Country verses city in China.

If you are working for a large multinational company who's been asked to relocate your entire family to China then it is understandably that you would work in a place like Shanghai. But for teachers where is the adventure or the experience?

Chinese cities are becoming very generic with the same tall high rise apartments. Instead of traditional Chinese buildings they're now concrete idealistic European style. The expectation of what you would be expecting China to be is not going to be in the larger cities. You might find it in the back streets of Beijing but those famous alley ways will be gone. On the right is what you could find if you work in the smaller areas. Some of my best time in China has been the rural areas.

Why do most teachers choose the larger cities? One obvious reason is the clubs and places like Shanghai there are plenty. I lost a lot interests in clubs in Shanghai due to over-priced beer and begging mothers who have now become more violent. One story of a guy who went to the ATM and a begging mother with a child in one hand and a stick in the other hit him on the head. Beggars go to the larger cities and is less common place in smaller cities.

This depends on your preference and choice of city, however I think spending some time in a world that is not what you're use to is beneficial for character building. You can go clubbing back home and one year without Starbucks won't kill you. The experiences you could have is blogging gold, in larger cities there are less random things to write about.

Sometimes a large city can be a good soft landing but why not throw yourself in the deep end just remember to research the place and school before you go. Also you should never send any money to a school or recruiter there is no need to do that even if you're a non native teacher,