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Where oh where in China - TravelerKai - 06-24-2014

Quote: (06-24-2014 01:58 AM)Suits Wrote:  

Quote: (06-24-2014 12:30 AM)Global_Cocksman Wrote:  

@Suits,

Why don't you recommend Tianjin?

For a lot of reasons:

1)While demand is reasonably high for English teachers, as there is in all Chinese cities, there are enough foreigners (a lot of students, for example) that the hourly pay isn't that great and the opportunities available do not impress.

Full time jobs have sucky pay (lower than Beijing/Shanghai) but living expenses are comparable.

It's easy to fill the high demand hours with some part time work, but very challenging to put together a schedule with enough part time to actual pay the bills. I would know. I tried for two years.

Hard to get jobs that pay more than what they were paying a decade ago (150 RMB), which is a ridiculous low rate, consider how much more expensive China has become in the last decade.

2) The people are extra corrupt and dishonest, more so than most Chinese cities. Chinese people everywhere dislike Tianjiners. Expect to get ripped off constantly in Tianjin.

3) While 15 years ago, Tianjin had a beautiful part of town with Europe buildings from it's days as a trade concession, they have managed this area poorly and the city is just downright ugly and dirty for the most part.

4) While it isn't terrible, the entertainment opportunities for foreigners are much more limited than Beijing and Shanghai. When I lived there, there were only two clubs that were foreigner friendly and I'm not confident that they are both open any more. Only one had a reasonably sized dance floor. The other was way too crowded.

While in Beijing and Shanghai there are tons of restaurants that specialize in very tasty Western food (and other international cuisines), Tianjin doesn't have enough foreigners to justify good quality international food and the local Chinese are stupid morons who have no taste. Therefore, most restaurants specializing in Western food either taste worse than the food you probably cook at home yourself or are exorbitantly expensive.

It's really hard just to find a good burger. So hard, in fact, that on restaurant actually has my recipe on the menu, because I complained to the owner about the previous burger that they were selling and taught him how to cook one properly.

Oddly enough, that same restaurant makes a great steak.

In Beijing, it really isn't hard to find a good burger, because there is enough demand for good food that the sucky places go out of business.

In Tianjin, the locals are the main source of business and they are so poorly educated that they can't tell the difference between good and bad Western food.

Chinese food, however, is very impressive. If you are there, I recommend any restaurant specializing in DongBei cuisine.

5) Ugly girls with armpit hair.

6) There are three respectable subway lines, but two of them only opened in 2012. Before that, there was just one line for decades. It takes a long time to make infrastructure developments happen, because the local government is much more corrupt than average for China. They syphon off a lot of money for secret personal retirement accounts.

As a result, traffic is pretty pathetic. With an e-bike, this can be mitigated, but compared to the subway system in Beijing, Tianjin is just downright embarrassing.



Long story short, any thing you might like about Tianjin is going to be even better in Beijing. The only advantage of Tianjin is that it is smaller and most places can be reached in about 30 minutes, if you aren't driving a car in rush hour traffic, taking a taxi or a bus. In Beijing, by comparison, it can take one or two hours to get to a lot of places.

Quote:Quote:

How's the visa situation? Specially for work and or biz visa for Canadians?

It helps to have a completed four year bachelors degree. Otherwise, there are no guarantees. Things have gotten a lot stricter.

That's hilarious. Every time I come back from China, I always get a 1/2 to a 3/4 pound cheeseburger immediately after leaving the airport, then get mesquite smoked barbeque after that meal digests.

Where oh where in China - iknowexactly - 06-24-2014

how much mileage will a doctorate in social sciences and experience as a computer programmer get me (I'm old, programming is out, skills out of date) in some kind of mngmt type job opps?
?

Where oh where in China - TravelerKai - 06-24-2014

Quote: (06-24-2014 12:04 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

how much mileage will a doctorate in social sciences and experience as a computer programmer get me (I'm old, programming is out, skills out of date) in some kind of mngmt type job opps?
?

Honestly, China tends to protect their own countries in ways that would make every American jealous. The only way to get hired for something in China as a foreigner, is by being able to do something (provide a value) that cannot be obtained from a native Chinese person. There are some ways to get around this if some rich Chinese person, with quanxi sets it up, but from our perspective it is harder to find those guys.

The other way is by working for a multi-national company based in US, Japan, Singapore, Spain, France, etc. that you can be sent there. Those can be pretty sweet gigs if you can get them. Kinda hard and competitive though from my personal experience. I did get to be a manager of a Shanghai office by doing it that route, but I was expected to stay in the US for the most part. Another way was working in engineering for a foreign based company but that is more difficult nowadays because China pumps out engineers like nobody's business. They are STEM crazy. Chinese that get degrees in the USA in engineering or finance even, get very heavy preference. It is hard for laowai to beat out an chinese in america, even ABCs, with a high GPA from an American university. This is part of the problem with high college costs. The flood of Chinese into US universities, but I digress. The full effect is that Americans have lost alot of the economic advantage we had over them in many of those spaces.

The best spaces right now STEM-wise and IT wise, are in design, architecture-level, finance and law (kinda), business developmental, oil and gas drilling/E&P, and consulting. They still cannot fully match up on that stuff yet. Creativity is an issue for Chinese and I do not see that getting any better honestly, considering how their education system works. Some "intellectual property" you cannot just hack or steal. Only the ones that have been in the US and studied here a long time can possibly close those gaps but they don't have the 25-30+ years of industry experience just yet.

Look into Singapore based companies if you are IT savvy. There are some consultancy outfits out there, but in some ways you kinda need to be elite level in your area of expertise.

But by no means am I an expert on this subject, I would like to hear some others POV on this.

Where oh where in China - clever alias - 06-24-2014

Quote: (06-24-2014 01:42 PM)TravelerKai Wrote:  

Quote: (06-24-2014 12:04 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

how much mileage will a doctorate in social sciences and experience as a computer programmer get me (I'm old, programming is out, skills out of date) in some kind of mngmt type job opps?
?

Honestly, China tends to protect their own countries in ways that would make every American jealous. The only way to get hired for something in China as a foreigner, is by being able to do something (provide a value) that cannot be obtained from a native Chinese person. There are some ways to get around this if some rich Chinese person, with quanxi sets it up, but from our perspective it is harder to find those guys.

The other way is by working for a multi-national company based in US, Japan, Singapore, Spain, France, etc. that you can be sent there. Those can be pretty sweet gigs if you can get them. Kinda hard and competitive though from my personal experience. I did get to be a manager of a Shanghai office by doing it that route, but I was expected to stay in the US for the most part. Another way was working in engineering for a foreign based company but that is more difficult nowadays because China pumps out engineers like nobody's business. They are STEM crazy. Chinese that get degrees in the USA in engineering or finance even, get very heavy preference. It is hard for laowai to beat out an chinese in america, even ABCs, with a high GPA from an American university. This is part of the problem with high college costs. The flood of Chinese into US universities, but I digress. The full effect is that Americans have lost alot of the economic advantage we had over them in many of those spaces.

The best spaces right now STEM-wise and IT wise, are in design, architecture-level, finance and law (kinda), business developmental, oil and gas drilling/E&P, and consulting. They still cannot fully match up on that stuff yet. Creativity is an issue for Chinese and I do not see that getting any better honestly, considering how their education system works. Some "intellectual property" you cannot just hack or steal. Only the ones that have been in the US and studied here a long time can possibly close those gaps but they don't have the 25-30+ years of industry experience just yet.

Look into Singapore based companies if you are IT savvy. There are some consultancy outfits out there, but in some ways you kinda need to be elite level in your area of expertise.

But by no means am I an expert on this subject, I would like to hear some others POV on this.

chinese companies love having foreigners because it gives them credibility and validation.
but they only need a certain amount for "face time,"
its also not so much protecting the jobs as it us no foreigner in their right mind would work at a chinese company considering the pay is shit compared to teaching english: 50 hours a week for 4000 a month or 20 for 13000?

Where oh where in China - Global Entry - 06-24-2014

The job market in China is, if anything, slowing down a bit for everyone, not just foreigners. However, I think the dollars (or yuan, actually) available for those jobs is increasing. A few laowai friends in Shenzhen have scored jobs with companies paying more than 30,000 or 40,000rmb monthly, plus an apartment, to be the "big nose" on staff for the Chinese companies. (Sometimes they refer to a westerner as a big nose, which is a compliment in China - your nose is tall or "gao" unlike a Chinese nose - anyway I digress). These guys were American lawyers doing quasi-legal/business hybrid jobs involving international trade/deals with either the USA or Singapore/HK. Teaching, its basically not possible to make this kind of money unless you have your own staff of teachers/company, or build a consulting business around arranging and preparing Chinese students to study in the West (a newly growing business line in China, becoming quite competitive and targeting the newly-rich and middle class).

If you're an oil and gas engineer, particularly with knowledge in fracking (which I am not supportive of, but this isn't the place for the discussion), then you can write your own ticket regardless. China has enormous NG reserves and theres a huge demand to build an industry for that, as you can imagine given the air quality issues in basically every northern city (and Shanghai, which had many days of over 500 PPM this past winter).

To the other poster's question regarding TJ, I wouldn't live there because its filthy. Everything is coated in dust. A friend moved from working at the Grand Hyatt Shenzhen (a gorgeous hotel) to the TJ Grand Hyatt to open it, and told me everything she owns is like that. She has a huge apartment compared to when she lived in Luohu, and she leaves town as often as possible just to get out of TJ. I do know a British guy who liked it there, Chinese wife, I think I recall he was from a midlands coal town, so maybe it seemed like home [Image: smile.gif].

Where oh where in China - TravelerKai - 06-25-2014

Very good points on the "da bi zi" jobs. China just signed a huge gas deal with Russia as well, so they might not frack much, but who knows. Lots of folks are trying to find ways into this stuff right now.

Tainjin is a very industrial city, so if things are covered in dust, that would sound just about right. If someone wants to teach there, bear with it and possibly leave after your stint is done. You don't want to live around that longterm.

Where oh where in China - Global_Cocksman - 06-25-2014

I was curious to see if I could get a job interview with an English teaching company, so I sent my resume to a few places based in Shanghai off the dave's esl cafe website. I don't currently have a bachelor's degree, but I should be finished with university by next summer. I just put down that I had one anyway.

Only got one response back, and they basically said they weren't interested, but they'd forward my resume to other companies to see if they'd want me.

I'm not currently in China, but I'd be curious to see how much different it would be if I went and applied in person to a bunch of places.

Where oh where in China - Suits - 06-25-2014

Quote: (06-25-2014 01:57 PM)Global_Cocksman Wrote:  

I was curious to see if I could get a job interview with an English teaching company, so I sent my resume to a few places based in Shanghai off the dave's esl cafe website. I don't currently have a bachelor's degree, but I should be finished with university by next summer. I just put down that I had one anyway.

Only got one response back, and they basically said they weren't interested, but they'd forward my resume to other companies to see if they'd want me.

I'm not currently in China, but I'd be curious to see how much different it would be if I went and applied in person to a bunch of places.

Shanghai is really competitive and with good reason. It's a beautiful city with no snow and lots of laowai chasers.

If you expanded your search, you'd be getting tons of responses. I sent out 30 emails for part time work in April in Beijing and got 15 replies within 24 hours.

Where oh where in China - Global Entry - 06-25-2014

For the language teacher job hunters, i think its best to show up. you'll find a job, and can negotiate your rate, in any of the big cities. again, you're not gonna get rich doing this, but you can live pretty well (so long as you learn to shop Chinese style, and don't only shop at western grocery stores and pay double or triple what you need to for everyday items). You'll also have a lot of free time to game, and if you live in a major city, then you'll also have enough money to take budget conscious trips fairly regularly to SE asian destinations, to me one of the biggest benefits of being in South China (you can from BJ as well, but of course its longer and a bit pricier).

I hate to say it, but if you've very white skin, a big nose (by their standards), and are of decent height (lets say at least 5'9), then you're basically hired. College degree is sort of necessary, or previous teaching experience which you can substantiate.

Be careful with your contract length, and be aware of some shady dealers out there. Also, I'll just mention that Web School in SZ got raided last year by immigration and they arrested the teachers that were there that were teaching on tourist visas. School was probably behind in its payoffs to whoever monitors that kind of thing. I don't know what happened to the teachers who got arrested, but its possible they got deported like the 60 models recently arrested in BJ. Its kind of ironic and stupid, since everyone knows that many of these teachers are here on tourist visas shouldn't be teaching, but the demand for learning English is so large, most of the time the issue is just ignored.

My friend told me Web School also prohibits teachers fucking students. I'm told that the policy has less than a 100 percent success rate in implementation.

Where oh where in China - Suits - 06-25-2014

Quote: (06-25-2014 09:08 PM)G_global Wrote:  

For the language teacher job hunters, i think its best to show up. you'll find a job, and can negotiate your rate, in any of the big cities. again, you're not gonna get rich doing this, but you can live pretty well (so long as you learn to shop Chinese style, and don't only shop at western grocery stores and pay double or triple what you need to for everyday items). You'll also have a lot of free time to game, and if you live in a major city, then you'll also have enough money to take budget conscious trips fairly regularly to SE asian destinations, to me one of the biggest benefits of being in South China (you can from BJ as well, but of course its longer and a bit pricier).

I hate to say it, but if you've very white skin, a big nose (by their standards), and are of decent height (lets say at least 5'9), then you're basically hired. College degree is sort of necessary, or previous teaching experience which you can substantiate.

Be careful with your contract length, and be aware of some shady dealers out there. Also, I'll just mention that Web School in SZ got raided last year by immigration and they arrested the teachers that were there that were teaching on tourist visas. School was probably behind in its payoffs to whoever monitors that kind of thing. I don't know what happened to the teachers who got arrested, but its possible they got deported like the 60 models recently arrested in BJ. Its kind of ironic and stupid, since everyone knows that many of these teachers are here on tourist visas shouldn't be teaching, but the demand for learning English is so large, most of the time the issue is just ignored.

My friend told me Web School also prohibits teachers fucking students. I'm told that the policy has less than a 100 percent success rate in implementation.

The thing is that 60 models is nothing in the greater scheme of things. There are at least 100,000 foreigners living in Beijing alone and a good number of those are English teachers. There are probably at least a thousand on student visas working illegally (if not thousands), definitely thousands on legit work visas that were obtained illegally through back channels.

In Tianjin, there are only two companies with legitimate authorization to hire foreigners, yet dozens of companies do it any way.

In many cities, the number of illegitimate work visas probably significantly outweigh the number of legitimate one. Country wide, illegitimate visas may well outweigh the number that are obtained completely legally.

Working on tourists visas or business visas is very common. They did make it harder to get this visas in September 2012, but it still happens a lot.

The truth is that China doesn't like making anything easy, so for companies and individuals who wish to follow the letter of the law, giving up is the most recommended course of action.

Like it or not, in China, it's more about what you can get away with than what is technically the legal process. This goes for everything.

Where oh where in China - chamele0n - 06-26-2014

Current situation
I am in Guangzhou now. I still don't have a clear idea of the best city to be and I hate being on the road when I don't necessarily have to and paying extra fares so I just went to the closest city to where I flew in (HK). It seemed right next to HK on the map but it actually took a 3-hour ride here. There is the added benefit of being close to other SE Asian countries and to HK in case I need to fly quickly and cheaply.

Rent
How is Guangzhou rent by the way? Is it much more expensive than smaller cities? I see some offers of Y2000 for a room which sounds OK. I might just stick around here for a while and try to find an apartment/room for under Y2000, maybe someone is subleasing, that would be perfect, but I'd need it on a monthly basis which may be more of a challenge.

Weather
The weather is pretty nasty though, it's hot and humid. It also rains quite often. There seem to be quite a few foreigners around, mostly it seems they are traders / businessmen from what I saw which might be a detriment (that foreigners are not as much of a novelty around here). But the enormous amount of people might justify this inconvenience if you run the numbers game approaching.

Visa issue
My biggest problem right now is the visa. I just have a one-month tourist visa and will have to either figure out a way to extend it (is it possible?) or I need a hook-up with someone who could arrange a 6-month of a year-long (preferably multi-entry) visa without paying something entirely ridiculous for it. If someone has a hook-up for a visa please let me know.

Where oh where in China - Global Entry - 06-26-2014

Chameleon,
Actually the closest city to HK on the map is not Guangzhou. That would be Shenzhen to the north, much closer than GZ (and still big, 10 million people including factory "transient" workers) and Zhuhai to the west, via ferry (just north of Macau. Shenzhen to HK for me is a ten minute trip, as my apartment is in Futian/Gangxia, and Huangguang crossing point is ten minutes by taxi from my place. Very convenient, as I have a one year visa, but I have to exit China every 30 days (even just go out and come back in to HK works).

The visa issue has become more troublesome in China. Getting a new visa outside your home country is more difficult, and the length that you'll get has seemingly been greatly shortened. For US citizens and EU people, I can give you a HK visa office that will renew your China visa, but its probably going to be a two month renewal with two entries if you're on a US/EU passport. On a russian passport (I think, Cham, you mentioned you're russian, I don't know the answer, but I thought you didn't even need a visa to come in from Russia), I am not really sure. I have a good friend doing business here from Russia, I'll ask him what the story is for him. I am almost certain he told me he didn't need a visa to come in, so I am a bit confused by your situation.

South China is sub-tropic, and has a rainy season like SE Asia. Shenzhen has beaches to visit, though frankly the traffic is murder and I haven't gone often. Lots of foreigners now in both GZ and Shenzhen, of course, being that the whole Pearl River Delta is the electronics manufacturing capital of the world. I do think GZ seems to have more long term expats and SZ more short term expats, but that gap is narrowing. GZ is also about twice as big as SZ, and far dirtier in my estimation. Finally, the biggest difference is the predominance of cantonese in GZ, as opposed to SZ, which is a melting pot from all over China. I have to say I am not overly fond of Cantonese compared to other Chinese.

You can take the high speed train to SZ - Luohu station, near the border crossing into HK, from GZ - its a 70 minute ride, I believe. The slow train is the three hour one, and the fast one isn't all that expensive. Give it a try, even to come see SZ. If you come in let me know.

Where oh where in China - 2014 - 06-26-2014

Uk passports are still golden in HongKong right? I heard it was 6 months no questions asked upon arrival

Where oh where in China - MidWest - 07-12-2014

Any advice on how to go about learning Mandarin and speaking Mandarin? I might consider China for an ESL position but my Mandarin is non-existent besides "Ni-Hao"

Any websites or books I can read, maybe rosetta stone?

I want to be able to speak maybe basic Mandarin if not intermediate. Any advice on where to start? I have a year.

Where oh where in China - TravelerKai - 07-12-2014

Quote: (07-12-2014 01:12 AM)MidWest Wrote:  

Any advice on how to go about learning Mandarin and speaking Mandarin? I might consider China for an ESL position but my Mandarin is non-existent besides "Ni-Hao"

Any websites or books I can read, maybe rosetta stone?

I want to be able to speak maybe basic Mandarin if not intermediate. Any advice on where to start? I have a year.


I think Suits has a Mandarin Language thread you can get alot of information from.

I have tried Rosetta Stone but I took Mandarin in college years ago. I was impressed with it. That said, an actual class is much better. Chinese written and common jabber is night and day different. IF you teach there, classes can be found for free or super cheap. Ask Suits or check out his thread.

Where oh where in China - clever alias - 07-12-2014

Quote: (07-12-2014 01:12 AM)MidWest Wrote:  

Any advice on how to go about learning Mandarin and speaking Mandarin? I might consider China for an ESL position but my Mandarin is non-existent besides "Ni-Hao"

Any websites or books I can read, maybe rosetta stone?

I want to be able to speak maybe basic Mandarin if not intermediate. Any advice on where to start? I have a year.

i wouldn't recommend it really, beyond the basics. theres not a lot of return on investment

Where oh where in China - Global Entry - 07-12-2014

From my standpoint, I saw very little progress with Pimsleur, Rosetta etc until I started to incorporate a few one-on-one classes and more importantly, character study at the same time. I feel like, for me, and this may not translate to others, by learning all three Ive finally now begun to triangulate it and make the connections between written and spoken Chinese. I think that many of these tools bring something to the table, but by themselves, they are all vastly insufficient. Even college courses appear to merely provide a good base more than anything else. A Russian friend who was heavily trained as a translator in a military university in Russia told me that until he got here, he really still didn't know anything, though he was tops in his class.

Submersion is going to be best, learning here, being forced to speak it. That means not only making the leap, but also not living in an expat area and shopping/getting by only around English speakers. And don't do Guangzhou, in my opinion, to learn Mandarin. I'm not a big fan of the city anyway (Kai might have a different opinion) but regardless, its heavily Cantonese dominated. You can certainly learn Mandarin there, but might as well simplify things.

Where oh where in China - TravelerKai - 07-13-2014

Quote: (07-12-2014 09:41 PM)G_global Wrote:  

From my standpoint, I saw very little progress with Pimsleur, Rosetta etc until I started to incorporate a few one-on-one classes and more importantly, character study at the same time. I feel like, for me, and this may not translate to others, by learning all three Ive finally now begun to triangulate it and make the connections between written and spoken Chinese. I think that many of these tools bring something to the table, but by themselves, they are all vastly insufficient. Even college courses appear to merely provide a good base more than anything else. A Russian friend who was heavily trained as a translator in a military university in Russia told me that until he got here, he really still didn't know anything, though he was tops in his class.

Submersion is going to be best, learning here, being forced to speak it. That means not only making the leap, but also not living in an expat area and shopping/getting by only around English speakers. And don't do Guangzhou, in my opinion, to learn Mandarin. I'm not a big fan of the city anyway (Kai might have a different opinion) but regardless, its heavily Cantonese dominated. You can certainly learn Mandarin there, but might as well simplify things.

Learning Mandarin in Guangzhou in some ways is no worse than learning it in Beijing. If you take a college-level course in the US, often times it is Taiwanese style. Hurr Hurr Can't support the Commies.....rah rah.

Beijing people speak to god damned fast. They have STRONG rrrr sounds after words. They speak Beijinghua. Chengdu people talk too fast too. Shanghai people speak Shanghainese. The thing is, every single area of China has a localism dialect. If you speak standard Mandarin kinda slowly to some Cantonese in Guangzhou, they will reply back in Mandarin. Their Mandarin accent is kinda shitty sounding, barely better than yours, but they can still speak Mandarin. They learn it in school. It's probably better than yours. You just wouldn't know it by walking through a street filled with people shouting and talking in Cantonese. If you stopped them to chat, they can at bare minimum understand your Mandarin. Shenzhen is a business city just like Guangzhou. The locals know that too. People from all over China live in both places. My wife is from Hunan but always worked out of Guangzhou or Dongguan. All 3 cities are full of outsiders and foreigners.

If you go out to the countryside, all bets are off regardless of where in China just about. Some dialects are not far off from standard Mandarin and some are night and day. They all watch CCTV in Mandarin so regardless if their dialect is different, they can direct you to something if you speak standard mandarin.

Simplified Mandarin was created by Mao because there are over 300 different spoken versions or Chinese and he took strokes out of many characters in order to speed up writing. All this was to unify China from a communication standard. The Taiwanese kept the Traditional writing.

Pick a city you like and visit other ones when you get free time or a weekend. Better yet, let girls you meet that are from other places take you there to introduce you to other parts of China.

Where oh where in China - Global Entry - 07-13-2014

Actually Kai, I think for spoken Chinese learning in Taiwan would be a great choice. But of course, they're using traditional characters, not simplified which isn't optimal if your goal is written Chinese for the mainland, not for singapore HK, or Taiwan. Of course, those folks can read simplified but its not the primary for them, though most signs in HK are written simplified.

I agree not to pick based upon language choice, but given my general distaste for Cantonese culture (other than the food and tea) Id rather base somewhere else. Shenzhen actually has ceased to be a Cantonese city for the most part (or Chouzhou or Hakka). Too much influx. I was talking to a Cantonese guy who's lived in Chicago for twenty years on the line back for immigration from HK a few days ago. When he lived in Luohu, there were still farms there - you'll not see anything green in most of it now.

The problem with Shenzhen is local dialectism, because groups from certain provinces tend to dominate a particular neighborhood when they transplant. Not entirely, but to a degree. My neighborhood is heavily Hunan and Cantonese, so the accents are brutal. Still, everyone does speak Mandarin, though the Cantonese can be somewhat surly about talking mandarin with a foreigner, even if you're a customer (older ones, younger don't act this way in my experience). But regularly around the hood, you'll here Sichuan, Hunan and Jiangxi (in one restaurant) dialects, and of course Cantonese (this is based on my gal telling me this, she speaks Cantonese and the primary Jiangxi dialect (used in her father's hometown, Jinganshan) as well as Mandarin). It can all get a bit confusing.

For some reason, despite the affection for the unrequited RRRRRR, I can understand Beijing people better than Shenzhenites, in general. It perhaps sounds more like the pimsleur tapes I studied in the USA. Still you couldn't pay me to live in BJ - I visit from time to time, and thats perfect.

Shanghai people who are educated seem to speak very clear Mandarin - like the Taiwanese I encounter in China. Sure they speak Shanghaiese, most Chinese speak another dialect it seems as well as Mandarin, to some degree.

Where oh where in China - TravelerKai - 07-14-2014

Yeah Shanghai and Beijing people are usually very educated and will adjust their tones when speaking with non-locals. Which is great and easier to get what you need. Like you said, you could never pay me to live in Beijing. It's only good for a visit. Too much pollution. Shanghai, same thing too, although they are less worse than Beijing.

Their accents are indeed brutal. In America we can count on 2 hands the different major accents. For them it's basically 300 different ones. China is like India in many ways. People in the same state/province and cannot understand each other sometimes. Sometimes during travels with my wife, if she asked someone about something we needed help with, and she could not understand their Mandarin, we would go looking for a younger person in hopes that they had good schooling and help us. Usually it worked.

That Beijing RRRR sound is on all the training stuff, all the popular non-HK movies, the news, some classes, etc. No one can go wrong learning to speak with it. Lots of laowai use it. I picked it up in college because all my Chinese friends are from Beijing. I later dropped it after I left college because it made me feel kinda silly. Since no one can avoid dialect issues, just work around it like everyone else does. Eventually alot of these local-isms will drop off, probably cut into half. I would not be surprised if almost all of them are gone in 50 years.

Where oh where in China - clever alias - 07-14-2014

the er hua is the proper way to speak the language. its not like english where every accent is still correct english. the northern dialects all have an erhia and thats what the stadardization was centered around. its the correct way to speak standard mandarin

Where oh where in China - Suits - 07-14-2014

Quote: (07-14-2014 01:55 PM)clever alias Wrote:  

the er hua is the proper way to speak the language. its not like english where every accent is still correct english. the northern dialects all have an erhia and thats what the stadardization was centered around. its the correct way to speak standard mandarin

I use it, but can drop it at will. I spend most of my time in Beijing, but if down in Guangdong, it's easy to make my nar a nali.

Where oh where in China - Global Entry - 07-14-2014

I'm all nali as I started in Shenzhen though pimsleur uses the RRRRR. Some of the translation programs even add er to the end of 一点，as does my textbook, and it seems so strange and superfluous to me. Indeed, though, Mao adopted northern Chinese for the simplification, even though he was a Hunanese.

Where oh where in China - TravelerKai - 07-14-2014

Because Beijing or peking has always been the center of Chinese civilization, going back to the times of emperors, etc. There was no way a South Chinese dialect going to become the standard. Cantonese time came and went. Cantonese is closer to the more original forms of Chinese.

Where oh where in China - Cattle Rustler - 07-14-2014

Random question, does having braces make pronouncing mandarin more difficult?