Cross-cultural, Daily Living, & Adjustment Issues

Hi Dr. Greg,

Again, many thanks for making Middle Kingdom Life one of the premier sites for teachers and expats in China.

With information gathered here, coupled with common-sense and useful tips from some Chinese friends in the US, in the past month, I have managed to move to a mid-sized city here in Sichuan Province, secure a teaching contract, an expert certificate, residence permit, rented an apartment, installed a satellite dish, successfully opened bank accounts, wired and converted over $50K of funds, and even gone out to a local karaoke bar and stayed sober with the vice-principle of the school where I will work.

One question I have for you: The city in which I live, a mid-sized city, has few foreigners. In the one month that I have been here, I've seen one lady at the bank who appeared Indian. No westerners, although I know there are some here from conversations I've had with the officer at the local PSB (she declined to answer my question "How many westerners live in this area at the moment".) What would be the best way to try making connections with the local laowai? There are no "expat pubs" as such. I was thinking of online chat boards perhaps. Do you have any advice?

You've just identified what we see as the only legitimate use of anonymous China EFL and Expat forums: virtual socializing.

You could create an account on a few of the larger sites and simply ask if there are any other Western expats in your particular city who would like to meet. If so, they can send you a private message (PM) with their contact information.

Another possibility is to learn of any open English Corners in your area, i.e., English Corners sponsored by local universities or private schools that are open to the public. At the very least, you'll meet one other Westerner and, in many cases, these gatherings are typically frequented by foreigners aside from the one who is running it (often single guys looking for English-speaking Chinese girls or Christian missionaries looking for potential converts).

Western food chains, e.g., McDonald's and Pizza Hut, as well as Chinese restaurants claiming to serve Western food are also possibilities but that will be more of a hit or miss situation.

Depends on where you are in Sichuan as, in most of those smaller places, you very well may find you are the only foreigner there.

Your school only has you employed as a foreigner? I lived in Luxian (very small place in Sichuan) before coming to Chongqing. Maybe Luzhou will have some foreigners there. When I worked in Sichuan, the other foreign teacher at my school and I used to go to Luzhou to meet a couple of other laowai we knew in the area.

Other than that you could try to check out Chengdu. Depending on on how far away it is, it could be worthwhile to go there on weekends. I used to travel two hours to go to Chongqing to visit my girlfriend at the time.

When you live in the smaller parts of Sichuan it's most likely going to be that you will have to travel to enjoy the dubious joy of other foreigners.

Best of luck.