What I Wish I Knew BEFORE Moving To CHINA | Shanghai Expat Tips With By Kaja 凯娅 | Jenny Zhou 周杰妮

hi everyone and welcome back to my channel my name is jenny and today i'm gonna tell you a few things that i wish i knew before i moved to china and i brought along my good friend akaya thank you so much jenny for having me on your channel i am currently sitting in my new room in my new apartment here in shanghai [Music] yo guys what is up [Music] she makes so many amazing videos on expat life in china and she has interviewed a couple people as well about their stories featuring yours truly as well so make sure you pop over to her channel to check it out as well and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for new videos every week and let me know if you like more content about living in china as well so first off i want to say culture shock yes if you look at me i am chinese so you would assume that i would just assimilate smoothly into culture and society just the way you speak to each other as well obviously they're very into kind of uh giving respect to your elders and your job base so whether that's in school or in your workplace or just amongst friends usually when someone's older than you you'd call them jetty or google for example in school uh if i was first year and we had second third fourth year students we'd always call them or sugar which kind of just means like older study sister order study brother and i didn't know that at the start and i'd literally like just walk past him and like nod and scurry off uh but it is quite a level thing and some of them can find it disrespectful if you don't say that i'm in the workplace most of the times we call our bosses by lush uh so if i was your boss i would be called and it's just easy if you like don't remember their names or their titles obviously if you talk to like the big big big boss they usually like songs so i'd be like childhood you know what i mean and then even with schooling as well um we were at university and i feel like maybe in western cultures by the time you get to uni the professors are kind of like you do the work or you don't do it like we don't care we're not going to chase you up i don't know if it was just my uni specifically but we had for example morning exercise so going at like 6 a.m every day and if we didn't go the teachers would come to the dorm knock on the doors and literally like grab you to go down we had curfew in our dorms as well every night the ies the aunties would come upstairs knock on each one of our doors made sure we were all in bed by 10 pm and would turn off the lights um and if anyone was not home by then they would tell your teacher or your dean and you'd get like an infringement so it's definitely a lot more like stricter and rules when it comes to uni and when it comes to work all the levels of hierarchy you have to deal with and obviously just the sheer amount of dialects languages and food i grew up in australia and just with food most of the food we've had is kind of like guangzhou style like canton style stir-fried wok dishes and that's always been chinese food to us what i didn't know was they're like sutran style food there's like donbay style food there's like so many different styles of dishes that when i went there i was like oh my god all of this is chinese food like i've only been eating one type of chinese food for so long that was all a bit of a culture shock to me i just had to kind of readjust the way i spoke to people the way i worked and kind of the way i lived my life so number one thing that i wish i would know before moving to china was that you are supposed to have a chinese name i kind of heard about it before but i didn't know that it's kind of a must at least if you are a university student you need a chinese name to register at a university i always thought that people sort of just chose to have chinese names just like for fun and to be like you know open to the new culture but when i was doing the registration at fudang university in shanghai it turned out that i literally needed a chinese name written in chinese characters to do the registration and i couldn't skip that so i was told that i literally have to come up with a chaney's name on the spot and there are like 30 people in the line behind me so i had no time luckily there was a very nice lady who helped me um and my chinese name is basically my name just written in chinese characters however this situation could have ended much worse than it did because in china the meaning of characters that you use to write your name is really important you don't want to have like bad characters or characters that can mean something shady or weird uh luckily i didn't end up with anything shady but i know a lot of people who had either just like weird chinese names that they couldn't remember or just like very complicated ones uh so yeah remember to pick your chinese name before you go to china so public holidays now there aren't too many in china but you have like two big ones you have or india which is like the national holiday which is about one week and then you have chinese new year which ranges from like one to two weeks depending on if you're at school your company etc if you are not at a international company you don't really get christmas holiday or anything um but if they're accustomed to hiring foreigners they'll probably give you that week off there's also like ouija which is i think like labor day may the first and then you have like children where you eat the beans and stuff but when the public holiday comes and just say it falls on a saturday that's it you don't get like a makeup day on the monday like for example in australia if new year's day fell on a sunday we'd have day in lieu on monday and we'd still have the monday as the day off in china that doesn't happen also i found that when you have a break of over three days just say like watching year is a seven day break you have to work like two weekend days to make up for it so you've got to make up for public holidays in china so for example if we were breaking from monday to monday you'd expect the next sunday or saturday to be working and perhaps the one after that because you can't have too many days off so that was something that was like a shock to me because i would book holidays or little trips to go on because i was like oh i've got a long weekend i'm gonna take that off and then they're like actually next sunday you're gonna be working or studying so when you come back from that wonderful holiday you might have to work like eight days in a row or nine days in a row because you're you're making up for it no public holiday comes for free eating western food in china is very much possible but it will definitely cost you more than in the west meaning you might spend way more money on food and restaurants but also groceries in china than you did back home and if you think like i thought in the beginning that no i'm moving to china and from now on i will only eat chinese food no it's not possible at least it was not possible for me i freaking love chinese food and i obviously ate it every day when i lived in china but i also needed my western food meaning just bread or milk or pizza once in a while right and buying all these products is gonna be way more expensive when i first moved to china i remember paying like ten dollars for like a little box of like philadelphia cheese or even something worse than philadelphia and also to be honest you know what i think also just be prepared that if you've never lived in asia and just like me before i moved to china i only lived in europe and for some reason i was stupid enough to think that i could just like move to china and forget about my western upbringing meaning like i can just eat chinese food all day long no no this is so useful wechat groups as a foreigner you'll be facing new experiences every day and new difficulties every day i live my first two years without even being part of a wechat group i didn't even download wechat until i got there so basically you need to be chat for everything we don't really use work emails it's all done through wechat schooling uh the teacher will message you through wechat and there are so many fantastic groups on it whether you're looking to rent an apartment whether you're looking to sell things whether you're looking to like swap clothing or something or even like pet groups there is a wechat group for everything so for example i was part of a cats group in shanghai and we would look for um stray cats that needed help or someone could help him like come babysit your cat for a while um and that was part of like a swap and sell before i left as well just to get rid of a few knickknacks and they everyone in those groups are so helpful anything from like admin stuff to lifestyle to social events my roommate lauren at the time she was a queen of these wechat groups so when i moved into her place she like sent me like 20 different invitations to be part of there's also facebook groups just check if there's one for your city i was part of like shanghai expats and everyone's generally quite helpful and quite well versed in the lifestyle there so they can help you from anything with bureaucracy your passport your visa which party to go to how to fix a leak in your apartment so very very useful and if you guys are part of any wechat groups for foreigners or expats in china please leave them down below and maybe you can help each other out and join them i wish i would know how difficult it really will be to move to china obviously i knew that it will be challenging and it won't be easy i mean moving to a foreign country is never easy but to be honest i don't think i really knew how freaking difficult it will be for me and the very beginning i was basically crying i was crying because i was so miserable in the beginning i was struggling with the cultural shock and cultural shock it's very much real it's not just something you know people make up even if you traveled before even if you lived in a couple of different countries before that are not china you'll probably still struggle in the beginning um everyone i talk to all foreigners usually go for this first like hate face almost where they really just not necessarily like their life in china but then eventually everything gets better and you get used to the things that i know you in the beginning like crazy traffic or issues with communicating honestly what i've learned in china is that you can really get used to everything so it's super important to just stay open-minded and just take it easy in the beginning like don't sort of expect yourself to love your life in china from the very beginning at least i didn't but then eventually i obviously end up loving it and moving to china was like the best decision i've ever made in my life i'm pretty sure you'll like it just give yourself some time and it will get better i promise everything gets better with time chinese bureaucracy is no joke and i honestly wish i would be better prepared for that so do your research proper research very proper research i cannot stress that enough have like 10 000 pictures of your face like passport pictures of your face because you will need it trust me i honestly took like 20 with me to china and i use them all in like two days i don't know why but like they need a lot of pictures of your face wherever you go you need to do all kinds of things when you move to china you need to get health tests you need to do registration at the police station when you get an apartment there are a lot of steps that you need to do and you need to have all kinds of different documents and copies of your passport and also just be prepared to struggle a little because yeah bureaucracy in china is it's not easy it's not easy this is kind of tailing on with what kaia said about bureaucracy but they're very into paperwork it's like a very technologically advanced country like everything can be done through alipay wechat you can order everything online but some things are all on paper and make sure you just bring a folder to store all your information because you never know when you need it always bring your passport around i think as a foreigner you actually legally have to carry your passport on you at all times when you go to the bank you have to have your passport ready photos ready everything's done on paper they'll give you your stack of papers afterwards when you go get your internet everything's done on paper like when you rent an apartment you've got to keep all of these things because when you're doing your like residence permit or when you're applying for something else they'll want to cross-check everything and i just left these papers all over the place and it was such a pain to do things and there's a lot of steps you've got to go through like even for internet i'm pretty sure i'm banned by two out of three of the internet service providers in china because i didn't know but once you've finished using your internet and moved to another apartment you're meant to return the box to them and you have to go there in person to like de-register yourself or something and i never did that so i can't use those companies anymore um so the next time i guess if i ever go back to try and rent a new apartment i've only got one option so just make sure you have them with you at all times it saves you multiple trips um because every time you go the wait time is so long especially for internet and like your phone and everything because there's always a lot of like grandmas and grandpas and they're just sitting there and i've got like a million questions love them bless them but i don't got time to wait five hours to fix my phone bill i lived in shanghai and i freaking wish i would know that nobody takes the mughal train in shanghai or i don't know maybe some people do let us know in the comments if you actually take my love train because honestly i don't know who takes it so when i first arrived from china my family and i we took the maglev train and then since it doesn't actually go to downtown shanghai it kind of like stops halfways and then you still have to take metro or taxis so that's why it doesn't really make sense we took the train and then we got off the station and since it's like basically only tourists who take that train there are a lot of taxi drivers who wait for those tourists at that particular station and unfortunately they often try to cheat you i'm not saying that all taxi drivers in shanghai do that not at all i actually didn't have very many bad experiences with taxi drivers in shanghai honestly maybe like two or yeah maybe free but it's not a lot in two years however the the worst experience was definitely taking the taxi from the maglev train station the driver tried to make a space 600 quiet instead of 60 and yeah it was just a very bad experience especially since it was our first day we were super tired after a long flight super jet lag so yeah if you come to shanghai don't take the matlab train but if you're going somewhere else in china not shanghai my best advice would be to do a proper research make sure to read blogs or watch youtube videos from expats or from foreigners who actually live in china i think a lot of the time when we do research on like tourist sites or from other tourists that just you know came to china and stayed there for a couple of weeks or whatever we tend to get like not the best in formation i think china is still not the easiest country to travel to i'm not saying that it's like super difficult nowadays i honestly don't think it's super difficult however there are still certain things that expats foreigners will know much better than people who just traveled there so yeah make sure to listen to the right people this is more of a tip than something that i wish i knew but make friends with your pal and a lot of people are worried about safety when it comes to moving china but honestly i find it to be so safe especially in shanghai there were always people around i could walk on the street at 3am at night and feel completely safe maybe sometimes in melbourne i might walk on the street at 3am at night and feel a bit like nervous the reason why i feel more safe in china is because there are always people around every time you walk past an apartment complex there is a balance at the front there's probably 203 just chatting and having guards like sunflower seeds i don't know if they do much on the protecting side like they're probably not going to chase someone down for you or like capture them for you but they're just always there to check that whoever is entering the compound lives there or they're just delivering something or they're a friend they check all the car plate numbers um then sometimes they hold your packages for you if you're not at home so i think it's quite useful just like say hi every time you walk past have a little conversation with them so they're kind of like if you lived in i guess new york apartments like your doorman um and they're just great people to know great people practice your chinese with learn more about your space and of course when you need to get like documents done they can be of great help as well when you go to china like kaya said you need to register at the police station with your address um and to do that you need to get like your apartment complex to write a letter confirming that you stay there and i have no idea how to do that in my ball and like help me do everything and if you live in an apartment complex where there are a couple foreign people living there they know how to help you they know how to like connect you to the right people some balance like even help my friend feed her cat like i just think they're lovely people and they keep you safe thank you so much for watching today's video and thank you to kaya for joining in make sure you check out her videos if you have any more interest in moving to china or just curious to see what it's like and let us know down below if there's any other aspect you want us to share information about or if you want us to do another version two of things i wish i knew before moving to china thank you so much for watching today's video this is my instagram where you can follow the daily updates at jenny jaisal my wake war at long time leave the jenny and my bilingual podcast with baby called the shameless sisters or how he's the gma and i'll see you guys next time [Music]

Channel: Jenny Zhou

Views: 17,203

Keywords: jenny zhou, 周杰妮, melbourne vlogger, australian vlogger, australian blogger, australian lifestyle vlogger, australian fashion vlogger, australian youtuber, lifestyle vlogger, travel vlogger, expat, china, living in china, shanghai living, shanghai life, china expat, shanghai expat, ABC, asian girl, westerner, cross cultural, living abroad, working abroad, tips, moving countries, moving to china, relocating, international, chinese culture, western culture, 中国, 上海, 老外

Id: vqWsuC0LB5c

Length: 17min 51sec (1071 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 30 2021