Anyone know anything about Wenzhou, China?

[zboy1]

I may be offered a teaching job at a High School in Wenzhou, China (Zhejiang province). Has anyone ever visited the city, and can anyone give me some information about the place? Thanks.

[xiongmao]

Air should be better than in Guangzhou.

Other than that it's fairly prosperous and will be harder for dating, if that interests you.

Make sure you have health insurance. And bring any medicines you can't do without.

Also if you're not Asian then bring shampoo as the local stuff isn't designed for Western hair.

If you're taller than average then bring clothes!

Any space in your luggage bring good chocolate.

[Cornfed]

I was in a school just up the road from there. Small world. I don't know anything about the city itself, but it appears to be on the main road, which means you will be able to use the bullet train to travel to Shanghai and down the coast. The weather in Zhejiang is perfect for much of the year but darn cold in January and the buildings are not generally insulated. Virtually no-one over the age of 25 speaks any English. They seem to think everyone should be fluent in Chinese. The students were good where I was but I guess it depends on the school. The young women are mostly too thin for my taste, but obviously they are preferable to fat Western skanks. Accommodation for teachers is usually fairly Spartan but spacious compared to places like Korea. Hopefully you are a connoisseur of tea as it is a prime tea growing region. I liked the fact that girls would want to hug me when I went to "salons" to meet students at other schools. Hopefully the school will provide you with high speed Internet as they did me. Of course a lot of sites are blocked. You can get around this, but they may detect you doing this, so the idea would be to have a lot of the stuff you need for teaching in terms of images and videos on a drive when you arrive. Classes will probably be about 50 strong. I can tell you how to teach classes that big if you want. It is not great but not bad, at least in my experience. I wonder how this will get you ahead in life though. Oh, and get used to sleeping on bare boards. They don't believe in mattresses.

[zboy1]

I was in a school just up the road from there. Small world. I don't know anything about the city itself, but it appears to be on the main road, which means you will be able to use the bullet train to travel to Shanghai and down the coast. The weather in Zhejiang is perfect for much of the year but darn cold in January and the buildings are not generally insulated. Virtually no-one over the age of 25 speaks any English. They seem to think everyone should be fluent in Chinese. The students were good where I was but I guess it depends on the school. The young women are mostly too thin for my taste, but obviously they are preferable to fat Western skanks. Accommodation for teachers is usually fairly Spartan but spacious compared to places like Korea. Hopefully you are a connoisseur of tea as it is a prime tea growing region. I liked the fact that girls would want to hug me when I went to "salons" to meet students at other schools. Hopefully the school will provide you with high speed Internet as they did me. Of course a lot of sites are blocked. You can get around this, but they may detect you doing this, so the idea would be to have a lot of the stuff you need for teaching in terms of images and videos on a drive when you arrive. Classes will probably be about 50 strong. I can tell you how to teach classes that big if you want. It is not great but not bad, at least in my experience. I wonder how this will get you ahead in life though. Oh, and get used to sleeping on bare boards. They don't believe in mattresses.

Yeah, I would like to know how to teach for big classes, Cornfed! That would be very helpful. And post it on this thread, since they might be other posters who will find the information useful.

[xiongmao]

Hard beds - this is solved by buying mattress covers. They're widely available and cost from 70RMB.

Getting round the blocked sites thing is easy, expats in China will see dozens of ads for services to deal with this - helps to sign up to them before you go there!

[zboy1]

Hard beds - this is solved by buying mattress covers. They're widely available and cost from 70RMB.

Getting round the blocked sites thing is easy, expats in China will see dozens of ads for services to deal with this - helps to sign up to them before you go there!

Thanks for the tip, xiongmao!