No-nonsense China Expat Community

Simply put, pinyin is a way to take the many thousands of ideograms that make up the Chinese language and put them into a more accessible Romanized format (read: use letters us Laowai are familiar with, as opposed to the random lines that Chinese seem to have no problem with)

Teaching English is an excellent way to really get to know China. Trekking through a country is all well and good, but it's when you live there that you begin to get a true sense for the ebb and flow of this massive country.

As is true with any line of work, teaching ESL comes with its own collection of positives and negatives - here's a brief outline:

One of the cheapest, most exhilarating forms of entertainment in the People's Republic has to be the country's local transportation. For a single yuan you can synthesis what it is to be canned fish with a trip on the city bus, and for only a handful more you can gain a new respect for life as a cabbie reenacts scenes from Bullitt while casually questioning you about what country you're from and how much your salary is.

The major forms of local transportation in China are busses, taxis, motorcycle taxis, and mini taxis. In the larger cities, this is supplemented with modern light-rails and subway systems. What follows is a brief description of each.

As the high-paced modern world reaches more of China's people, an abundance of the population are again turning to the temples and churches across the country to try and find answers. However, half a century of religious repression is a tough thing to overcome, and though some are looking for spiritual enlightenment, many are just there to pray to be included in the boom.