- Arrived in China in 2012, trained in Beijing, then taught in Changsha, embracing its wild nightlife and challenges.
- Moved to Nanjing in 2013, experiencing its history, culture, and proximity to Shanghai, feeling more connected and stable.
- Returned to Nanjing in 2021 post-pandemic, adapting to a tech-driven China after an 8-year gap and strict quarantine.
- Each arrival brought unique experiences, from teaching adventures to cultural immersion, shaping my evolving relationship with China.
I am lucky enough to have not one, not two, but three arrivals stories to China. I survived a year in Changsha, weathered a following year in Nanjing and then returned to Nanjing again 8 years later, this time as a fully-fledged teacher.
I first arrived in 2012, spending two weeks in a “teacher training camp” in Beijing. The sarcastic speech marks are due to the fact that it became apparent this was a teacher training camp to me and my group of fresh-faced, trainee travellers; and simultaneously a summer school for a group of unsuspecting Beijing schoolchildren.
In a stroke of absolute genius, the organisers had sold this package to two separate groups; we paid to receive on-the-job training, and they paid to have “expert” foreign teachers! Still, the experience was certainly beneficial for us; there really is no training like being thrown into the frying pan and being made to get on with it. I just wish we were given more than 20 minutes notice before leading our first ever “lesson”.
Whether the students got quite as much out of it, I never discovered… but the bonds and camaraderie we all enjoyed at the end of the 2 weeks would have been hard to fake. I learnt quickly that a lesson involved some actual effort on the student’s part, even if, at first, it was no match for the sweat, stress, and desperation not to fail I poured into my part.
My enduring memories of that time, besides the abject terror I felt in front of a class of expectant faces, was the sheer alien experience of being amongst so many people, in a sprawling metropolis with one foot in history and its face firmly forward.
An overnight sleeper train to Changsha was another treat waiting just down the line, and being cosied up to families of strangers and playing cards through the night is one of those expat experiences with which long-term China dwellers will surely resonate.
Arriving in Changsha itself, we quickly realised that our accommodation was of… varying quality. My apartment was perfectly pleasant, relatively clean, and got some daylight. Josh’s; not so much. Nicknamed “The Dungeon”, it was down a dingy flight of stairs and had not been occupied for, at a conservative guess, 3 years.
Dust, mould and spiders were the residents, and had to be kindly but firmly moved on before Josh could live comfortably. Of course, we ended up doing this ourselves.
That year was wild. Changsha has (or had) a firm reputation as one of China’s party cities, and it certainly lived up to it. We would take taxis, e-bike scooters (still a rarity in those days) or our good old two feet to each corner and club of the city. We got our first tastes of city nightlife, Chinese hospitality, and baijiu.
As the year neared an end, we wanted more, so secured a job at Nanjing Forestry University. After a summer spent recuperating in England, we started off on our second adventure.
The arrival this time was much more low-key; no sneaky twice-sold training camp. Living on campus at NFU in our apartments (which were actually just international student dormitories; space for four students given to two foreign teachers), we got our first taste of the Southern Capital.
Nanjing felt different to Changsha; less hectic, more stable. The foreign population was bigger, the city felt more connected. The proximity of Shanghai was enthralling, something I was to take full advantage of being here again in 2021-2023. The feeling of connection to history was all around, and I marvelled at the old districts, the parks, the city walls. I learnt with horror about the Nanjing massacre, and I welcomed visiting friends from England to this bustling city that felt like it was exploding into the future.
To be able to show them the wonders of hotpot, KTV and all-night clubbing with the knowledge of a (semi) local felt special.
Home and family called, and I left in 2014, thinking at the time I wouldn’t return. Events never play out as planned. After training to teach in 2017, and the pandemic was starting to wrap up in 2021, a friend convinced me to apply for a role at the British School of Nanjing. Despite China still being in strict lockdown, I got the role, got the visa, and got the flights out there.
I think, without my previous experience of China, I might not have lasted the 3 weeks initial quarantine in a hotel in Guangzhou, plus the extra week not leaving my apartment once I arrived in Nanjing. Certainly, going from the end of one school year almost straight into moving to China again left me dizzied.
China was a very different beast this time around, and arriving while the rest of the world was opening up was a move that, in hindsight, I wouldn’t make again.
In my 8-year absence, smart phones had multiplied (I didn’t even have one first time around), and everything now existed online. Where before I had been paid in wads of cash each month, I now had to set up WeChat, Alipay and all the other apps we know and love so dearly.
Still, I adapted quickly, and settled in. I remember my first night-time wander around Nanjing; everything felt uncannily similar, but completely different. Facemasks and social distancing did affect the experience. But I found my people, and found my groove, and got up to some of my old tricks again…
While I left, again, who knows what the future might hold. I wonder what a fourth arrival to China, sometime in the 2030s, might look like…
