Dear Ryan

Dear Ryan,

Congratulations on the Hangzhou jobs! If it is an American-style school, then I hope that it will pay you both some American-style salaries.

Now I am trying to search my memory for all of the things that I wish that I had known BEFORE we went to China...

First of all, Mandarin. Yes, Mandarin. You need to be absolutely sure that Mandarin is the language that you (and your children) will come across in China, as there are in fact several (rather different) languages. Cantonese is spoken in Guangzhou and HK, whereas most of mainland China speaks Mandarin. Just to be awkward, the people in Shanghai have their own language. Yes, there are some similarities between these different languages, but you need to be absolutely sure which one you are going to need before you start learning it and you definitely should make a start immediately, as soon as you have finished reading this e-mail!

DON'T try to learn all of the characters (there is no alphabet). Mandarin has about 40,000 different characters, so you will not get far. No, try to learn it phonetically, so you can speak it a bit. Don't bother about reading and writing. The best way to do this is something called uTalk and it only costs about thirty pounds, if I remember correctly. All of your family need to start using this straight away. It is fun and easy to use. Your children might also enjoy Dorling Kindersley's "Easy Peasy Mandarin" (or it might be called "Easy Peasy Chinese". It is a book and it comes with a CD. You can read a lot about Mandarin on my blog, of course.

Secondly, you need to think very carefully about what you really need to take with you and what you could probably do without. American schools are usually quite generous with freight allowances, but maybe not all of them. Scan things like mad and copy them onto your external hard drive. Yes, the school might perhaps have this or that educational resources, but then again they might not.

Thirdly, passports. You need the fat ones with more pages, even though they are a bit more expensive, because those Chinese visas will fill up a passport very quickly. If anyone in your family has a passport that is going to expire in a month or two or one that has hardly any pages left, get a new one asap.

Fourthly, money. Yes, it is indeed possible to transfer money from China to a bank account in the UK (or anywhere else). The bad news is that it takes a lot of time and patience (and then some more). If you have regular payments that need to be made each month, then that could be a bit awkward. Again, I have written quite a lot about this in my blog.

Fifthly, and perhaps most important, your school's HR. Your new school should have two or three people whose job it is to look after the expat teaching staff. The two HR ladies at Green Oasis School were wonderful. You need to make contact with your HR people and do everything you can to maintain good relations. They could be amazingly helpful and make a big difference to how you settle down in China.

Sixthly, visas. Getting a Chinese work visa, a light blue Z visa, is a long, tiring and awkward process. The good news is that you really only have to go through it once. You do NOT want a business visa or a tourist visa. If your school is not prepared to help you 100%, all the way, with getting proper Z visas stuck into your passports, then something will smell nasty and I would feel very insecure and unhappy. Some countries in the world are a bit casual and sloppy when it comes to converting tourist visas to work visas or allowing people to work without a proper work visa. Not China. 

Well, I cannot think of anything else right now. I envy you and your family. You are going to have an amazing and unforgettable time in the Middle Kingdom!

Simon