jobs

Spending hours a day looking for jobs in China is a hell of a lot more fun than spending hours looking for jobs in America.  Somehow it is exhilarating.  Eventually I have to tell myself to stop saying "one more page" as I wade through pages of job postings.  Half of the stuff I've looked at so far is shit but it's still kind of like opening presents on Christmas.

I've applied for a handful of jobs in Hángzhōu, Qīngdǎo and Tiānjīn.  I will probably have an interview sometime Saturday with a school and their recruiter.  So with the possibility of having a job soon, it is time to get some more last-minute details in order.

Hángzhōu, Zhèjiāng

I believe that this time I have found a city to go to.  Hángzhōu was one of the cities I originally looked up and then somewhat discarded after focusing on dialects.  With the help of some friends and some random people I met on couchsurfing who reside in Hángzhōu I think this will be a good choice.  The climate sounds nice, public transportation looks to be plentiful and also there seems to be a mixture of city life and nature nearby.

City life...imagine me in a city.  I've never really lived in a city.  Oh, also important about Hángzhōu is that there are a lot of schools, so maybe I can even get a job and have a reason to go.

dialectal struggles

Well, it turns out I don't have as much figured out as I originally thought.  In my search for a new home I assumed I could use temperature as one of the main determiners:  Warmer latitude = warmer heart = good home.  Doesn't entirely work that way I guess.  Part of my goal in going to China is to study Mandarin.  From my detailed internet research, most of the cities that I had been considering speak dialects that are not "mutually intelligible" with Mandarin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dialects).  According to the map Chóngqìng speaks standard Mandarin but further research has suggested Sichuanese Mandarin is spoken there.  A handful of expats in China have recommended moving toward Běijīng or Tiānjīn.