Must-Buy Things Before Moving Overseas So you’re a soon-to-be expat? You’ve signed a contract and you’ll be living overseas, abroad, in an exotic locale rubbing shoulders with fascinating people from cultures new and unexperienced. That’s wonderful! If you know anything about Our Traveling Zoo, we think you’ve made a wonderful decision that will positively change your life. A common...
Life in Shenzhen Means Noise Traveling, and particularly living abroad as expats, teaches us about ourselves and about our own society as much as it does about others. In this entry of Life in China, we’re talking about something which has informed our understanding of ourselves as Americans and Americans as tourists, as well as making a general observation...
This installment of our Life in China series kicks off a discussion about food culture. Before we get started, bear in mind that we’re looking at things through our American lenses, and we know that naturally we carry our own cultural biases with us as we live and work in China. China remains a foreign country to us, even...
Our last installment in the Life in China series was about cost of living here in Shenzhen, China. This week, we are writing about our favorite truly authentic Chinese foods. China is renowned for its cuisine, of which it has eight main sorts. Each one is available in Shenzhen, since the city is an agglomeration of people from all...
Updated April 25, 2019. Hi everyone! Welcome back to “Life in China.” This is the second post in our series, and it is all about cost of living here in Shenzhen, China. We are frequently asked what the cost of living in China is like and whether we can save any money. These are really good questions, because while...
Hi Everyone! Welcome to the first in a series of posts about life in China, specifically Shenzhen. Living in China is something friends and family ask us about regularly, and learning more about daily life in this humungous nation was a topic of sincere interest for us before we moved, too. We found it really helpful to get in...
Updated September 7, 2019. So you need to get from Shenzhen to Hong Kong Airport (HKG) and the options aren’t clear. We compiled a list of options with approximate costs/travel time/level of convenience. Ferry This is a preferred method of many because of its speed (about 30 minutes from Shekou) and convenience (some airlines even allow you to check...
Curious why I’d move half way around the world to teach English? Sometimes I am. Sometimes I scratch my own head and stare at the ceiling as a thought bubble appears over my head (pictured below). There are, of course, many reasons for making a move like the one my wife and I have undertaken. We gave it some...