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RE: Why I Left My Engineering Career To Be a Teacher in China!
As an old China hand, I have to congratulate you on your accomplishments in life.
I will warn you though, China can be seductive, and say 10 years later you might find yourself here, on perhaps a more permanent basis. If this is what you want, great. You can also teach almost anywhere, don't limit yourself to just one country.
I have a love/hate relationship with this place, mostly depending on who I interact with, good days and bad days, I've also come to the conclusion that there is no utopia, there is often a better path if one is willing to risk having the occasional failure.
I also have to agree, there is no love in most corporate culture, I've been in the business of corporate training, for far too long, it gets old FAST.
You are right. China is seductive. I always find myself renewing my contract for another year even though I had serious plans to leave. There are some things that annoy about this place, but there are things that keep me here. The internet situation sucks, but my lifestyle is still really good.
It seems like I don't have a reason to go back to Canada, so I might as well enjoy myself here and do what I can. It is tough to stay permanent here because of the Visa situation and you don't get any benefits like pension, retirement, etc.
Got news for you, by the time either one of us gets old enough to retire, the existing benefit and pension system will be a joke, in almost every country.
One of the things I do like about living here, is it forces me to take a D.I.Y. approach to just about everything. My mind is free of all of the mainstream culture as well. Like most of my Chinese colleagues, I'm not impressed with the state run media, and pretty much ignore it, almost total fiction, just like Hollywood.
I have no reason to go back to the States, except for large size wool socks, that is the only thing I can't find here.
The visa situation has always worked out for me, if it didn't, its their loss.
Internet is great compared many places in rural US. I have been playing the game of cat and mouse with the GFW of China for so long, its kind of a sport at this point.
If anything, when the internet is slow or just plain broken, its a good excuse to get outside, there is always something going on. Where I live, we have lots of neighborhood pets, dogs, cats, chickens, and my least favorite, roosters. Just watching people go about their everyday routines can be quite fascinating at times, usually they are also quite curious about me.
Yeah that's a good way to look at it. I've been getting myself more involved in activities that don't require the internet. I'm so behind on whatever is going on in the news or pop culture. I feel so separated from all of it.
To this day, I still find people watching one of the most interesting things to do here. Whenever I go out, I still feel like I'm on an adventure, even if it is just to the supermarket.
The supermarkets can be straight up insane.
I try to stay away from them on the weekends, or early in the mornings when all of the seniors are there.
The only comparison in the States is black Friday, its often normal operation here, total chaos, pushing, shoving, shouting, and waaay too many people all trying to occupy the same space all at once.
Suzhou, Auchan Supermarket, 2006
Hahaha! Very true. Forget about waiting in lines here. Everyone just shoves themselves to the front.