I always try to title these blogs so that it might come up if you are looking for really specific information. The word “safe” is really subjective though. Like is the Chinese government going to spy on you if you have a Huawei? Well… Yeah.
Should you care? Meh. Does it make you unsafe? I’d venture to say no.
My big worry when I was in China was “will it work outside of China?” And “can I use an American sim card with it?”
And then when I was finally all set to buy one, Huawei blocked Google. No Google play store on Huawei? That was really a deal-breaker for me.
I didn’t know anyone who owned a Huawei that I could ask about it, but there was one day we ran into a bunch of teenagers in a cafe and they wanted to practice English, so I asked them if you could still get any apps I might want like Twitter and Facebook and Netflix and stuff. They said not to worry about it, but everything I saw online said it was incompatible and that you could get most apps from the Huawei store, but not everything.
Eventually I decided to take the risk and just buy one. The price was right, and I couldn’t say no to those camera specs.
I was a little worried about setting up a new phone in mainland China without a VPN, but it turned out better than I could have possibly imagined.
I turned it on for the first time and it offered to port all of my apps over from my old phone over bluetooth!! Including Google play store!!
As long as your old phone is still functional, I’d say you have absolutely nothing to worry about when switching to a Huawei.
My only side note that I want to include is that sometimes American apps don’t sync notifications super well, but it’s not a big deal to me.
Mixed China and Russia flag, three dimensional render, illustration
Pros and Cons
This is just based off of my experiences, but I think for the most part they are fairly similar to most people’s experiences. Paperwork for both is equally TERRIBLE.
Pro-China: great pay, low expectations, low cost of living, easy to get the job
Pro-Russia: organized, official, good communication & expectations, more western culture
Anti-China: poor communication, often unofficial, unstructured, unpredictable
Anti-Russia: snobby, critical, lower pay, high rent
The Good and Bad of China
I’m definitely glad I did the China experience. That being said, I’m still glad I limited it to only 6 months.
China is tricky- you can’t predict what kind of job you’ll land (the school, the location, the manager, the people, the PAY) but in general, it is fairly easy to land a job. If you have a bachelor’s degree, are a native English speaker, and have a TEFL degree, you’ll have no problem. If you look around enough you can find a REALLY well paying job, and there are TONS of schools that are always looking. If you’re going for money alone, China is your place- highest pay coupled with the lowest cost of living. Don’t settle for those low paying ones though.
It’s kind of a show up and start system. you don’t get a lot of training at most places, which would be bad, except they also have matching low expectations for teachers. If you want to learn how to teach without limitations, restrictions, or really any structure at all, this would be ideal. It stressed me out though- I love teaching, but I need some kind of structure to follow beyond “teach shapes for 4 weeks straight.”
Living in China is tough: questionable hygiene, very different food, and very different culture. Its very common for your managers to not tell you expectations for events or meetings and then expect you to learn a complicated dance in one afternoon. By far the most difficult thing to get accustomed to though was that literally no one speaks English. In most European countries you can throw a rock and you’ll find someone who can speak English, not quite so in China. Working with people you can’t talk to gets pretty lonely. I constantly felt like I didn’t know what was going on, because, well, I didn’t.
The Good and Bad of Russia
I would say overall Russia has been better than China for me. From the beginning, expectations were made clear. The interview process was THOROUGH. They wanted experience, teaching videos, and a mock lesson- it felt a lot more like a real job from the very beginning. I had support and advice for the whole process of my initial paperwork.
Russian is super hard and I think it helps Russians be really good at languages. Of all the people I’ve met who speak English as a second language, the Russians have the best mastery of it. It makes a big difference at work to be able to talk to my coworkers, and I think the fact that Russia has a more Western culture than China made a big difference for me too.
The flipside of all of the nice things about Russia though is that they expect a lot more. The highest paying jobs in Moscow are patroned by the ultra-rich, and they want to be in control of every word you speak to their children. And unlike China, the parents speak enough English to actually know what’s going on. Culturally, Russians tend to be a little bit brusque with their criticism and it comes off as harsh, especially to Americans. That’s difficult to get used to, but if you like following really specific rules and love structure, it could be great for you.
Rent in Russia is also more expensive. Not crazy expensive, not like Switzerland or Austria or anything, but Moscow and St. Petersburg’s costs of living are significantly higher than anywhere in China. Even the highest paying English teaching gig in Moscow pays a lot less than you could be making in China, and that’s not ideal when paired with higher rent costs.
Should I teach in China or Russia?
They both have good and bad. I like living in Russia more, but its definitely a harder workload with less money than China. But at least the kids are cute in both countries!
If you start with some very light Googling of “what’s the deal with China’s cashless economy” I am sure you will see lots of articles about how Chinese people use no cash whatsoever and they run completely on apps like WeChat Pay and AliPay. And its true. Very true. No one uses cash, but most places don’t accept cards. So what are you supposed to do as a foreigner?
I saw some advice on a Girls Love Travel page where someone asked for advice on how to pay for stuff over their 2 week trip. This lady, no joke, replied: “Most everyone there uses WeChat pay or AliPay. Its soooooo convenient, you might as well try it out while you’re there!” This would have been fine advice except you have to have a Chinese bank account to be able to use them. Personally I don’t think it is worth the hassle of setting up an entire bank account for a two week period but maybe that’s just me. In fact, it actually took me 5 separate trips to different banks over 3 weeks to get my bank account set up! (Granted, however, one time was my fault because the bank was closed.) 😜
It might be easier for some foreigners to open a bank account, but it was actually super difficult for me. The bank kept changing requirements and asking for documents that I couldn’t even access. It was a nightmare.
This was in the beginning of 2019 though, and things have luckily changed! Just this past week it was announced that AliPay now allows foreign cards! (This seriously would have been amazing.) This opens up a whole new world for foreigners!
Even though AliPay isn’t as widely used as WeChat, it’s still incredibly common. In fact there were actually a few places that ONLY accepted AliPay, and not WeChat.
AliPay, as you probably guessed, is affiliated with AliBaba and AliExpress as well as TaoBao, so it’s really quite a big company. AliPay is also fun because you can pay using facial recognition. Kinda scary, but also amazing because we are living in the future!
So if you’re going soon, don’t bother trying to slip through the cracks of WeChat to find a loophole and use it. Trust me I tried. It doesn’t work. Do, however try out AliPay! And always bring your cards with you- debit cards with low/no ATM fees and credit cards with no foreign transaction fees. And always have some cash on hand, one of the best things about China is that you absolutely do not have to worry about pickpockets at all.
So I haven’t written in a few years, but I’ve been feeling a spark again. (By “spark” I really mean that I had a few too many cups of coffee one day and got a little bit overzealous with my planning.) So now that I have come back down to Earth, I am going to have to try to live up to those plans and actually start back up again.
The coffee fueled (and stained) plan that I carried around for weeks before I actually started writing. I nearly lost it 20 times.
The problem is that as an English major, I was trained to introduce what I plan to write about, and I absolutely refuse to start writing without laying out the why and the how. So without further ado, here is the plan for my series of travel-based, money-centric posts.
The Why
I think even though the themes are fairly common, nobody really bothers to compile their know-how for others after the fact. It’s just sort of assumed that people either know what they’re doing, they have someone to ask, or else they’ll just have to figure it out themselves.
I did my research before I went
most places, but there were a lot of things that I didn’t even think to
consider or plan for that would have made my experiences way easier, cheaper
and efficient. So let me tell you about the things I wish I had known!
Travel is honestly a super common thing to write about and there are plenty of books, blogs and posts about it. There is so much content, but none of it is exactly what I am looking for. It’s either a complete travel guide that has a million places to go (none of which I can afford), or it’s like one or two tips. I want to hear about the whole thing- how to get around, helpful phrases, places to go and places to avoid, awesome places to eat, and how to save money while doing it.
I think as a reasonable, average, poor, young person instead of a professional, full-time traveler, I have something else to offer. I’ve done SO much research on how to do everything in the cheapest way, and I have a good knack for filtering out the overrated tourist stuff while not missing anything important.
The How
I plan on doing two sets: a
city series, and a general advice series.
My city series is going to be a post about my experience (in case you’re reading these because you actually know me) and then a separate post to list of objective “must-sees,” objectively overrated places, off the beaten path attractions, the BEST thing in each city, and how to budget. (I might be using the word objective a little loosely.)
As of now, my city list is: Madrid, Toledo, El Escorial, Paris (is anyone really qualified to give advice on Paris?) Berlin, Krakow, Prague, Milan, Legnano, Lugano, Cinque Terre, Venice, Rome, Naples, Florence, Sorrento, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. I’m currently living in China, so hopefully my list will have more Asian cities and not be quite so Euro-centric.
General advice is a little bit less structured, but I’m just going to give all the advice I know how to give. Things I kind of know about include: applying for colleges/scholarships/jobs, (don’t even get me started) fafsa, university, study abroads, working abroad, teaching English packing tips, cheap flights, living in Italy, living in China, and the best travel apps.
Beyond writing to fulfill my own personal need to write for my own mental health, and beyond writing to help the every day traveler, the true pipe dream is to someday write for Atlas Obscura- my one true love, my go-to for anywhere I travel, and the greatest website of all time.
I reference Atlas a lot, so if you’re going to keep reading my blog you best familiarize yourself now. 😉 atlasobscura.com
Finding Eden 