How is life in China? Part 3 out of 3.
China was an interesting place to research, explore, and learn from. If you’ve read many of my other posts you’d know that I lived there for over 3 years and traveled to many of it’s other cities, as a solo traveler. I learned how to speak Chinese Mandarin, I discovered Chinese cinematography, and some cool series plus I’ve made some awesome life long friends & haters along the way.
To wrap up this short series about my life in China, I’ll attempt to answer this question “ would you want to return to China?”
As I say with many of my other articles, these are my opinions from my lived experiences, I also don’t aim to make some people feel bad or good, it is what it is.
Let’s get to it!
If I were to go to China two things must be confirmed.
- I gotta be paid 3 or 4 times more money in salary for my time there. The last paying job I held in Beijing was my highest paying job there in general with my salary being close to $50,000 USD annually, with many benefits like health, housing, etc.
- The second thing is, that I must choose the city to live in and also that I want to be mainly around intellectuals and not people from the countryside. Though it may sound classicist but that’s my reality. One of the biggest hiccups for me about the Chinese people included many of them not being from Beijing or another major city so they’ve never seen people who were not Chinese and the awkwardness from their part would ensue. Such as touching my hair, avoiding me, or getting too close to me, taking my pictures/ recording me on their smartphones without my consent and everything in between. It’s creepy and annoying!
There you have it. So would I would to return to China and live there? No.
Why? The mindset of many of the Chinese is limited on global affairs in addition to limited in depth of various topics. I am not saying that’s the reality for all of them but for most of the ones I’ve met they didn’t know or were unaware of concepts that are quite common globally. And then I would enlighten/ educate them and it would be a waste of my time because I’m not being paid for sharing this knowledge.
Furthermore it would be like being an intellectual and speaking to a child. I hope you get my drift.
Lastly, most of the foreigners I’ve met usually go to China once and never return. Everyone has their reasoning and objectives but for me I’ve learned all that I needed from China (ie Chinese culture, China’s work culture, Chinese mentality) that’s more than enough. The rest I can research on my own while not being confined there.
On the other side of the coin, I have met mainly europeans who have been living their for a decade if not longer, but seldom met one who made a business there, the ones who stay longer than 3 years IMO are running away from something in their home country and view China as a temporary escape to create an alternative life/ reality. Either way, it ain’t for me.