15 Things I Wish I Knew Before Moving To China

and some sweets and chocolate but that didn't last very long unfortunately but in hindsight we didn't need to china isn't another planet of course it's going to have these things unless you're moving to rural china of course but chances are you're probably moving to a city which means it's going to have western shops western food and imported goods and if it doesn't then taobao has everything when i came to china i came to teach like most foreigners moving abroad and i absolutely loved it but what i didn't realize is how many other opportunities there

are here in china now i don't teach any more but i still work for an education company and if you want to learn more about it then you can check out this video i also know a lot of other people that have made transitions into different jobs but if you're not already in china these aren't so easy to find so it's something to bear in mind that you might come as a teacher but leave as something else working in china can be very different to what you're used to back home this may seem obvious but companies run differently here people often work long hours

and sometimes on the weekend and this might be expected of you too if you want to see the differences in working culture then check out this video some companies hire a lot of foreigners and they understand that there are some cultural differences but if you're the only foreigner then you're going to need to be adaptable i found that being adaptable isn't just important in the workplace but in daily life here sometimes things can change like that and you just have to deal with it i'm a pretty intense planner so when things don't go as planned it can be

pretty frustrating but over the years the more this has happened i've learned to go with the flow and find a solution instead not every day will be great when you move to china there are so many things to see and do which is amazing but it can also be hard some days will just get on top of you nothing will go right you feel frustrated because you can't fully communicate with people you don't understand why people are shouting at you when you're trying to buy something you feel alone in this little china bubble on the other side of the world let me tell

you that is totally normal it's okay to feel overwhelmed and you're not alone the problem you're facing another expat has probably had in the past reach out to people in wechat groups or online to get some advice people are pretty friendly the next day you'll go out and you'll meet a cute auntie or a little kid who wants to practice their english and you'll realize that you were just having a bad day one thing that will help you through those bad days is knowing some of the local language whilst you don't need to know chinese to live in china it

certainly helps especially if you want to travel yes you can easily hop on a high-speed train but if you want to travel a little bit deeper then it's a whole different story knowing a few basic phrases will allow you to navigate public transport with ease meaning you can ditch the tour groups and travel independently to some really cool places during my first year in china every time i hit the road i was approached by lots of curious locals i was full of panic and i didn't know what to say apart from ting tong to every question after missing out on a

year of meaningful interactions i decided to do something about it i tried lots of different methods but nothing really worked for me i'm a visual learner so dry textbooks and text heavy apps just wouldn't cut it recently however i've been learning with an app called rosetta stone who were kind enough to sponsor this video when i signed up they asked me my goals so that i could focus on learning the vocabulary that would help me travel with more confidence and make better videos for you guys they gave me a learning plan with daily goals and short lessons

supplemented with stories videos and lectures so now i don't have an excuse to miss my daily dose of chinese you can spend as long or as little time as you want in the app and you can pause the lessons so if you have to change metros or join a zoom meeting you can pick back up exactly where you left off this means whenever you have a spare five minutes you can learn some new phrases i know what you're thinking one of the hardest things about learning languages is the pronunciation pronunciation the pronunciation pronunciation pronunciation pronunciation

especially if you're learning a tonal language such as chinese what good is learning all these words if you can't say them correctly well the best thing about this app is it has a voice recognition feature which means you'll always be able to distinguish your mother from your horse so how am i getting on with learning chinese now well i still have a long way to go but i'm making steady progress i feel like the app really holds me accountable and it's helping me towards my goals my only regret is i wish i'd started sooner rosetta stone is like your own

private tutor but way cheaper if you fancy trying it then they've given me this crazy discount to share with you guys if you click on the link below then for just 179 you'll get a lifetime subscription to all of the languages on the app this means you'll never have to spend another penny on learning languages again how amazing is that anyway i'm up for my travel student and i can't wait to put my new sound vocabulary into practice but no matter how well you can speak chinese being a foreign in china means you're always going to stand out i've been to

quite a few places in the world but i've never experienced anything quite like this people are really curious here they want to take a photo of you or with you sometimes they'll video you or let you hold their baby and you cannot walk past an old person without them saying lao wai or why goren which means foreigner in case everyone around them didn't spot you for the most part it's quite sweet and people are just interested because maybe they haven't seen a foreigner before but it wasn't something i was prepared for before i moved here i didn't realize

how much of a celebrity i would be just for being foreign although you do get a lot of attention as a foreigner here it's not the same as in other countries where people see you as a target yes there are scams here yes there are pickpocketers but they are very few and far between i've been to a lot of places and i can honestly say that china's one of the safest countries i've been to i feel really safe walking around on my own as a woman overwhelmed because it's pretty busy yes but unsafe no one of the reasons we picked china was because of its location

it's pretty easy to get to other asian countries so we thought we could travel a lot and pre-covert this is what we did but what i didn't realize was just how diverse china is itself if you go north south east west there are so many different things to see different cultures traditions and landscapes but most importantly is of course the food china has so many different regions which have their own dishes ingredients and cooking methods i had no idea if i had then i'd probably have come sooner be prepared to try flavors textures and spices that your

tongue's never experienced before restaurants know that dishes come when they're ready so if you want things in a certain order don't order them together this is fine in chinese restaurants because everybody on the table usually shares food together but this still applies if you go to a western restaurant it is no fun watching the person in front of you eat whilst you're starving so usually we still share food also don't order a dessert with your main because i can guarantee it will come first china is a culture with many traditions and superstitions

there have been lots of times where people have said to me oh you can't do that because of blah blah blah well don't eat that because of blah blah blah you can't wear that because of blah blah blah i wish i'd known a few before i came to china we have a video all about chinese superstitions here and you can check that out but i recommend doing a little bit of research and finding out what's polite when it comes to table etiquette you definitely don't want to offend somebody important here's one that could save your life the green man doesn't mean it's

safe to cross it means proceed with caution cars can still drive at you if you're walking so make sure you check both ways what i didn't realize by moving away was just how much i would learn about my own country i found it really interesting to speak to chinese people that have lived in the uk and hear their stories and understand their perspective on my culture it's made me miss the uk though and want to travel it a lot more which i was never really interested in before which brings me to my last point it's hard to leave we said we were going to stay

for one year and then it turned into two years and now it's four years and with every year it just gets a little bit harder to leave when you come be prepared that you might be here for the long haul china is great because there's so many things to do you're constantly learning there's so many places to travel the wages are pretty good and you can live quite comfortably here which makes the thought of going home even more of a risk than moving here in the first place but that's just my opinion and maybe you won't love china as much as i do okay so there

you have it i hope you found this video useful if you did then feel free to share it click the link below to check out rosetta stone and save yourself a hefty discount it will make your time in china a little bit more enjoyable i'll see you next time