Books, Films & Music

Living in China you will inevitably watch the odd Chinese film and become slightly more familiar with the local music scene (unfortunately). Most people will also want to keep up with current films, books and music as well though. Depending what you are looking for this ranges from very easy to impossible.

Bookstores that sell English books are not terribly common however every Chinese city would have at least a handful of places that you will be able to buy English books in. They usually don’t have a whole lot of books on offer but you can certainly pick up some good items. They generally have quite a good selection of classics, from Shakespeare to Moby Dick you can find quite a lot of titles on sale. For newer books they fall down a little bit, whilst you will probably be able to find the Harry Potter and Twilight series, for other recent titles it is a bit of a lottery. Of course if you really like reading then I’d give you one bit of advice – get a Kindle.

Due to the thriving industry in pirated films, buying DVDs is slightly easier than books. In fairness there are fewer stores selling pirate DVDs than there used to be but it is still pretty easy to get hold of them. Because of the cap on the amount of foreign films shown in Chinese cinemas, unless you do opt for the pirate DVD option then there are a lot of new films that you just won’t be able to see. Probably the best thing about the DVDs are the price, usually about £1 equivalent, on the downside you very  much get what you pay for – after the second viewing (and sometimes before the first) they have a tendency to start skipping and freezing so perhaps don’t look to build your DVD library with these. I should mention as well that along with movies, TV series are also widely available and most big shows are on sale, though unfortunately the most common shows are vampire diaries and gossip girl – doesn’t speak highly of the Chinese viewing habits.

Music is basically a no-go. The biggest foreign artists here are Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Adele – as far as other artists go if it isn’t mainstream pop then they probably haven’t heard of it. There is of course a large music industry in China, though from my own experience the Chinese music industry is dominated by saccharine pop which I have little taste for. While you will meet people who are into their music, and may even find some independently run cafes with a good playlist on the go (generally owned by former art students) these cases are few and far between.

When it comes to keeping up with pop culture such as films, books and music China is very much a mixed bag. Essentially if Chinese people also have an interest in it then you’ll be fine, if not then you are really going to struggle. Foreign books are not terribly common nor is music that is not either a) Chinese or b) Mainstream pop. Foreign films and TV shows on the other hand are widely seen and enjoyed by many Chinese people and are far easier to get hold of. Of course if you want to really keep up with everything then my best piece of advice would be: get a kindle, get a subscription to Netflix and subscribe to Spotify.

 

 

Where to work in China?

This is a huge question for many people who have made the decision to come to China, but who have not yet decided on where. For people who have not had previous experience with China, they may not know much else about China other than Beijing and Shanghai. As such many people prefer to come out and teach in one of these two cities. Having been several times to both cities there is a lot to be said to their credit. For new people coming to China these cities are the biggest, most cosmopolitan and have the best access to western conveniences. As well as this there is also the general kudos some people attach to these cities, there does tend to be a leaning towards working in better-known places purely for the ability to tell family and friends. I have a lot of fondness for Beijing and Shanghai, however I think that when people decide on which cities they want to work in, they are not considering some of the things that they should be, and for me the benefits of working in a smaller city outweigh those of working in one of these metropolises.

“I don’t want to be working in the middle of nowhere!”

There is a feeling that cities outside of Beijing or Shanghai must be somewhat backward or in the middle of nowhere. This of course vastly underestimates the size of Chinese cities; wherever you are working it will likely be a large well-developed city with good transport links. To give an illustration of this, Wuhan is bigger than any city in Europe, has an extensive subway network, direct flights to a host of international destinations as well as being a central hub on the fast train network (four hour trains available to Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Guilin respectively).

What is great about living somewhere smaller is that the people are slightly less used to foreigners. A lot of people who have travelled will have inevitably run up against the industry of tour operators, beggars and rip-off merchants who prey on foreigners. People often ask me if they will be ripped off or targeted because they are a foreigner. In central areas in Shanghai or Beijing you are likely to come up against this kind of thing, as anywhere with a tourist industry is prone to this. In smaller cities that see slightly less international tourism this does not really happen, if anything it goes the other way around. When I walk past people distributing leaflets for example, they often don’t bother hassling me - as a foreigner they assume that I wouldn’t be able to read the leaflet anyway.

Another offshoot of being in a city that sees less foreigners is that far fewer people you run into are likely to speak English. While this can be troublesome to begin with, it forces you to engage with the language and pick up Chinese that much quicker, getting a more intimate knowledge of the culture as a handy offshoot. Yet this is not to say that you will be the only foreigner in the city – far from it. Most places do tend to have bars or areas that see higher concentrations of foreign people, and many people will go there to hang out with their friends. Because of the relatively small numbers of foreign people this does tend to lead to an inclusive and tight-knit feeling amongst the foreign community. The balance is the most important thing, when people come to China I think the best thing is getting to know the culture, yet you do also need a group of friends with whom you share a common language and culture – smaller cities are perfect for both of these.

It is true to say that wages tend to be higher in Beijing and Shanghai, however this does not necessarily give the whole picture. Wages are rising rapidly in smaller cities, and are now not far behind their larger counterparts. Importantly the cost of living is much lower in smaller cities, so even though wages may be slightly lower, you would probably end up saving more money per month anyway.

Beijing and Shanghai are really great cities, with a number of well-known tourist sites as well as western conveniences – so go there on holiday! For day-to-day life, smaller cities in my opinion are a much better option – go for it.

 

 

The Internet

Even though many people in the west are aware of the restrictions to the internet in China when it actually comes to going there it’s still a bit of a shock. The internet is heavily censored and the government works tirelessly to identify anyone who writes anything outspoken and remove their comments from the internet.  For foreigners spending time in China it doesn’t really make much difference to our day to day lives as the majority of the censorship is on Chinese sites however there are a number of more famous foreign websites that may have more of an impact when you’re in China.

For most of us the 3 main websites that are notably blocked are YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. China has their own versions of all of these sites widely used by everyone and that’s how the Chinese Government want it as views and opinions from outside China is not something they are keen for people to be seeing on a regular basis. However the growth of the internet has meant its becoming harder for the Chinese to prevent their citizens using alternative sites.

For many travelling to China this poses a welcome break from procrastinating and quite frankly wasting too much time looking through photos of people you don’t really care about. Even though Facebook is great for keeping in touch with friends after a few weeks I really enjoyed getting out of the habit of just logging onto it every time I turned on my computer. I was even more pleased with the endless notifications I had after 10 months on not looking at my Facebook profile…I had 13 and very few of them were directly to do with me.

Now for all you computer boffins out there I’m sure there are endless  free options to get around the amount of sites that are blocked unfortunately I am close to useless on computers and went for the safest, most well-known option of Astrill. By downloading Astrill for a small monthly fee you are able to access whichever websites you like. The server is redirected as if you are online in the UK or the U.S. meaning you can roam the internet freely and even watch BBC IPlayer or Netflix. One subscription allows you to use it on as many as 3 devices so I had Astrill on my phone, laptop and IPad, this would only put you back about £50 for the year so is well worth it if you’re planning on using those sites regularly.

In all honestly it’s not really a great problem when spending time in China if a few websites are blocked, some of our applicants have concerns about not being able to contact home freely but it’s simply not an issue. All email accounts will work in China as does Skype which are the 2 main methods our teachers use to keep in touch with loved ones back home.  

 

Strange Food

The Chinese couldn’t be more proud of their cuisine and rightly so, it is delicious and full of flavour and I thoroughly look forward to getting back to my favourite dishes every time I return to China. My friends and family back in England have asked me on several occasions if I have eaten anything strange or a bit weird during my time in China which from my experience some foreign teachers coming out to China initially have some concern over. There are a few things that are commonly eaten that aren’t exactly “normal” in the U.K but on the whole it’s mainly meat, fish and vegetables and you would have to be an extremely fussy eater to not find any local food you like to eat.

If anybody has seen the TV show “An Idiot Abroad” with Karl Pilkington there is a scene in Beijing when he visits a food market to find caterpillars and cockroaches being barbecued.  From my experience I would say that food such as this isn’t commonly eaten and is a bit of a novelty/tourist attraction with most Chinese people agreeing that these types of food are also disgusting. Having said that two of the most popular things to eat in Wuhan are Duck’s neck and Chicken’s feet which aren’t much better. Duck’s neck is fine I suppose, it’s a bit tough and there isn’t exactly a lot of meat but it tastes perfectly acceptable but as for Chicken’s feet I simply cannot understand the appeal. There is absolutely no meat on it and I cannot see how it’s comparable to a wing or bit of breast. Chinese people also proceed to spit the majority of it on the floor but they speak of a wonderful flavour that cannot be replicated in any other part of the Chicken…unless you like nibbling on toenails though I would give it a miss.

One extremely palatable surprise is Bullfrog, if you ever see them in the tanks in the supermarket they look revolting, I actually can’t even bring myself to go near them. I unknowingly ate bullfrog on a staff dinner during my first year and was a little shocked when somebody told me what I was eating but it’s become a local favourite of mine. I still can’t bring myself to buy a live one in Wal-Mart and take it home to prepare but I often order it in restaurants.

 

 

Without a doubt the most disgusting thing I have eaten in China is a type of egg know as Pi Dan 皮蛋. I have been told by my Chinese friends that it’s made by preserving eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls for several weeks to several months, depending on the method of processing. I have seen it done with duck, chicken and quail eggs all leaving equally awful results. The yolk changes a greyish colour while the egg white changes to a dark brown and it gives off a sulphur smell….It gets a right pong circulated the room.

 

Don’t let any of the above put you off because Chinese food is brilliant, my only criticism is there isn’t a lot of variety so you will find yourselves eating similar ingredients cooked in similar ways frequently but for value and flavour there isn’t anything in The UK that compares to it. You can eat out at very cheap prices and their attention to flavour isn’t compromised at all.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTIs9fvkUA

 

Karl Pilkington in Beijing