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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Talk to me about Shanghai
Hi there! There is a slight possibility that my family and I might be sent to Shanghai for 3 years (through mine and DH's job). If you live there can you tell me about it? Pros? Cons? Would you take this opportunity? Any insights would be helpful. TIA!
Re: Talk to me about Shanghai
I love Shanghai, it's a very easy expat city to live in. ( I haven't lived in Shanghai itself, but have been there a lot. I've lived in other places in China). We've got a few nesties on here that have either lived in China ( me, GilliC, MrsHark ), a couple in Hong Kong, 1 in Taiwan ( me thinks ) and JiggingJess is moving to China right away ( again, I think ). I think GilliC was in Beijing and MrsHark was down in the more touristy areas - if you have any expat in China general questions ask away, there are a bunch of us who have lived or been there.
I lived in China for 6 years and can't wait to move back. Loads of fun if you go in with the right attitude and for the bad days there is always Pizza Hut and a Budwiser to cry into within a quick taxi ride in Shanghai.
What do you guys do for work? Have you been to Shanghai before?
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
Yes, there is censorship in the media but A: I'm betting you'll be steering clear from Chinese media anyway due to the language barrier for most of your stay and B: you can access most western websites with relative ease. I wouldn't worry about it too much, and it certainly wouldn't be a deterrent for me for going there.
Plus, have fun with it and just roll with the punches. When we were there (in the south) there was a massive freak snow/ice storm that pretty much shut down southern China - all of the papers and news stations were reporting that it was caused by the Americans and their weather machines to try to hurt China before the Olympics. Fun times!
Dr.'s there are really good - I'm sure there are expat ones there in Shanghai that you can hook up with as well, and Shanghai has some top rate hospitals - though don't expect them to be just like at home.
I've got to put my munchkins to bed, so i'll post more later.
Cheers!
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
DH and I were in Shanghai in December just for a couple days (we did a two week trip around China). It's seemed like an easy, modern place to be.
The French Colonial District is a pretty area and full of Westerners. Didn't talk to any, but they looked more like expats living there than tourists. Especially since it was low tourist season.
I'm flying to Shanghai on Thursday! We will actually be living in Suzhou, but from what I've researched on the web Shanghai has a ton of expats, I want to say the video I watched said over 12,000 living in Shanghai.
I went this summer but, again, spent most of my time in Suzhou. I was shocked (and pleasantly surprised) at how many people spoke (at least some) english. I found the people to be extremely friendly. I wasn't able to access FB outside of the hotel (though Tofumonkey has said that that block can be intermittent, DH also hasn't been able to access it outside of the hotel). I am not sure how they do it but the hotel we stayed at has a large population of Westerners and somehow is able to allow access to some blocked sites. (Oddly enough when we were in a Crown Plaza in Beijing I was not able to access the same blocked sites, so it's not even all Crown Plazas).
I shared some of my experiences in Suzhou and Beijing on my blog, at that time we didn't know we would end up moving there so it's mostly tourism stuff. I will start posting more on the expat experience once I get there. We know for sure that we are going to be there for 6 months, but more than likely we will end up there for at least a year and a half.
The censorship is easy to circumvent. Just about any ex-pat will be able to give you tips, because seriously, who can live without Wikipedia these days?! The best options change from time to time, but anonymouse.org was one of the popular redirect sites while I was there, and they're still up (at least outside of the Great Firewall).
There were some times when CNN International suddenly froze or went black when they started talking about something sensitive. Once our CNN was frozen for two days. But you just kind of learn to live with those things.
Movies are not a problem. Even in Shanghai, you probably won't go to the movies that much, because (unless things have changed - which is always very possible) China limits the number of foreign films that can be screened each year, and the lucky films aren't always the best (paving the road for glorious Chinese cinema)! Luckily, your corner pirated-DVD shop or suitcase-DVD man will have you covered. Build up a little rapport and let them know you're local, and they'll usually be pretty up-front and honest about what came from a camera in a theater vs actual DVD rips. If you could become a regular customer, they'll want your return business. In general, though, outside of Oscar season (the Academy Awards are a gold mine for ex-pats interested in good prints of more than just the latest blockbusters; gotta love those leaky judges) you'll often end up waiting until close to the official DVD releases to get good copies of many films.
Hopefully your job will include ex-pat health insurance so that you and your family can go to an ex-pat hospital. I loved the private ex-pat hospital I went to in Beijing (for everything: GP, emergency, gyno, even therapy and dental), but when we had to take my XH to a local hospital to get an MRI, I don't think I would want to go back! *shudder*
My biggest advice is:
- Accept that you're going to get sick. A lot. "Diarrhea days" were an openly acknowledged reason for absences from work. It gets less and less frequent, but it's still more often than you'd like. I only ended up in the hospital once, and it was just for a few hours to get a saline IV for dehydration.
- Beware of yellow fever. This is going to sound very bitter and jaded, but of the 10 couples who moved to Beijing with my project, half of them ended up divorced (some of us years later, but still related to China), and at least 3 of the ex-husbands (not mine) found happily-ever-after with an attractive local girl.
- Find a way to deal with "China Days." There will be days when the place just gets under your skin and drives you nuts. Whether it's going out with ex-pat friends or staying in with a coveted box of Kraft Mac & Cheese or exhausting yourself at the gym, find an outlet.
Glad you brought up Yellow Fever Gilli, the entire time we were there we knew very, very, very few expat couples that came together and stayed together. Chinese women will literally throw themselves at western men there - or their families will throw them at these men. It can be very sad. The same girls hang out at the same bars, hotels, etc. and date expat after expat after expat in the same circles... it's hard not to feel very sad for them and their desperation to land a foreign husband.
Then there's the divorce rate among these couples as soon as they get citizenship/p permanent residency in their expat husband's home country. Some within freaking days.
Get a good DVD man and your life there will be wonderful. We've even got a good Chinese DVD man in London that makes house calls. Brilliant.
I always just went to the Chinese hospitals - aside from one time when I was near death from drinking pond water and made it to Hong Kong for medical treatment out of fear of dying in a hideous Chinese village hospital. That ended with me being banned from a hotel in Hong Kong for what I did to their poor, poor elevator.
As for getting sick, yeah, this is going to happen. I'd go against the grain and try not to go overboard with being super sanitary to prevent it, the sooner your body builds up a tolerance of the bugs the better. You don't need to pre-boil your vegetables, wash everything in bleach and bathe in hand sanitizer. Maybe wait a couple of weeks before chowing down on street meat but other than that, have at er.
China Days suck. They're horrible and make you want to run screaming back to the airport - especially so now that you are going to be renting an apartment and no longer living in a posh expat hotel while you're there. Your internet will conk out and you'll have to go through 9 different people to get to somebody that is meant to be able to speak English but then all they can do is yell HALLOWR!! at you at the top of their voice over and over. You'll have moments where, like me, in attempting to call a plumber to fix your broken toilet you end up with a male prostitute at the door. Or you'll walk out the door one day in October and the world will look as though it magically rained cabbages over night.
Local men (SSB's - slick slimy bastards - you can identify them by their common attire of brown polo style dress shirts, thin leather belts, beer bellies, dress pants, shiny pointy shoes and women's socks ) will ask you how much you cost in the street because of course, you are a russian prostitute. You will learn to love peanut butter on noodles (it's freaking delicious) and to look the other way when a motorcycle drives by with a sack of german shephards.
You will not only learn to tolerate and eventually ignore the sound of violent Chinese flem expulsions, but after a year or so of Chinese black lung you may find yourself doing this as well. Same with picking your nose, it just happens.
And yes, for the love of god and all that is holy, bring yourself at least 3 boxes of Kraft Dinner.
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
My husband and I have been in Shanghai for 6 months. For the most part we are pretty happy here. The main things that are challenging are:
1) Being far from family and friends, We are starting to meet people here but it isn't the same. Internet is really slow and it makes it hard to keep in touch. All my friends from home complain they can't understand what I'm saying when I try to skype them plus it is a huge time difference so it is hard to call.Our proxy is really slow and sometimes it is not possible to get on the websites I want. At my work everything is blocked and my proxy doesn't work so it makes me feel very cut off from everyone.
2) The language barrier. My husband is fluent in Chinese which makes it a lot easier to get around since though my Chinese is quite poor. I have found I sort of use him as a crutch and am less independent than I am at home in my comfort zone. It is getting better as I pick up more Chinese and learn my way around.
3) As modern as Shanghai may be, it is actually very third world once you step away from fancy expat buildings. Locals pee on the side of the street, carry all their things around in rice bags and generally live in a third world way. My husband is doing a postdoctoral research position and I'm teaching so I don't live in a fancy expat building personally, but I assume for those who do it may be a little easier to feel like living in any other big city. On the plus side people can afford a driver and an ayi (housekeeper) because labor is incredibly cheap here. Me and my husband could even afford them if we wanted to. Our place here is comfortable enough except we don't have a dryer which is common because most people their cloths to dry. We are looking into buying one but we are only here for two to three years so we may not bother. We also don't have an oven, also common because it isn't used in most Asian cooking. We manage ok with the toaster oven we bought though.
4)The locals are paid very little compared to expats and it can make it uncomfortable at work if you are working.
5) Things are just done differently here. People have a different set of rules and cultural expectations. There are a lot of little day to day things that are frustrating, too many to explain concisely. You just don't always know how things work and they are sometimes just more difficult here. A lot of my expat co-workers really hate it here although my husband's expat co-workers mostly seem fairly happy.
6) The government is pretty screwy. I know our government is a mess too but here just seems worse. The really oppress their people. They limit freedom of speech with lots of people whose whole job is just to block websites that say something bad about China. They allowing for horrific work conditions. If you are and expat it isn't so bad but it is sad to observe. This is a government that killed thousands of its own citizens at Tienanmen Square because they held a demonstration, they seem to view people as expendable. Most locals I know have a mentality of whatever the leaders say goes. Some of the more educated people like the postdocs my husband works with disagree with the government, but they can't do anything about it.
Just to give my take on what other people said, I've never had any food poisoning or diarrhea. I also am vegetarian so that may make a big difference. Make sure to only drink bottled water though. Finding food was hard at first but not so bad once you know your way around. My husband ordered us mac and cheese on taobao.com, it is nice to know it is there when needed. You might need a Chinese friend to order stuff for you or just set up google translate so you can do it yourself.There is Ole, CityShop and the avocado lady to buy most western groceries. At this point we could eat western foods every meal if we wanted to. I also go to the Wagas or Element Fresh at Grand Gateway about once a week. The Chinese food here is very different from the states, which is mostly Cantonese food from Hong Kong. I'm not a huge fan of the food here, especially if my Chinese hosts take me to a banquet meal. I think that is the main time I really have trouble with food, I learned to eat beforehand. My favorite Chinese food place here is DolarShop.
As far as expats wanting to date locals, I think if you have a solid marriage I wouldn't worry too much about it. Moving abroad together can put extra stress on a relationship because sometimes it is just stressful being somewhere unfamiliar without your normal support network of friends and family to help you through it. For me and my husband I think it hasn't change our relationship too much though, except that I depend on him more to translate. We don't have kids yet but I hear the expat hospitals are decent as long as your insurance covers them. The local hospitals sound a bit scary.
A lot of day to day life here is pretty much the same as at home. We go to work, have dinner, watch a movie and whatnot. The main advantage to living in Shanghai for me is the ability to travel to exotic places, although this may be harder to do with kids. My husband and I have been to 6 cities in China, 3 in Taiwan and 1 in Japan since we got here six months ago.