what’s the cost of living in china? i want to go there for a year to learn chinese and also to study tai chi. i’m not sure about the location but i’m on a tight budget so that probably rules out beijing or shanghai.
Could i reasonably expect to live there for £5000 (about $9500), including everything except the flight?
if anyone’s got any suggestions (about anything) I’d be grateful.
Chris
p.s. do you think it is difficult to find a tai chi master willing to teach foreigners?
Re: living in china
Originally posted by chris101
[B]what’s the cost of living in china? i want to go there for a year to learn chinese and also to study tai chi. i’m not sure about the location but i’m on a tight budget so that probably rules out beijing or shanghai.
Could i reasonably expect to live there for £5000 (about $9500), including everything except the flight?
if anyone’s got any suggestions (about anything) I’d be grateful.
Chris
p.s. do you think it is difficult to find a tai chi master willing to teach foreigners? [/B]
I think you want to head to www.chinafrominside.com and contact Jarek either at his forum or e-mailing him. He has been living in china for over a decade (I think) and have been researching CMA along the way. he’ll be able to give you some leads to good taiji teachers.
I would strongly suggest against just showing up in china without making prior contacts because it is a big country. taiji is mainly practiced as a health exercise there as well. there are master who can fight. but, the chances of you running into them by randomly selecting a city would be very, very low.
You might also keep your choice of an art to study open, you might find something else more to your liking. you might also consider teaching english to supplement your income while you’re there.
omarthefish might be able to give you some suggestion as well if he happens to see this thread.
Re: Re: living in china
Originally posted by WanderingMonk
[B]I think you want to head to www.chinafrominside.com and contact Jarek either at his forum or e-mailing him. He has been living in china for over a decade (I think) and have been researching CMA along the way. he’ll be able to give you some leads to god taiji teachers.
I would strongly suggest against just showing up in china without making prior contacts because it is a big country. taiji is mainly practiced as a health exercise there as well. there are master who can fight. but, the chances of you running into them by randomly selecting a city would be very, very low.
You might also keep your choice of an art to study open, you might find something else more to your liking. you might also consider teaching english to supplement your income while you’re there.
omarthefish might be able to give you some suggestion as well if he happens to see this thread. [/B]
i agree with the contacts thing, if you show up with no clue you are a tourist trap and likely to be had and your money taken. look at the exchange rate. depending on where you go, you can live for less.you get about 8 yuan for every american dollar. stay away from the places that attract a lot of foriegners, because they will likely charge you like 20 yuan for a can of soda where if you go to another place it might be 2. that is all i have to say, and bring american condoms. :o
chris101,
Too late to ask. No one here is qualified. Blooming Lotus has been living in china for a year, but she is not posting for awhile.
$9500 is plenty including airfare. Here in Xi’an it has the buying power of about 8 times that. The lifestyle would be the equivalent of having a 75k/year job. I live an upper middle class lifestyle on about $5000/year. I support my GF and we live in a 3 bedroom apt. (1 bedroom and we both have our own private rooms/studies in addition to the living room)
In Bejing or Shanghai your $9500 could probably let you live the same way I do in Xi’an on my $5000.
I could hook you up with some really seriously good taijiquan in Xi’an but he doesn’t speak English so who knows. Others may have different views on what that’s like. I don’t know. I would only be around to help translate on weekends. Jarek’s site is a good source. There is also some very high level Chen in town I could introduce you to and I know the Chen guy has a fair number of bi-lingual students so the language issue is not as big as with my own teacher.
Important questions:
How old are you?
Do you have a college degree?
If your at least in your mid 20’s then it will be easy to secure a job teaching English. You have the money but you don’t have a visa. Your choices are to enroll in a foreign language program ( I reccomend it) or to teach English. A degree will give you signifigantly better bargaining power for your contract. A tourist visa is only a month from the US but for some strange reason in Hong Kong you can get one that is good for 6 months. I still think it is better to hook up as a student if you can afford it (annual tuition around here runs about $1800) and then maybe teach a bit on the side for extra cash…or be a teacher. The social network is not to be underestimated.
Either one of these options will do a few things for you.
-an instant network of “friends” to help you find your way around when you can’t really speak the language.
-housing
-sanitary food.
-a VISA!!!
-a bit of structure to your day. The value of this is not to be underestimated. The culture shock can be rough enough as it is. Having something to do helps a LOT.
Lot’s of people reccomend against studying the language at a school but there is a HUGE difference between the getting by Chinese you learn on the street and the proper Chinese you can learn at school. It’s not like you don’t get to practice on the street and in cheap bars if you go the school route. But to each his own.
I second the reccomendation for Jareks site. I have been here about 5 years. He’s been doing it apparently for twice that. I can definately show you some pretty incredible Yang style though. The Chen in Xi’an I know by reputation only. I have met a couple people who found their Chen teacher here in Xi’an actually through Jarek.
dont drink the water either. 
shaolin lueb is racist and ignorant
Originally posted by Shaolin Dude
shaolin lueb is racist and ignorant
Maybe, but what he says is essentially right, but it also applies to many places. There are a lot of tourist traps in China, and if they think they will get away with it they will take you to the cleaners, charging you way more for something than they would to a local.
And you definitely want to be careful with the water.
Diarreah is just part of life in China.
It’s not racist. It’s just life. It’s also why I listed “sanitary food” as one of the advantages to enrolling as a student. The cafeteria may not be the best food in China but it is generally clean.
You can bring an industrial size box of ammonium AD with you (reccomended) but it will not help you with the stomach cramps and eventually it will run out.
Originally posted by Shaolin Dude
shaolin lueb is racist and ignorant
http://english1.people.com.cn:80/200309/17/eng20030917_124411.shtml
http://www.planetsave.com/ViewStory.asp?ID=4977
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/1999/107p251-256wu/wu-full.html
Directly related to what you are getting you information from…! Paras 10 and 16
Couldn’t find the article relating to the towns in Anxui Province where the cancer rate has gone up 80% in the last ten years due to the water, which is green and smells bad… think it was in the Daily Yomiuri but doubtless was on general release.
Better to be ‘racist and ignorant’ than maybe ‘ignorant and dead’…?
Originally posted by Shaolin Dude
shaolin lueb is racist and ignorant
Lueb is just cautiously aware!! BL 's already told us what to expect and to ingore it is pure idiocy!!
-a bit of structure to your day. The value of this is not to be underestimated. The culture shock can be rough enough as it is. Having something to do helps a LOT.
That’s really good advice.
Expect it to be not quite what you expect and you’ll be fine 
Thanks for all the replies, they are really helpful.
I’m planning to go next august or september so I’m really in the advance planning stage. I definitely want to pick up some contacts before I go so I can find a good teacher and somewhere to live.
I went to India alone for three months last summer so I’m fairly clued up on scams and ripoffs (they were invented in India, I believe). I think I’ll also be more prepared for the culture shock.
Ideally, I would like to go to Beijing and rent a small apartment and enroll on a language course and then hopefully have the chance to study under a tai chi master. I’ll take your advice and contact Jareck some time in the future - maybe he can help me out.
Can anyone tell me how difficult it is to learn Chinese? I had my first lesson yesterday and it seems so hard, but I hope to pick up some basics before I leave. Do you think its possible to become fluent after a year living in the country?
thanks,
chris.
Originally posted by Shaolin Dude
shaolin lueb is racist and ignorant
lol no im not. im jsut telling you what ive been told by people who go to china a lot. and have lived there for months at a time. so no im not. and thank you to the other people who stuck by me 
Originally posted by chris101
[B]Can anyone tell me how difficult it is to learn Chinese? I had my first lesson yesterday and it seems so hard, but I hope to pick up some basics before I leave. Do you think its possible to become fluent after a year living in the country?
thanks,
chris. [/B]
the pimsleur approach will help you a bit on it, that can teach you basics. there are so amny dialects in china, you probably want to find a teacher who lived in beijing (thats where your staying) so you can get the accents down.
Check out www.study-in-china.com
If I had 9,500, I would try a year intensitve of this, work private lessons at night, and that. Plus you can take tai chi as an elective. Maybe one of those tai chi teachers could steer you in the right direction.
Does anyone know of a similar place that is not so expensive?
yeah, i considered Worldlink but decided against it for the following reasons:
apart from this, i think they’re probably very good, but not for me.
Sliding scale
Everything in China is on a sliding scale. If you know people - have guanxi - that scale slides to your favor. If you don’t speak Chinese, it slides way against you. A lot also has to do with how savvy a travller you are. I remember travelling with this guyu once who was consistently paying four to five times what I was paying for exactly the same thing. Once he bought something for ten times the price others got it for.
As for the water, SL is right, not racist. Everyone drinks bottled water in China and everyone checks the seals on the bottled water before buying them. Either that or you boil it. I got sick once in Bejiing off the water because I forgot to boil my teeth-brushing water. One tiny oversight put me down for almost a week. But any experienced traveller knows about water issues.
Originally posted by chris101
[B]Thanks for all the replies, they are really helpful.
…
Ideally, I would like to go to Beijing and rent a small apartment and enroll on a language course and then hopefully have the chance to study under a tai chi master.
…
Can anyone tell me how difficult it is to learn Chinese? … Do you think its possible to become fluent after a year living in the country?
thanks,
chris. [/B]
I could help you get settled in Xi’an and hook you up with a teacher. To learn Taiji from my teacher you would only be expected to pay what you feel is appropriate/in your budget. More typical than tuition is to simple take folks out to lunch once in a while and give whatever you can afford in cash on his birthday and on the Chinese new year. No one will tell you how much exactly.
This is the language school I would reccomend in my area:
http://campus.fortunecity.com/princeton/321/hxy01.html
You would have language lessons m-f 8am-12noon. Then your afternoons are free.
It is just as difficult as you are afraid to learn Chinese. 1 year = fluent? Not a chance. You could definately get pretty conversational though.
Actually… 1 year should be enough for him to pick up quite a bit. There have been tons of studies done on that, and when a person moves to a completely new region, it takes only a month or so for them to recover from initial culture shock and 3 months or so to really start picking up on the languages and customs of where they are… Interesting stuff.
Best of luck with your training in whatever you decide to do… Im sure you will find something to train very worth while in China.