what to do?

[Dave]

Hi

This is a very weird post.

But I honestly think that unbiased people are difficult to come about.

I worked in China for 1 year in the Shangdon province, and I loved it. Unfortunatly I did not do very well with the language learning, due to unavailable schools to teach foreigners chinese.

I have now returned to Europe for my summer holiday.

The school offered me another year contract for next year.

My gf and I have been apart for the whole 2006 and now maybe 2007.

She will be taking her Phd in Finland, and would like me to go with her.

This is where your advice comes in.

What should I do?

Go to Finland or return to China?

I am 32 and I speak italian, english and portuguese fluently, I have no real skills 'cause I've been teaching for the past 5years.

I would like to stop teaching and do something else.

Any advice would be welcome!

Thanks

Dave

[gato]

At your age (I'm also 32), you should start thinking about a long-term career and finding a life partner. With that in mind, maybe you should go to Finland with your girlfriend (if you think there's a good chance for a long-term future with her) and find a job there with a long-term career potential. Don't think of yourself as having no skills. You have at least your language skills and the skills you've learned from teaching in your favor. If good jobs are hard to find in Finland, you might also broaden the search to elsewhere in Europe and try to visit your girlfriend regularly in Finland or have her visit you.

[Weronika]

家 is more important than carrier, I think so go to Finland

[Dave]

To all that took the trouble in answering and providing their advice, I thank you.

good luck to all

dave

[Roee]

As you get older it might be harder finding a poistion for teaching English but for sure you'd be able to find something when/if you come back to Asia. I would say go to Finland, give it a try, see how it goes with your gf -- worse case come back to China (or to some beach resort school in Thailand, or Japan, or...).

[karmakid]

just a hint.

Finland <-> Beijing Flights are quite cheap. At least if u are a student or young enough to go on yoth tickets.

I managed to go from stockholm<->Helsinki<->Beijing (the usual route for finnair) for about 2500RMB, My little brother went for the same price back and forth (total ~5100)

And Helsinki <-> Beijing should at least teoreticly be cheaper, right?

Finnair!

!disclaimer!

This is my own very biased and even intentionally incorrect opinions/accusations !

1. Finland is dark, Beijing is a lot brighter (as far south as rome i think)

2. people are introvert (prejudiced(sh) )

3. living there is waaaaaaaaaaay more expensive than in china.

4. Alcohol is only available through the finnish states monopoly called alko!.

5 music scene is almost non existent.

6. clubs/pubs/resturants are quite bad and expensive !

7 THEY SPEAK FINNISH ! it might be a beautiful and interesting language and so on but its friggin impossible to learn! Chinese is by far easier in spite of the fact that u need to learn characters on top of the actual language.

[jannetuukkanen]

1. Finland is dark

Dark during winter. Summer is quite opposite. It's 21:45 in Helsinki right now, and full daylight. If you go far enough to north, sun never sets during summer months. However, in winter it never RISES

3. living there is waaaaaaaaaaay more expensive than in china.

Rents in Helsinki are high (400€/month and up for one room). But student apartments can be lot cheaper than in free market. Of course you could get three store house for the same money, if you could live in the middle of Nowhere, hundreds of kms from Anywhere and only bears as neigbours.

Consumer goods, electronics, cars -- nothing is cheap. Despite maybe cellphone call charges.

4. Alcohol is only available through the finnish states monopoly called alko!.

Max 4.5% alcohol (read: beer) can be bought from regular stores. And most of the bars are open to at least 02:00. From EU countries (read: Estonia) you can also bring practically unlimited amounts of cheap beverages.

6. clubs/pubs/resturants are quite bad and expensive !

So you should be so drunk, that you couldn't notice this badness or care about money...

7 THEY SPEAK FINNISH ! it might be a beautiful and interesting language and so on but its friggin impossible to learn!

Practically everyone knows English (some sort of...) And plenty of foreigners have learned Finnish (btw, provably at least one of them is Chinese).

JanneT