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[katze882]

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[Jive Turkey]

I went to Jinan University once to take the HSK. The Chinese college is on a small but nice campus across from Guangzhou East Train Station. I didn't go inside any dormitories, but the ones I saw looked spartan on the outside.

Perhaps one good thing about JNU is that there are relatively few English speaking foreigners there. It seems that quite a lot of students are from Vietnam or other SE Asian countries. There are also some Koreans and Japanese. I only saw a couple of westerners there. One of the Vietnamese students I spoke to said that there aren't many non-Asians, so you'll have to use Chinese to interact with other students. It wouldn't be as easy to escape into English as it is up in Beijing.

Guangzhou is alright. The MTR (or whatever they call it) is similar to the one in HK. I sometimes go over to Guangzhou from HK just to shop at the huge book center in Tianhe.

[JoJo]

If you live in hostel as a foreign teacher, I believe that you can have a better treatment. Even if they don't offer you washing machine, you can buy one from outside and it is very cheap. GuangZhou is a good place, food is very famous in there. However, you might be caution when you are walking in the shopping area, especially in the crowded street. You have to be careful your wallet and bag because there are many cutpurses. By the way, you don't need to worry about eating because GuangZhou is a a shopper's paradise.

[studentyoung]

Hi,katze882, I am the local citizen in Guangzhou and hope I can help you.

I'm going to Jinan University soon and going to live in the hostel... Anyone got advice for me...? Hehe... Like, where to wash clothes -

If you are going to live in hostel, you can take your clothes to the laundry in the hostel. If there is no laundry in it, you can look for it / them in your campus.

where to wash clothes -can't handwash in winter, it'll take weeks for it to dry...

Well, I don't’ think that’s true. We Cantonese still wash clothes and take baths in winter almost every day. But the problem is the temperature in winter days here may be cold and chilling, what’s more, no central heating system and hot-water-tap are available indoors. So it is a bit uncomfortable for foreigners to handwash clothes with the cold tap water in winter days. I don’t think clothes will take weeks to dry, or I would have no clean clothes to change in winter.

Where to go eat,

Eating is not a problem here. But I would like to recommend you not to try those canteens, which look dirty.

What the people are like...

A lot of people from all over the country and all social levels are crowed in this city, so I don’t know how to answer your question.

What to watch out for.... etc...

1, Please prepare some drug for heatstroke (in summer), tummy, and respiratory allergy, for the air, water, temperature, food and so on must be different from the present place you are in. The most common case is foreigners complain the air here is highly polluted and too much dirt in it.

2. Please boil the tap water before you drink it.

3. Please prepare some anti-mosquito spray or liquid, for the temperature and humidity here make Guangzhou a “lovely” place for all kinds of mosquitoes. If your blood type is O or you have a strong body odor, things will be a bit worse. Under such situation, I would like to highly recommend you not to use any type of perfume any more, otherwise the mosquitoes here would try their best to set a stable and longterm relationship with you.

4. Please pay high attention to the local infectious disease news lately, before you take your first step, if possible.

5. Please don’t stay alone out of your dormitory in midnight, for it is really not a right thing for a newcomer to do.

However, you might be caution when you are walking in the shopping area, especially in the crowded street. You have to be careful your wallet and bag because there are many cutpurses.

Hahahahahaha! Full mark, JoJo!

Any way, good luck katze882!

[Xiao Kui]

If your living in GuangZhou you've got to buy some of those little disposable dehumidifiers: They are plastic boxes with little white balls that absorb water. They're about 5 yuan (depending on how many ml of water they can absorb) You just wait till they fill up with water then dump them. It's good to put them in your closet or around your bed to keep the clothes or blankets from getting moldy cause GZ's mad humid.

[Russ]

Perhaps one good thing about JNU is that there are relatively few English speaking foreigners there. It seems that quite a lot of students are from Vietnam or other SE Asian countries. There are also some Koreans and Japanese. I only saw a couple of westerners there. One of the Vietnamese students I spoke to said that there aren't many non-Asians, so you'll have to use Chinese to interact with other students. It wouldn't be as easy to escape into English as it is up in Beijing.

Um.. so what happen to a very beginner Chinese learner? I mean the ones who barely know any Chinese word at all? *shrug*

Guangzhou is alright. The MTR (or whatever they call it) is similar to the one in HK. I sometimes go over to Guangzhou from HK just to shop at the huge book center in Tianhe.

How long is it from Guangzhou to HK with MTR? You make it sounds like it's so close.

[Jive Turkey]

Um.. so what happen to a very beginner Chinese learner? I mean the ones who barely know any Chinese word at all? *shrug*

Get ready to learn fast, I suppose. I'm sure there are at least half a dozen English speakers there if you get to a point where you just have to have some interaction in English.

How long is it from Guangzhou to HK with MTR? You make it sounds like it's so close.

The MTR is the mass transit system in HK. They have similar systems in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but I'm not sure what they're called. If you want to go to HK from Guangzhou, it's probably fastest to take the Guangzhou-Shenzhen railway. From Guangzhou East Station (right across from the Jinan University Chinese Language and Culture campus) to Luohu border crossing is about 70 minutes.