LOL when you talk about the taxi I feel it too. TBH it's not discrimination, I am a Guangzhou native and I got rejected sooooooooooooo many times because they don't want to go to certain places. The reason is just being they knew that certain areas have a lot of traffic and if they take you, they will lose a lot of time waiting in the traffic with you instead of making more money on running more trips.
Great vlog, I have been to China many times and agree with what you say, also I follow a lot of "China" vloggers and some have become very political and infighting, refreshing to watch your take....Peace and JaYoe
R u still there? Guangzhou rocks, but I have never really lived there. Been there three times, and I feel like going back there at least once a year, just to walk around. The city wakes me up.
Hi ET! I been to China 4xs now. It's really an amazing place! Can't wait to get back! The spitting thing is very very bad though. It spreads diseases really badly and the Chinese government has really tried to curb it. To no avail.
For surveillance cameras, there is nothing to worry about. After watching the documentary about the grassroots police station, you will know that the police are not interested in ordinary people. They only check the surveillance records when a crime occurs in order to solve the case quickly. You need to worry that some of your Android software will collect your information, such as your shopping habits, your search habits, your asset level, etc., and then accurately place advertisements. For this, mobile phone manufacturers are already doing professional functions to restrict these Software.
Nice vlog and it's great that you have enjoyed living in GZ as it is my hometown. Regarding the taxi drivers rejecting foreigners, I feel deeply sorry for what you have experienced but the sad truth is that some of those taxi drivers just avoided picking up passengers with a foreign face as they are scared to hell by the possibility of contracting COVID-19 from a foreigner since the situation was out of control in many of the western countries last year. This is certainly irrational as they must not know the truth that the Chinese border is currently shut to most foreigners and almost all imported cases in China are by chinese nationals who contracted the virus from abroad. Also, since most taxi drivers are from a less-educated background they sometimes are rather misinformed and some of them quite rude by western standard but you will probably find most educated adults in Guangzhou and the rest of China more welcoming to foreigners. Regarding the spitting thing, yes, those older people are indeed mostly from the rural towns or lower tier cities and to them spitting is rather normal. After many years living in China, I still don't understand why spitting is such a common act in China but one fact perhaps contributing to that is that China do have a large smoker population.
haha thank you! yes i agree about the spitting thing. China has changed from mostly a rural community to one of the most cutting edge technological countries in the world in the span of people's lifetimes. And there are still lots of small towns that are like "third world" countries in some ways. The taxi thing still happened before Covid, but thank god for Didi! That made the problem so much better haha. And I used to live in Panyu but worked in the city so a lot of times it was just that the driver didnt want to go that far, and I know many Chinese people probably got the same treatment for that reason.
In ancient times, only the ruling class could receive a good education. China has only developed for a few decades. Many people have only received the most basic education. Their behavioral quality cannot keep up with the pace of development. Now higher education has become very popular. After a few decades, most Chinese people will have good qualities.
yeah, i understand that the country is advancing and developing faster than the people can catch up with. But I certainly agree that the kids of today will grow up with a better understanding of the modern society they live in
🤣dude, the cons part cracks me up!! They are pretty much true and i cant defend them. Spitting in public is gross, skipping lines is very annoying and the squat toilets is kinda weird if u not used to them. The privacy part and crimes go hands in hands, maybe thats why the crime rate is so low in china. I live in tbe US, as u mentioned, the government here watches everybody also, we just didnt know or didnt wanna acknowlege them. All in al, your vlog is excellent and accurate, u not like some of them expats out to paint a ugly/ dirty picture of china. We know china isnt perfect, but i am sure china is doing her best to welcome anyone with an open mind about the country and the culture. Anyway, enjoy your stay in china, for however long u gonna stay there. U seem like a cool dude( u have the frat vibe to u), i hope i am not offending u. And if i happen to run into u in guangzhou, i will def buy u a beer. As u said earlier, i. China u can drink any time and anywhere!😄
Well if you wanna live in the city center, I lived in a neighborhood near yangji metro station called yangji cun. It’s a good neighborhood with my foreigners and it’s close to all the cool city center bars. Places there range from 4000-7000 rmb per month depending how many bedrooms. If you go outside the city like panyu (south) or huadu (north) you can get a much bigger place for around 2000 or 3000. But the commute is longer. I started in panyu and eventually moved to the city when I got more money.
@@StupendousHillis Thanks for the information I’m also working on my Masters degree do you recommend any VPN to use . Hope you don’t mind me bothering you as I get closer oh and adapters for the apartments ?
@@kourtneywade4599 if you’re american, they use the same plugs as we do for electrical sockets but the voltage is higher or just unregulated sometimes so you may want an adapter with a surge protector (but I just used a regular one and it was mostly fine). They only have the two prongs tho so they don’t have the bottom third prong like some plugs in the US need. Those are easy to buy in China. As for the VPN, Astrill is the best but you have to pay for it. It’s about 120 a year which is pretty expensive but in my experience it is by FAR the best one and totally worth it. You can use Netflix and other stuff that doesn’t work on some VPNs. The other thing is you need a VPN to go on their site if you’re in China already so I recommend getting it before you go. Express is also good and a bit cheaper, like 70 USD a year but it was kinda hit and miss sometimes which can be super annoying when it’s not working when u need it to. Astrill is super reliable. Also there’s some people in China that sell vpn routers which are also really nice. You just log into that wifi and it make a vpn for everything connected to it and you don’t have to turn it on and off. It costs about 100 bucks for a year plus a little more for the router itself
As a German the different manners are actually quite comfortable for me. I also spit from time to time (not often, but it happens once a year) or put my finger in my nose and it feels a bit more relaxed when other people do it. I feel always a bit comfortable when people trying to behave all the time excessively "hoity-toity" :-p
HAHA i agree! It is kinda nice to not have to worry about people being super up tight about social rules like that. I smoke, so I spit from time to time too. I just try to do it in the bushes or somewhere where people arent walking. It was super shocking when I first got there and hearing someone hawk a huge loogie, and spit it right on the sidewalk in front of them haha but i got used to it
Ive received emails asking me to reach English in china, im confused as to why china wants to learn English. Its not all that great of a language and I'm a native speaker of English.
@@StupendousHillis I have some offers from both teaching centers and schools. The schools are M-F and have partially paid summer/winter but pay less than the teaching centers, which have no summer/winter vacation and I work on weekends. What's your advice for choosing?
@@BigGuy_Trades well I guess it depends on the school. I worked at a training center most of my time there. It was weekday evenings and all day Saturday Sunday. With Monday and Tuesday as a day off. We had about two weeks for summer and two weeks for spring festival (winter) these were paid but we had to do special summer and winter classes for two weeks straight right before each break so those days off that we should have had were added to the break time. I would say, if the money is just a little bit less, you might like the regular Monday - Friday schedule better and then you’re free to pick up part time shifts at training centers around the city in the evenings and weekends if you want to make more money. There’s ALWAYS schools that need part time teachers so you can easily find that to make up the difference in pay if you choose to. Those part time jobs are also more flexible if you want to take time off from them because all they can do is just not pay you your hourly for that day, where if you try to take off work from your contracted job, sometimes they’ll take more money than the hourly rate as a way to deter you from taking extra days off. Because of the pandemic, schools really need teachers so you should be able to get a good job and a good salary. In conclusion, I think having better holidays and the weekends off is worth getting a bit less base pay, and you can always do more part time classes to make up the difference.
Good question! Yes and no. Sadly non native speakers cannot get a work visa to teach English in Guangzhou. So it’s not strictly legal, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Some companies need teachers so badly they will still hire a non native speaker if their English is good enough and they look the part. But the risk is that the police sometimes raid schools and will check teachers passports and could deport someone if they don’t have a work visa. Bigger companies might be able to pay off the police to leave them alone, but it really just depends. I know someone who’s an amazing English teacher with a masters degree in teaching English, but they can’t get the work visa in GZ because they aren’t a native speaker. That being said, in the smaller cities around guangzhou, I’ve heard it’s ok to get the work visa without being a native speaker. Like in foshan or dongguan. Which are both super close and are cool cities in their own right. Mainly, getting to China is the most important thing for getting a job there. Once you’re there, you can always find teaching jobs. There’s so much demand and simply not enough supply of foreign teachers. But companies hiring from outside China will ALWAYS try to get people who can get a work visa. PS I’m not advocating for breaking the law. Just stating what I know. Best bet would shoot for a smaller city that doesn’t care as much about native speakers. I’m pretty sure the visa rules are based on region cities.
LOL when you talk about the taxi I feel it too. TBH it's not discrimination, I am a Guangzhou native and I got rejected sooooooooooooo many times because they don't want to go to certain places. The reason is just being they knew that certain areas have a lot of traffic and if they take you, they will lose a lot of time waiting in the traffic with you instead of making more money on running more trips.
So true, fortunately the public transportation in Guangzhou is convenient, most of the time I don't have to deal with taxi
You're a legend, bro. thanks for this
Great vlog, I have been to China many times and agree with what you say, also I follow a lot of "China" vloggers and some have become very political and infighting, refreshing to watch your take....Peace and JaYoe
In China, teachers are respected for more than two thousand years. This is a kind of cultural heritage.
Greetings from Guangzhou , btw love your artwork 👍👍👍👍
Enjoy your view of china, Wish I was brave and take this opportunity when I was younger
R u still there? Guangzhou rocks, but I have never really lived there. Been there three times, and I feel like going back there at least once a year, just to walk around. The city wakes me up.
Very objective and upright view! Genius painting and enjoy your stay in China.
Hi. I was truely happy to see your video. it will be of help to me, as i plan my vacation trip to visit there. Thanks
Hey there. Are you still in Guangzhou? I like your vlog, i think its super informative. Thank you. I will be there soon, around 3 weeks.
Hi ET! I been to China 4xs now. It's really an amazing place! Can't wait to get back! The spitting thing is very very bad though. It spreads diseases really badly and the Chinese government has really tried to curb it. To no avail.
For surveillance cameras, there is nothing to worry about. After watching the documentary about the grassroots police station, you will know that the police are not interested in ordinary people. They only check the surveillance records when a crime occurs in order to solve the case quickly. You need to worry that some of your Android software will collect your information, such as your shopping habits, your search habits, your asset level, etc., and then accurately place advertisements. For this, mobile phone manufacturers are already doing professional functions to restrict these Software.
dat sounds a lot like instagram and facebook haha
Nice vlog and it's great that you have enjoyed living in GZ as it is my hometown. Regarding the taxi drivers rejecting foreigners, I feel deeply sorry for what you have experienced but the sad truth is that some of those taxi drivers just avoided picking up passengers with a foreign face as they are scared to hell by the possibility of contracting COVID-19 from a foreigner since the situation was out of control in many of the western countries last year. This is certainly irrational as they must not know the truth that the Chinese border is currently shut to most foreigners and almost all imported cases in China are by chinese nationals who contracted the virus from abroad. Also, since most taxi drivers are from a less-educated background they sometimes are rather misinformed and some of them quite rude by western standard but you will probably find most educated adults in Guangzhou and the rest of China more welcoming to foreigners. Regarding the spitting thing, yes, those older people are indeed mostly from the rural towns or lower tier cities and to them spitting is rather normal. After many years living in China, I still don't understand why spitting is such a common act in China but one fact perhaps contributing to that is that China do have a large smoker population.
haha thank you! yes i agree about the spitting thing. China has changed from mostly a rural community to one of the most cutting edge technological countries in the world in the span of people's lifetimes. And there are still lots of small towns that are like "third world" countries in some ways.
The taxi thing still happened before Covid, but thank god for Didi! That made the problem so much better haha. And I used to live in Panyu but worked in the city so a lot of times it was just that the driver didnt want to go that far, and I know many Chinese people probably got the same treatment for that reason.
In ancient times, only the ruling class could receive a good education. China has only developed for a few decades. Many people have only received the most basic education. Their behavioral quality cannot keep up with the pace of development. Now higher education has become very popular. After a few decades, most Chinese people will have good qualities.
yeah, i understand that the country is advancing and developing faster than the people can catch up with. But I certainly agree that the kids of today will grow up with a better understanding of the modern society they live in
Omg the long zoom when you’re taking about toilets im dying
🤣dude, the cons part cracks me up!! They are pretty much true and i cant defend them. Spitting in public is gross, skipping lines is very annoying and the squat toilets is kinda weird if u not used to them. The privacy part and crimes go hands in hands, maybe thats why the crime rate is so low in china. I live in tbe US, as u mentioned, the government here watches everybody also, we just didnt know or didnt wanna acknowlege them. All in al, your vlog is excellent and accurate, u not like some of them expats out to paint a ugly/ dirty picture of china. We know china isnt perfect, but i am sure china is doing her best to welcome anyone with an open mind about the country and the culture. Anyway, enjoy your stay in china, for however long u gonna stay there. U seem like a cool dude( u have the frat vibe to u), i hope i am not offending u. And if i happen to run into u in guangzhou, i will def buy u a beer. As u said earlier, i. China u can drink any time and anywhere!😄
I’m moving to the same city super excited but nervous thanks for the video. How is the apartment hunt any recommendations
Well if you wanna live in the city center, I lived in a neighborhood near yangji metro station called yangji cun. It’s a good neighborhood with my foreigners and it’s close to all the cool city center bars. Places there range from 4000-7000 rmb per month depending how many bedrooms. If you go outside the city like panyu (south) or huadu (north) you can get a much bigger place for around 2000 or 3000. But the commute is longer. I started in panyu and eventually moved to the city when I got more money.
@@StupendousHillis Thanks for the information I’m also working on my Masters degree do you recommend any VPN to use . Hope you don’t mind me bothering you as I get closer oh and adapters for the apartments ?
@@kourtneywade4599 if you’re american, they use the same plugs as we do for electrical sockets but the voltage is higher or just unregulated sometimes so you may want an adapter with a surge protector (but I just used a regular one and it was mostly fine). They only have the two prongs tho so they don’t have the bottom third prong like some plugs in the US need. Those are easy to buy in China.
As for the VPN, Astrill is the best but you have to pay for it. It’s about 120 a year which is pretty expensive but in my experience it is by FAR the best one and totally worth it. You can use Netflix and other stuff that doesn’t work on some VPNs. The other thing is you need a VPN to go on their site if you’re in China already so I recommend getting it before you go. Express is also good and a bit cheaper, like 70 USD a year but it was kinda hit and miss sometimes which can be super annoying when it’s not working when u need it to. Astrill is super reliable. Also there’s some people in China that sell vpn routers which are also really nice. You just log into that wifi and it make a vpn for everything connected to it and you don’t have to turn it on and off. It costs about 100 bucks for a year plus a little more for the router itself
@@StupendousHillis Thank you so much for the information definitely will look into the VPN and the router . Thank you again
You look just like the brother of Adam Mishan, a Jewish songwriter and singer living in Toronto :-)
As a German the different manners are actually quite comfortable for me. I also spit from time to time (not often, but it happens once a year) or put my finger in my nose and it feels a bit more relaxed when other people do it. I feel always a bit comfortable when people trying to behave all the time excessively "hoity-toity" :-p
HAHA i agree! It is kinda nice to not have to worry about people being super up tight about social rules like that. I smoke, so I spit from time to time too. I just try to do it in the bushes or somewhere where people arent walking. It was super shocking when I first got there and hearing someone hawk a huge loogie, and spit it right on the sidewalk in front of them haha but i got used to it
damn, but with the student visa I am restricted from visiting even Hong Kong :(
Are you shipping your paintings to AZ
some of them! but idk if i can send them all
i think you're pretty a local now you just don't speak chinese as much as others do...good luck & have fun! NYC
the cons seem really minor tbh. for me, the biggest ones would be VPN, and cleanliness issues.
Hhah yeah I agree. Overall it’s an awesome place. I miss it a ton now that I’m back home in America
cantonese how much do you speak in guangzhou?
I barely know a few phrases in Cantonese. I learned more mandarin because it’s useable all over China. But Cantonese is more fun to speak! Lol
Is it true that rent is 100 dollars?
Ive received emails asking me to reach English in china, im confused as to why china wants to learn English. Its not all that great of a language and I'm a native speaker of English.
I think it’s because it’s kinda the international language and is great for business or any dealings with non Chinese people.
Hey could I ask you a few questions? I’m considering moving to China to teach and need some advice. Thanks!
Of course! Ask away
@@StupendousHillis I have some offers from both teaching centers and schools. The schools are M-F and have partially paid summer/winter but pay less than the teaching centers, which have no summer/winter vacation and I work on weekends. What's your advice for choosing?
@@BigGuy_Trades well I guess it depends on the school. I worked at a training center most of my time there. It was weekday evenings and all day Saturday Sunday. With Monday and Tuesday as a day off. We had about two weeks for summer and two weeks for spring festival (winter) these were paid but we had to do special summer and winter classes for two weeks straight right before each break so those days off that we should have had were added to the break time.
I would say, if the money is just a little bit less, you might like the regular Monday - Friday schedule better and then you’re free to pick up part time shifts at training centers around the city in the evenings and weekends if you want to make more money. There’s ALWAYS schools that need part time teachers so you can easily find that to make up the difference in pay if you choose to. Those part time jobs are also more flexible if you want to take time off from them because all they can do is just not pay you your hourly for that day, where if you try to take off work from your contracted job, sometimes they’ll take more money than the hourly rate as a way to deter you from taking extra days off.
Because of the pandemic, schools really need teachers so you should be able to get a good job and a good salary.
In conclusion, I think having better holidays and the weekends off is worth getting a bit less base pay, and you can always do more part time classes to make up the difference.
@@StupendousHillis Thank you so much for helping out! A video idea for you is to go over the cost of living in China, I would definitely watch.
Can a non native English speaker teach in Guangzhou?
Good question! Yes and no. Sadly non native speakers cannot get a work visa to teach English in Guangzhou. So it’s not strictly legal, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Some companies need teachers so badly they will still hire a non native speaker if their English is good enough and they look the part. But the risk is that the police sometimes raid schools and will check teachers passports and could deport someone if they don’t have a work visa.
Bigger companies might be able to pay off the police to leave them alone, but it really just depends.
I know someone who’s an amazing English teacher with a masters degree in teaching English, but they can’t get the work visa in GZ because they aren’t a native speaker.
That being said, in the smaller cities around guangzhou, I’ve heard it’s ok to get the work visa without being a native speaker. Like in foshan or dongguan. Which are both super close and are cool cities in their own right.
Mainly, getting to China is the most important thing for getting a job there. Once you’re there, you can always find teaching jobs. There’s so much demand and simply not enough supply of foreign teachers. But companies hiring from outside China will ALWAYS try to get people who can get a work visa.
PS I’m not advocating for breaking the law. Just stating what I know. Best bet would shoot for a smaller city that doesn’t care as much about native speakers. I’m pretty sure the visa rules are based on region cities.
trust me man....they do have crazy night life there compare to US and even more crazier..you just probably haven’t got a chance to experience one lol
Has anyone heard of Elite Education GZL in Guangzhou?
I have not, but there's tons of schools big and small
@20:50 No doors for those squatty toilets? How can we do our business
hahahah idk! but ive seen some like that in some places in the countryside
Ni hao ma piao liang, wo hen hao. Zai jian
什么?
Half an hour so long. Make this 6 videos.
Edit
Make that 6 in the first 12 minutes.