Comments on: What comes after China: 7 Problems

By: Will

Will — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 22:32:17 +0000

Great articles! I appreciate your economically literate perspective – its quite refreshing.

As to your concerns, If you don’t like pollution – why not move to JiLin, LiaoNing, HeiLongJiang, etc? I live in LiaoNing by the ocean and the air is clean. Its breezy and cool in the summer and her in HuLuDao the winters aren’t bad.

I saw some complaints about food and an article about finding coffee – do you use TaoBao to shop? I use TaoBao to get all my western food ingredients for a low price and then make things like pasta w/ground beef and even hamburgers w/cheddar cheese. I don’t want to insult you by assuming you haven’t thought about it – but i haven’t seen anything here about online shopping yet.

The education here is terrible – something people on the outside just can’t understand – but why send your kids to school at all? More research is suggesting that home schooled and even “unschooled” children are happier and more capable of critical thinking.

I know the cost of living down there is really high compared to up here – so perhaps a domestic move is in order. In HuLuDao I might spend 2000 RMB on average per month (free apartment). Meanwhile, I save 4000-5000 RMB per month. Its more that I could possibly save in the US.

Anyway, great articles!

By: Le

Le — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 20:44:48 +0000

My suggestions that you find a niche and then use it to help get you some support/income. have you thought of using your skills to help chinese to understand technical details/technical english/the internet and how to use it?How about your Writing? write from the point as a “ex-pat” in china and get some chinese that would like to see things from a “western viewpoint” as well! try chinatoday magzine and see if they are taking articles there for their english editions. i think you can find job here[USA] easily enough..but building up capital is going to take a while due the “situations” in the United States adn going to get worse..;-(

By: Shaun

Shaun — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 14:19:24 +0000

I can’t argue with your reasons for leaving. They are the same reasons that I do not live in a city in the US. I couldn’t live with myself for putting my kid(s) through a city public school system. We chose the location of our house based mostly on the quality of the school system.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:42:44 +0000

Shaun,

Truth is, I might not leave China if I can work out something long term I love. Thing is, I miss home and so many things about it. Lots of variety of food for the same price (in most of China the only cheap food is Chinese and Western fast food), relatively clean air, family, etc, etc.

Heh, things are fine in the US right now. I am just overly worried about a couple of years from now, after the sh** hits the fan.

But for now I am living life – been here 3 years and at least a couple more to come. But long term, are you kidding? I can barely stand the pollution here, let alone putting a kid through it. And unless I got an expat package I would have to send such kids through the local school system – not exactly the most appealing thought.

Thanks for the advice though – if I could find out a way to live in a clean, cheap area of China doing something I loved I might stay a bit longer than originally planned.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:33:47 +0000

Maybe I missed it, but why are you leaving China? If things are looking so bad in the US and you’ve already succumbed to living away from family (something you’re going to ask your girlfriend to do) why not just stay where you are? Settle down into a career suitable for sustaining both of you, get married and live life.