I’ve spent much of the past two weeks trying to convince a Beijing-based friend of mine to move to Kunming when he leaves his job in the summer. He doesn’t much care for Beijing and finds it rather unfriendly, and would like to go somewhere where he could enjoy a relaxing lifestyle for six months or so. Kunming, alas, is perfect. Nice weather, big but still closely-knit foreign community, inexpensive, cosmopolitan, conveniently and beautifully located. For my friend, for whom quality of life is more important than the possibility of making money, Kunming is ideal. For an aspiring businessman, though, Kunming’s slow pace and relative lack of opportunity might be stifling. A foreigner who wanted to live in China and not encounter another expat would also find Kunming’s large laowai community unwelcome.
Clearly, different people come to China for different reasons. Here I present a guide attempting to match the aspiring laowai to the most suitable Chinese city:
1. You’re a businessman looking to cash in on China’s rapidly growing economy. You’ve got quite a lot of cash to spare, so setting up won’t be difficult. Otherwise, you’re not particularly interested in Chinese culture or Chinese language, and you’d like to live somewhere with a large foreign community. Best best: Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong
2. You’re an adventurous sort who wants to experience China: the real China. You’re keen to learn Mandarin, to make Chinese friends, and to dive into Chinese culture headlong. You’d be more than happy never to see a McDonalds once during your stay in the Middle Kingdom. Best bet: Any small or medium-sized city outside of Tibet or Xinjiang.
3. You’re a fledgling businessman who wants to experience the cutting-edge of Chinese society. While you do want to make a bit of money, you’re also interested in Chinese culture and to see how the world’s largest country is rapidly changing. Best bet: Shanghai, Beijing
4. You’re an aspiring journalist fascinated with the murky underworld of Chinese politics. You want to experience Chinese media head-on, as well as delve into the country’s past. Modernity suits you fine but you’d rather be somewhere that reminds you that you are in China. Best bet: Beijing.
5. You find China interesting and exciting but can do without the hustle and bustle of the big coastal cities. Pollution, hot and humid summers, and cold winters also put you off. You’d like to go somewhere that combines a relaxing environment with enough things to do to not get bored. Best bet: Kunming
6. You’ve come to China to learn Mandarin- properly. You don’t want to study for a year only to realize you’ve picked up some incomprehensible local dialect. Money is no object. Best bet: Beijing or the Northeast.
7. You don’t have much interest in China per se but would like to settle somewhere with beautiful scenery and a small but vibrant expat community. Your ideal China experience would be to sip coffee at an internet cafe before embarking on a bike ride through gorgeous countryside. Best bet: Dali, Yangshuo, Gulangyu (Xiamen)
8. You have an academic or personal interest in exploring China’s minority ethnic groups. Best bet: Yunnan, Guizhou, Tibet, Guangxi, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang Provinces/Autonomous Regions
9. You love spicy food and hot summers and want to be centrally located. Best bet: Sichuan and Hunan Provinces
10. You love China’s culture, but not the mainland’s quality of life. You’d like to live in a more sophisticated, international environment with plenty of business opportunities. You have no intention to learn another language, just to work, live, and have fun. Best bet: Hong Kong
Obviously, these are bald stereotypes. I know plenty of people who are happily defying my examples, and can think of several other cities for which a case could be made. These are merely the ones I thought of off the top of my head.
Are any of these plainly wrong? Let me know in the comments or by e-mail, or if you have any other suggestions for a laowai/Chinese city match.
Comments 9
I’d pretty much agree with all of those on a surface level. (which is exactly what you would be considering when initially deciding where to live)
I’ll throw in another category:
You came to China to learn Chinese, make Chinese friends and enjoy Chinese culture. You don’t want too much westernization, but you definitely want to occasionally eat Western food, go to bars and also have foreign friends. Best bet: basically all second-tier cities. (Suzhou, Nanjing, Dalian, Hangzhou, Kunming, Chengdu, Qingdao etc)
This is definitely a broad one and there are huge distinctions between each of these cities, but in the end, I think they make for a nice middle ground.
I moved from Shanghai to Nanjing for these reasons and havent’ regretted it a bit.
Although…as the winter arrives, I am enormously jealous of you people in Kunming….and your ‘eternal spring’…
Posted 23 Nov 2007 at 3:07 pm ¶Thanks Matt for these valuable stereotypes.
I spent a year in Dalian.
International Professors Project wishes to establish an informal allianace with some number of Chinese universities, and recruit professors and lecturers as Fellows and International Professors and Lecturers into our nonprofit organization…. also board directors.
Kunming looks terrific to live in, so we wonder if we can make it work for us,as a China base of operations, despite its removal from big centers to which we
anyway can travel to. Kunming sounds useful, too, to make Chinese and expat friends sneed to discover expatriate professors and lecturers in China, as well as “Volunteers” ( mostly Fellows and Board directors…. we can climb to 50 board directors)
We will be devoted readers to your blog.
Ron Krate
Posted 23 Nov 2007 at 10:54 pm ¶info@internationalprofs.org
On the mainland, Beijing (although since I’ve never lived in Shanghai I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t say Shanghai if I knew the place; I like Chengdu, which would be high among my second choices). From my POV, it’d have to be somewhere that caters to foreigners. Cons: air quality; winter temperatures; dry climate; static electricity; hordes of bloody foreigners; hawkers; pesky market traders; soulless.
However, if we’re going to include the SARs, then Hong Kong without question. One place in China where I feel at home. Cons: appalling air quality; overcrowded; expensive; hordes of bloody foreigners; Indians trying to get you to buy suits; Africans trying to get you to buy fake Rolexes; typhoon season; humidity.
Posted 24 Nov 2007 at 8:00 am ¶You’re a 50-something alcoholic who’s abandoned his family on the other side of the world to come and teach English in Asia. You’ve been kicked out of Cambodia for reasons you’ve never satisfactorily explained, and now you’re looking for a cold, desolate place where you can drink yourself to death while teaching at the local agricultural university to make enough money to cover your daily half-gallon of baijiu.
City: Harbin.
At least, I saw one guy like that, and it seemed to be working out for him. I dunno; after a year up there I moved down to Beijing and I’ve been here ever since.
Posted 27 Nov 2007 at 7:32 pm ¶Ill add another one… You’re a recent college grad bent on living the dream of a tribal warlord in central asia. You have a basic set of scientific and engineering skills and specialized in organic chemical synthesis. You plan to set up a rural methamphetamine lab to placate the local population and give your increasing number of loyal peasant soldiers stamina and rage. Your next step is a coup d’etat and a life of luxury and despotism. Your location: Kyrgyz Republic.
Posted 01 Dec 2007 at 4:32 am ¶Kunming would be quite nice… this is a good list. But where are the semi-first tier cities with more Chinese culture for businessmen, like Dalian, Chongqing, and the like?
John – pollution in Hong Kong is not bad at all, the air is much cleaner than neighboring Shenzhen, which is much cleaner than Beijing itself.
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 11:19 am ¶You don’t mind the cold, as long as it’s not too cold, like clean air, don’t care much for history or culture, must have a local supply of seafood and preserved cabbage, and don’t want to be surrounded by Westerners all the time (but a bit of the time is OK). Choose Dalian.
PS: End up speaking Chinese like a rotten oyster is permanently stuck in your mouth.
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 3:44 pm ¶No one ever seems to mention Zhuhai. I can’t think of a more livable place. Next to Macau. 50 minutes by ferry from HK airport. Clean. Good weather. Small but friendly expat community. Shhhsh! Don’t tell anyone, I guess…
Posted 24 Dec 2007 at 12:30 pm ¶hola
I can’t agree with what you wrote really….
please explain further a bit more for me
thank you
Posted 11 Oct 2008 at 7:39 am ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 3
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