Other than Beijing, what are some good cities to teach and l...

I would think Beijing is the last city anyone would want to live and teach in. Are you looking for an enriching cultural experience? You might just as well teach in London, God forbid it. If you go, don´ forget to take your gas mask with you.

I think Hangzhou is the best living place in China,there is a saying like that: there is paradise in the heavy and there is Hangzhou and Suzhou on the earth.

Hi,
Thanks for that. It´s good to have a recommendation. Some of those cities are horrendous.

I taught in Xi´an, Xian Yang and Yinchuan and liked all of them. They all had their good points and bad points. I would like to see the cities in the south but would return to any of them again.

I agree with Linda Ren about Hangzhou - I taught there for two and a half years. it is indeed a beautiful city but the weather is not so great. Summer is extremely hot (between 38C - 40C late July and August) and humid!

Hi Laura
Yes Beijing is very nice but there are some other nice cities aswell. I would seriously consider Quingdao (by the ocean, absolutely beautiful), Heilongjiang (if you like the cold, its beautiful there). Mostly i would condider the north because the air is clean and you will have a better life there.
I would NOT consider Shanghai (i lived there and its not a nice place to live), Donguan province (i lived there too and the air is filthy, very polluted but however they dont pay too bad).
These are my personal experiences that i have spent alot of time researching, but in the end it all depends on you and your requirements.
Good luck.

Hey...
I lived and worked in Shanghai for 3 years as an English Teacher for local teenagers and it was great! The weather is very hot during the summer but very cold in the winter, spring and fall are beautiful! There is also so much to do in shanghai, lots of places of interest and nightlife etc...it is very easy to get work as en esl teacher in shanghai which is a bonus. If you dont like the sound of shanghai, then certainly think about Hangzhou or Dalian (north east)- really pretty!

Hi folks,
When it comes to deciding what is beautiful and desirable about a location (and anything else for that matter) it´s purely subjective. I have tried to have a look at those cities you have mentioned on Google Earth and frankly they are just vast sprawling cities, concrete jungles. What´s desirable about that escapes me. Fortunately I have discovered a small city in a panoramic landscape which has been described to me as ´a very special place´. That´s where I shall be going. Where is it? That would be telling. I don´t want trillions of ESL teachers flocking there as that would seriously jeopardize my job application. ´Seek and ye shall find´.

Beijing is nice definitely Chinese if you are into Chinese culture. Other cities I have enjoyed are Chengdu, Qingdao and Shanghai.

I have only seen the central coast and have no desire to even visit Beijing. I think Shanghai is too big and too expensive. If I go to Shanghai for a day, I am eager to leave. Hangzhou is ok and West Lake is great, but I would recommend Ningbo or Nanjing, both medium size and modern.

I have taught in China in the past and I would say that Martin is possibly speaking about Xiamen, Zhanjiang or maybe Hainan. All of which are very nice places, great weather, nice beaches, more westernized and not too big. Also, you may want to consider Xian, Dalian, Kunming or Nanning. It all depends on what you´re looking for, money, cultural experience, learning the language history or gaining some teaching experience. Also, you should really consider the climate you want to live in. It can vary dramatically depending on where you choose to live, from sub-arctic, to desert, to tropical, it has every type of climate you can imagine. But be VERY careful about the school you choose to sign with, there are thousands of scammers and fly by night operations in China and as a foreigner there, you basically don´t have any rights if a school chooses to hold back any of your pay, decides not to reimburse your airfare or pay you your "end of contract bonus". It happened to 2 friends of mine and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. One more thing, if you sign with a school and they tell you that they need to hang on to your passport for "visa reasons" or any other reason whatsoever, just tell them NO. They have no right or need to keep your passport in their possession, a simple photocopy is all they need, period.

That´s really good advice. I was reading about a married couple who were teachers in China and their story was harrowing. Surely it is best to go through a recruitment agency. There are plenty of them although they will only favour applicants with a degree and tend to be ageist. Consequently non-graduates and older applicants prefer to go it alone, with the possible risks.

I like living in Hangzhou, I´m 15 minutes walk from West lake and teach a 25 minute taxi away to the west. But the summer is fairly oppressive due to the humidity. Hopefully the school is paying for your airconditioning (electricity) costs if you run it 24 7. But, that´s not so good for the environment, of course! In fact, most of China cooks in summer, even as far north as BeiJing it gets to 40C. However, the north generally has drier air, which is more tolerable.

YangShuo is a beautiful town in GuangXi province, just down the road from the more famous GuiLin. Of the smaller cities I´ve visited NanNing, KunMing, DaLian and Tai´An seemed very nice. Of the medium to bigger sized cities ChengDu and ChangChun (lived 1 year) were nice. Personally, I don´t love big metropolises, but BeiJing and GuangZhou are both livable. ShangHai wasn´t really my thing, but a lot of teachers love the convenience (if you´re really in the city, and not the outlying "suburbs") and modernity.

Almost all of eastern and central China has a major pollution problem. Think twice about China if you have respiratory complaints!