all of your checked baggage together then subtract 40 pounds and have you pay for the rest. I thought that it would be like America where if a bag is over weight you pay more for it than you pay for a second bag so I packed two 40 pound bags. WRONG! The best thing to do is pack a big suitcase with 50 pounds and then a duffle or something with the extra weight for your international flight then put it all together for your domestic flight. You can always buy a second suitcase in China, they're really cheap. They might not be great quality, but if you only have to use it the once it's worth it. Or hey, just repack the duffle. Having said that, overage fees for domestic flights in china is cheap. I had to pay for forty pounds and it cost less than $75 (as in my bank account showed a charge of about $70, meaning this was the price after all the fees). So, don't stress about it too much! But if you do have one bag and it's around the right weight they won't charge you for it - I know this from experience  Meaning your 50 lbs international bag will most likely not cost you a cent. Another note about luggage - checked luggage for international flights. It can be hard to get your belongings that you will have for a whole year down to just 50 or 100 lbs - a lot of airline workers know this and will be lenient on you if you tell them your situation. You might be that person who gets a person having a bad day... But from experience I know a few lbs here or there are generally over looked. Just keep some heavy stuff on the outside that you can shove in your cary-on if need be. Or if parents or friends are coming prepare them to maybe take some stuff home with them. A lot of my friends who came to China at the same time as me got lucky and had bags around 60 lbs, just remember that people can sympathize. 

Rescheduling your return flight. Every company is different! Make sure you know the rules before you leave. Call the company and ask if you have to. I've heard some bad stories about people losing their return flights because they were caught unaware by some regulation. Rebooking is cheap, it should only be few hundred dollars all together, and again it's cheaper the further out you book it. There is usually a $100 flat fee for changing your flight, then you have to cover the difference in price between your old ticket and your new one. For example, you book your first ticket way in advance then you rebook closer to your flight - you might have to pay one or two hundred dollars for this. I will tell you, I lucked out with the rebooking. Not only does my school (as I already mentioned) pay for my entire flight - but I also booked through Korean Air and was able to add in a one week stop-over in Seoul for next to nothing. The best part? They gave me two free bags for both legs of my journey. This cost less than $500 to rebook. 

Chinese companies don't like to give you dates. Make sure there is an end date for your contract on your contract so you know when to set your return date for. They will try and change it, they won't be clear about it, and they don't think it's important. For your own sanity just make sure you have an end date to stick to. Also, remind the school of the end date before rebooking, at that time they might want to prolong your stay and you can re-negotiate, but make it clear that you're buying a ticket. 

Talk to your school before booking your ticket. I know plenty of people who are glad they didn't book till last-minute because they didn't get their visa till after the school said they would get it - dor no real reason and without warning. Also, a lot of school will buy your tickets for you, especially your return ticket. So you don't have to stress about how much money the ticket will cost, because they're paying it. Though you can get a good deal if you book a round-trip, like I did. I was able to have my school pay for a whole other leg to my journey for free. Why? Because the ticket was way cheaper than if they booked one last minute for me! So it pays to think ahead. 

Now, having said all this. I do know that if you buy your ticket really close to your departure prices are as cheap as if you book further out. So booking between two to four weeks out is a safe bet. If you want to go this route you can do the same thing for your return flight 

So you want to come to China: Intro

I've been woking on this part of my blog since before I left for China. I had so many questions and no one to ask about them! Through my time here I've been thinking about advice to give to people who are traveling to, wish to travel to, or are moving to China. Now as I was writing this I realized I have a shit-ton of knowledge on the subject and a lot of stuff I want to say. Some of the stuff is big and some of it is little. But I know the info I was happy to get before I left, the info I'd wished I'd gotten, and the info that I was told that was not correct. I'm going to devote the next few posts to this subject. Each post will have the title "So you want to come to China" followed by a topic. The only thing I want to tell people is to not under-estimate the knowledge you could gain from even the stupider sounding posts. I mean, for instante, I'm sure plenty of guys will want to skip over info on hygienic products thinking it's all about girly-goo and tampons. But hey boys, did you know it's next to impossible to get deodorant in China? Yeah, your welcome for that information. So suck it up and read it!

So - lets get down to the nitty-gritty.

Living in China

I came to China wanting to stay and am leaving wanting to leave. I guess this might sound positive, but I don’t mean it to. When I decided to come to China I didn’t do it to spend a year abroad, have a chance to travel, or to escape. I now know that these are the common reasons for people to come to China. People come here to get away from their lives. They come here because they never went abroad in college, because they’re not ready to face “the real world,” or they have a shitty dead-end job they want to get away from. But that wasn’t me.

I came to China because of my interest in the culture and language. I learned about China in school, and yes I regretted not spending a semester abroad in China, but not because I wanted to say I’d been to China or party in China or something, but because I was really interested and impressed by the country. When I thought about China I saw it as a move, a place I would go to and live in for a few years before I moved on with my life. But when I got here I felt differently about it.

Living in China is hard; it’s definitely for people with a much thinker skin than I have. China is all about competition and fighting your way to the top, which just isn’t me. I got laughed at by a friend the other day for saying I think that a tie is the best way for a game to end, but I really think that. I like fairness and working hard to achieve things. I believe in being kind and polite and sticking up for what is right.

In China you don’t get ahead because you deserve to in the way that I think of “deserving” something. You get ahead because you push your way there. In China there are no lines, there are no real laws, and there is nothing you can’t bribe your way in our out of. At a barbeque the other day my friends and I were being treated like crap until one of the people in our group started yelling and swearing at the owner, complaining about everything he could. Now the important thing to understand is that he didn’t do this to be rude, he wasn’t goading the man into giving us better service and he definitely did not alienate the man with his actions. He was making a friend. At the end of the meal the people who owned the place gave us a little discount and the man we’d been yelling at sat and had a beer with us.

Rules don’t exist until they benefit people in China, and as soon as they don’t benefit them anymore they disappear. It’s completely appropriate to interrupt someone’s class with a call or by showing up to talk with them but when you need to contact them for some reason all of a sudden their phone is off or they don’t respond, even if they’re not busy.

Bugging people isn’t rude in China; it’s just how you get stuff done. It’s not wrong to bring up the same thing twenty times, it’s just the only way you could possibly get what you want done. And you still probably won’t get it done.