Bulgaria with Noodles

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 ...

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 pr...

The tower might be tall and thin, but I'm not. Here is part of a reply I wrote to yet another question on the TES about teaching in Dubai. The ISR has lots of reviews of the schools in Dubai. Many of the ISR reviews should be taken with a large pinch of salt, but at least you can compare reviews of the same school and see if there are common themes. Also you can compare and contrast the ISR reviews with the schools' websites. There are are, of course, lots of websites for expats in the UAE and on them you might find a few interesting little nuggets of information. Atlantis, famous for its fish tank DBS and GEMS are fairly well known. I had a lady colleague who taught at GEMS Wellington and she had some positive things to say.  In general, I would recommend the "shotgun method" and apply for anything and everything that looks vaguely suitable. The problem is, of course, that many schools these days have elaborate application forms and filling them...