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Uber is here but these days it doesn’t seem to be far and away better than taxis like it used to be.
They used to be cheaper than normal cabs and plentiful, but these days it seems like there’s always a price surge going on and I see 3-4 empty cabs pass me while I’m waiting for the car to call me before even starting to head towards my location. It’s still pretty useful
One other thing is if you don’t speak Chinese, Uber is maybe gonna be a pain. The driver pretty much always calls you (100% in my experience) to confirm the ride before picking you up.
Yeah, I’ve had my Japanese PS4 for a while now. Dark Souls 3 only has had a HK/TW Chinese-language release so far, and those almost always have English. I was talking about mainland Chinese releases which are kind of few and far between for newer stuff. There was a big fiasco about the mainland Chinese stuff all being region locked on the PS4’s release here, so I was worried it’d be somehow altered or changed.
On that, I just went in and picked up the game I was curious about today anyway, and it’s pretty much the same where it just runs based on the system language. Will probably depend on the game but seems like there’s no issues with CN versions.
About 2 days left to file or get your extension in!
Actually all American citizens or green card holders living abroad can get an automatic 2 month extension applied retroactively when you file. A lot of tax software (TurboTax/etc) will be smart and take care of this for you if you file after the due date, which was about 8 minutes ago as of this post.
One thing to note is if you do owe taxes, while you won’t be hit with a straight penalty during this 2 month period, interest will accrue on what you do owe. This is a lot less than the normal penalty, but it’s still something.
If you owe nothing/get a refund, there’s no real penalty at all for taking the extra time.
You can buy them online, but the HDD is really small and tbh I think the storefront isn’t very well made. Most Wii U games I just buy on Taobao. The price is usually about the same or even less than the digital version and shipping is rarely more than a day. Most of the downloading I do is updates for the games.
And if you’re interested in a 3DS at all, wait a couple weeks for US and EU model New 3DSs to show up (release mid-Feb in both regions). I’ve been messing around with a Japanese model and it’s such an improvement over the current model it depresses me I already have an old 3DS. I purchased it only about 2 weeks before they announced the New 3DS and still have buyers remorse 🙁
I do think a combo of nice PC + Wii U will get you 95% of the best games to come out in the last three years. The only decent exclusives to the PS4 or Xbone I can think of off the top of my head would be Sunset Overdrive and the Last of US.
For the Wii U, Bayonetta 2 is my absolute favorite, but I also had a lot of fun with Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Super Mario 3D World, Wonderful 101, and Hyrule Warriors. If you happen to have/had a Wii, the Wii remotes work as controllers for most games on the Wii U so it’s easy to get together a bunch for multiplayer.
About transformers, I originally bought a cheap one like that when I first got the Wii U and it died within a month. I bought second cheap one and it again died in a few weeks. The one I got now was about 400 and has lasted over a year and is still going. I might have just been unlucky, but especially considering I leave the thing on sometimes for very long periods of time when I’m not at home or asleep to download games which are sometimes well over 20GB, I feel better with the higher-end, non-Chinese branded one I have now. I don’t think those cheaper ones are designed with close to 24/7 use in mind.
Another thing about consoles, is that the PS4 will be MUCH harder to get in the near future. Once the Xbone released domestically in China they actually started cracking down on the sales of grey market HK and JP models, due to those being over 1000rmb cheaper and region free. Before they released domestically last fall you could see dozens of Xbones in any electronics market and easily online, but since it released domestically they’ve dried up. You can still find them, but it’s nowhere near as easy to do so and the price has gone up. Looking on Taobao right now, there are only about 5-6 sellers with the price of 2000~2300 the console should be, most are 3.5-4k Chinese models.
The PS4’s release got delayed two weeks ago and I’ve not yet heard of a new one, but they’re still everywhere. I only bought mine 3 weeks ago before the delay because I saw what happened to the Xbone.
Chances are once they release domestically (only a 200-300rmb markup compared to 1.3k for Xbones) that will likely change. Also, the reason it was delayed was so they could region lock the thing so you definitely don’t want a Chinese model.
Basically, if you think you want a PS4 get one soonish or it’ll get more expensive and harder to do so without heading to HK yourself.
Big nerd here. I own or have regular access to a PS4, PS3, Wii U, Xbone, etc…
The Wii U is probably my favorite console at the moment now because it has great stuff you can’t get anywhere else.
However, the Wii U, like everything Nintendo this generation, is region locked. This means that once you buy it you’re locked into the region it belongs to insofar as games/online/etc. Most of the ones that come into China are coming through HK and are US versions, but make sure it’s a US version （美版）unless you really want an EU or JP version. EU versions can be had, but are way more expensive compared to US or JP.
Another issue is Nintendo is crazy in the year of 2015 and a JP or US version Wii U will have a power supply that will NOT work properly in China if you just plug it in. You to buy a step-down transformer to use the Wii U here since the voltage in China is higher than in Japan or the US. This will add another 300-600rmb to the cost of the device.
The PS3, PS4, 360 and Xbone are varying degrees of region free and have proper PSUs that can handle any voltage you throw at it, so those are way easier when it comes to that.
I’d also invest in a Pro Controller if you got a Wii U. These ARE region free and the Japanese ones are the cheapest by a fair margin. The Gamepad is kind of a crappy controller, so for any game (Bayonetta 2 is a great example) that doesn’t use it’s unique features the Pro Controller is a better choice.
why do all gyms open at like 10am in Chengdu.
Why can’t any gyms open at like 5am for people like me who don’t sleep?
Really depends what you’re looking for. English teaching is obviously the most common because the government regulations regarding hiring ESL teachers are so much lower/not enforced compared to non-ESL jobs. Translation could also happen as a freelancer if your Chinese is decent (though I’d have my doubts about HSK4 being proficient enough for any sort of professional translation) and you can land enough jobs, since you know Russian and English it’d help a lot on this front.
But since you’re asking you probably know those two and you’re wondering about jobs outside of those.
Since the new regulations last summer, most non-ESL companies are having a lot of time getting people over with proper paperwork. Generally if a company really wants you they can go a sketchy route with M visas or maybe even paying off a school and getting an RP from an X, but they’re gonna have to really want you since the penalties have increased a whole lot.
If you had job experience in another field (IT stuff is big in Chengdu, but business, marketing, and consultation also have jobs) or a post-graduate degree you’d stand a better chance.
Not to just give you bad news, but the truth of the matter is in Chengdu most non-ESL jobs are from companies looking for experienced seniors they can’t get find domestically. There are other jobs out there, but they’re few and far between.
Your best bet would be to find a company looking for interns and try to work your way in to a position from there. A lot of companies in Chengdu look for foreign interns, so this one might not prove so difficult.
One last option would be to leave Chengdu and go to Shanghai, Beijing, or even Shenzhen where there are a hell of a lot more job opportunities.
If you have credentials and experience in teaching English as a foreign/second language you can also get a Foreign Expert Certificate regardless of where your passport is from.
Hi Ty
Here’s the link you need: http://en.csc.edu.cn/ It should have most of the information you need and the online application.
I got a year-long CSC fellowship in 2012 at Sichuan University while doing my MA at a US university.
If you want to do more than study Chinese, there’s a language requirement. I believe it’s an HSK 5 for graduate studies, but some programs may require an HSK 6 certification. I had a 6 when I applied. Note that this is true even if the program you want in to is in English. I would really discourage taking an English degree program at anywhere in China, though. Very few of the teachers have very good English at all and the programs themselves are there basically to look good on brochures.
Applying before you’ve graduated should be fine, you wouldn’t start until the following September anyway.
I know I did an online application as well as a physical application which was sent to the Chinese embassy in the US, where I was studying at the time. You do need to include transcripts, so a good GPA wouldn’t hurt. I know I also included my GRE scores for the hell of it. The letters of recommendation are the most important bit, though. Make sure you get at least one written in Chinese if you want in to something more than a language degree.
You guys are thinking too hard just listen to this guy:
I passed through this on my way home today. I was wondering why a bunch of white people were hanging out, drinking beer, and obstructing foot traffic.
There are actually a good amount of foreigner run (And therefore English speaking) companies in Chengdu that do outsourcing for software/game/etc companies. They tend to be actual smaller game or software companies that take on outsourcing jobs or extra revenue, though.
Google and Baidu will turn up more than a few and you’ll have to do some “legwork” emailing and calling people..
Once you know a city well enough you can sometimes negotiate a better deal not using the meter anyway. Not using the meter really just means the cabbie is going to keep a larger amount of the fare in his or her pocket. As long as you know it’s not 300kuai from the airport to Tianfu Square you’re not gonna get ripped off.
But really the biggest reasons they won’t take you are that they are changing shifts and they don’t want to go anywhere out of the way from where they need to go to fill up/hand over the cars, or that they just don’t want to deal with foreigners who can’t speak Chinese and have no idea where they want to go or how to say it.
I haven’t come across the latter as much in Chengdu as I had in other cities around China, though.
Guild Wars 2 has a $60 price tag, after which there’s no monthly fee. It’s not fully F2P like LoL or HoN or whatever.
If you ever get a good offer for anything in Haikou or Sanya you take it immediately.
Hainan is actually pretty expensive, relatively, but you get to live in Hainan so it’s a trade-off.
Man that post was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors… maybe I’ve been in China too long… maybe I just need to start proofreading my forum posts…
As far as developed I was mainly talking about infrastructure and stuff. Qingdao has no metro, it’s bus system is OK and it’s not as planned a city as most in China. It’s kind of confusing to get around at first and the center of town, especially the CBD and old town, are prone to massive, Beijing-level traffic jams due to road insanity. Also, save a couple of big stores in the CBD everything is out, way out, in the burbs and requires car to get to. Chengdu, Beijing, Chongqing, etc… don’t have this problem as much.
I think Qingdao might actually be a lot MORE foreigner friendly in some respects though. It has a huge foreigner population relative to it’s size, and I liked the night-life a bit more there as a whole. I actually love Chinese food, and adore Sichuan cuisine, but sometimes I just want a burger or a pizza and Qingdao has way more (and in my opinion, better) options than Chengdu or a lot of other cities in that respect. It also has really, really good Japanese and Korean food due to the huge number of Korean and Japanese expats. There’s even a “Little Korea” in one part of town.
One big plus is that most of the construction in Qingdao is going on way out in the outskirts of town. Outside of the subway being built, there’s nothing close to present day Chengdu.
One cool thing about Xiamen, though, is you can get to Taiwan for pretty cheap. You can take a boat to an island called Jinsha which is technically part of Taiwan and from there take a relatively cheap flight to Taizhong or Tainan… I forget which one. I fucking love Taiwan and I could write about 3x what I wrote about Qingdao about Taibei. Once I finish up here in Chengdu I hope to end up back there.
I do like Chengdu, though. Until recently I was really liking it. This whole post-apocalyptic winter fog nonsense sort of put a damper on that, though!
I’ve lived in and around Dalian and Qingdao and spent a fair amount of time in Xiamen. I would not choose Dalian, but only because my experience there was not the best. I thought it was boring, the air quality wasn’t really that great (Compared to present-day Chengdu though it was pretty amazing) and there wasn’t a whole lot to do.
Qingdao on the other hand is probably my favorite city in the mainland and where I’d choose to live again given the choice. The weather can get quite humid in the summer, but it doesn’t get quite as hot as a lot of China. The beaches that are a ways out from the city center is nice, the beer is better there and the food is great.
Xiamen is pretty cool from my limited experience of a few weeks spread out across a couple trips. The summer gets a bit too hot and humid for me, but I come from a cold place so I’m just bad at dealing with heat in general. The local food and stuff didn’t really tickle my fancy all that much, but the whole Fujian/Zhejiang region sort of does that for me. You might like it.
The winter in Qingdao is pretty miserable though. This is my first winter in Chengdu, so I don’t know how typical it is, but you can expect it to be a LOT colder up there. The houses all have pretty good heating though. Any new apartment has a nice central heating system.
Qingdao is a lot less developed than Chengdu is in a lot of ways though. There’s a lot less in the way of foreign shops (A few Carrefours and Juscos, a Japanese Chain, scattered around) and the subway isn’t open yet. Line 1 should be open sometime this year maybe…
Also you (kind of) can forget biking in Qingdao. The roads are tiny, curvy and more resemble some European or New England city than any other major Chinese city. Also the place is very hilly. I rode a bike around for a while but I was too scared for my life given the winding narrow roads and lack of any bike lanes and even sidewalks in some parts. The newer parts of the city (Laoshan, Sifang) are much more like Chengdu or any other big Chinese place with very wide, open roads and even bike lanes in some places… but the CBD and most of the business is in the older more central parts. If you never leave the burbs you can bike fine, I’d reckon.
Qingdao is also a bit pricier than Chengdu in a lot of ways. My apartment was pretty cheap by Qingdao standards in a new complex just on the edge of Shinan Qu (Which is where about 90% of the business/jobs are). I was about a 10-35minute bus ride from the very center of town depending on traffic and paid about 1800 for a studio. In Qingdao this was a steal, I got a break on my rent by tutoring my fangdong’s daughter, as most of my neighbors had the same-ish apartment and paid like 2000-2500. Within Shinan Qu itself any decent place will be well over 2700 a month and with roommates might go a bit below 2k. Laoshan and Sifang are a lot cheaper, but a lot further out. If you’re just looking to teach ESL Laoshan has a lot of English schools as it’s where the richer, car-having middle and upper middle class folks live now.
Another place you might want to look into is Yantai. Ironically it’s name translates to “Smokestack”, roughly, but it’s a very, very clean and nice city on the bay north of Qingdao. It’s smaller than Qingdao and Dalian, but I loved the place. Less foreigners, but it has a decent Irish pub that serves a good shepards pie.
Here are a few pics from this last summer in Qingdao:
http://i.imgur.com/Iyio5lv.jpg
There was a public park/mountain in my complex’s backyard. This is the view of Laoshan Qu on a relatively foggy day.
Here’s a pic from the roof of my complex looking over the main part of the city (Shinan Qu). The buildings stop because of the ocean.
Here’s another picture of the blue skies. Again, I lived within a 30 minute walk of the CBD. This isn’t totally our in he sticks or anything. The subway will connect Sifang with the main part of the city and will likely make that area a lot more convenient to live in.
edit: wow I wrote a lot. I lived in Qingdao for a while and love it though, so take it as you will. Also Qingdao is very close to both Japan and Korea and has huge expat populations of both, making good Japanese food like sushi and very authentic Korean VERY cheap and common. You can even spend like 200rmb to take a boat to Incheon if you want.
