Freight Fright

Here is another reply to a message on the TES. It gives me an excuse for including a few of the excellent photos that were taken by my friend Peter when he came to stay with us in Shenzhen. 

In a nutshell, DON'T take the kitchen sink with you. Try to find out as much as you can about what will (and what will not) be provided by the school. Think very carefully about what you really need to take with you and what you could actually do without. 

Are you going to get an apartment provided by the school? Or will the school's HR people put you in contact with some letting agencies, so that you might get some choice about your accommodation? Or will there be some other arrangement? It really would be silly to bring with you all kinds of bits and pieces, only to find that those things have already been provided! 

Of course you could ask the school's HR people, but an even better strategy is to ask for the e-mail addresses of a couple of the present staff. Most principals are happy to do this.

As a general rule, HR staff in most schools in the ME are a total disaster, whereas those in the Far East are fantastic, wonderful, amazingly helpful and they usually do not wear their halos because they do not want to dazzle you and they rarely open their wings indoors.

Air freight is usually twice the price of sea freight. If you really MUST bring piles of stuff with you, then sea freight might be more sensible. Bear in mind that some schools will give some freight allowance to new staff who are arriving, but they WON'T give one to old staff who are leaving. You should also keep in mind the possibility (or probability) that the school's freight allowance will only cover some of the total cost. 

The simplest (and often the cheapest) way to do it is to take an extra suitcase on the plane with you. You also should plan ahead and think about the possibility of friends and relations coming to stay, as they might also be persuaded to bring an extra suitcase (or two) with them!

We shifted the equivalent of two large suitcases from Shenzhen in China to Bulgaria. It cost us nearly 1,500 pounds and that was by sea freight. In many ways, it would have been easier (and cheaper) to give it all away and then buy new stuff when we came back to Bulgaria! Just about any sort of freight is going to cost you a lot of money, so perhaps the best thing is the simplest thing: don't do it!  

You can read about this (and a lot of other things) in my blog bulgariawithnoodles.blogspot.com If I can be of any further help, give me a call on SKYPE.