Places that will be warmish around December time

[Ruperts]

Hi, obviously the further south the warmer its gonna be, but i also need the place to have a decent expat scene as i plan to be studying mandarin there for 1 or 2 months. Do the places further south generally speak Cantonese though?

Can someone introduce me to a nice, friendly, warm city where i can learn mandarin in December?

[madizi]

A lot of people (at least from Slovenia) go to Kunming because the temperatures there are moderate through a year. In summer not too hot and in winter not too cold. But I didn't go there yet, just my friends told me that.

[Lu]

It's generally only Guangdong where people speak Cantonese, other provinces have their own dialects.

Kunming is nice, they speak Yunnanese, obviously, but generally people in China, including Yunnan, can speak Mandarin.

Or you could come to Taiwan :-)

[madizi]

Yea, Taiwan is great too, especially near Kending in the south.

[Ruperts]

Hey thanks for the replies!

How different is Yunnanese to standard Mandarin? Is it just like a regional dialect like Shanghaiese? Kunming does sound like a populer choice so i might look into that.

Taiwan is not a bad idea either, i hadn't thought of that. But is it more expensive there than mainland China? I'm on quite a small budget, you see

[onebir]

How different is Yunnanese to standard Mandarin? Is it just like a regional dialect like Shanghaiese? Kunming does sound like a populer choice so i might look into that.

Kunminghua's a dialect of Mandarin,so it's closer than Shanghaiese (which belongs to a separate subgroup of Chinese if I remember correctly). But after a few months here I still find it pretty incomprehensible (& my Mandarin's tolerable).

Also consider Shenzhen - it's in Guangzhou, but I believe since it's populated almost entirely by internal immigrants the dominant language is Mandarin. Pricier than Kunming, but better weather over winter I imagine.

[madizi]

Taiwan is much more expensive than Mainland China (although I don't know about Beijing and Shanghai). It also depends where are you from. For people from Western Europe and North America it is still cheap.

I can only compare with prices here in Slovenia. Food in Taiwan is cheaper than in Slovenia, but other expenses are almost on the same level. But the catch is that Taiwan's wages are much, much higher than in Slovenia. When I told this to one Taiwanese, she told me (schocked:shock:): "But... you live in Europe..." Yeah, right......

[cdn_in_bj]

But the catch is that Taiwan's wages are much, much higher than in Slovenia.

Just curious, can you share some salary figures for Taiwan? Even something like the typical salary for a foreign English teacher would make for an interesting comparison.

[madizi]

Well, I don't know the exact figures, but one professor at chair of sinology told me that when she was at one Taiwan's uni, she had two times bigger salary than in Slovenia. I know that assistant's salary at Ljubljana University is around 800 euros. That means that in Taiwan it should be around 1600 euros. But professor's salaries are much bigger.

As for English teaching, I'll ask friend who thaught English in TW.

[Lu]

Minimum wage in Taiwan is something like 17,000 NT; minimum wage for a foreigner to qualify for a working visa is I think 48,000 NT, I think the average English teacher makes about this amount. Highly qualified and experienced English teachers with a good network that work a lot can make 100,000 NT. Scholarships (do look into that, you might get one) are typically 15,000 or 25,000, which is enough to live off and plenty of money for a student, respectively.

Single rooms go from about 5000 NT/month in Taipei, in the rest of the country they are cheaper, I've been told. I live in a nice taofang (studio), clean, not large, newly renovated, next to the MRT station, for 10,000 NT.

You can easily eat for about 100 NT for a meal, and there are even cheaper meals (but also more expensive ones). This is more expensive than on the mainland, but still quite cheap in my opinion.

Divide by 45 to get the approximate amount in euros, and by 30 to get the approximate amount in US$. I hope this helps!

[madizi]

Well, minimum wage is almost the same as in Slovenia.

Friend just told me that English teacher gets around 550 - 700 NT per hour or round sum 50.000 NT for 20-25 hours of teaching + around 20 hours for preparation. So a lot more than assistant at university in Slovenia.

But what about wages in companies, factories, enterprises,...... ?

[Lu]

Madizi: Worked for a Taiwanese company for a short time, for what I suppose was a Taiwanese salary, they paid me 30,000 a month (if I recall correctly), with possibility for a raise after three months, and bonuses. People working in the media are badly paid, so I've been told, but I don't know figures. A friend of mine started working for a high-level research institute after he got his MA degree, and got something like 30,000-35,000 NT/month. Wages in companies and enterprises and the like I think depend on the company and the kind of work.

And in an attempt to get back ontopic:

Ruperts: Yunnanese, like most dialects, is so different from Mandarin that they are mutually unintelligable. Most people will be able to speak Mandarin though.

Taiwan, as you see, is more expensive than the mainland, but still not that expensive. It also depends on your lifestyle.

[cdn_in_bj]

This is late, but thanks for answering my question re: Taiwan salaries. At first I had converted the wrong way and nearly gave myself a heart attack!

So costs of living in Taipei are a bit higher than on the mainland, but this is not surprising and actually it is not as bad as I had thought. On the otherhand, salaries are a bit lower than what I was expecting.