Traveling to China?

Where at? Some areas are the same as any big US city...others are like a step back in time.

Most big cities are very modern with a lot of US food options. Most of them are extremely polluted and dirty. The smaller towns are where the cheap labor is...you'll be driving along and all of a sudden there will be a factory in the middle of nowhere. Smaller towns don't have toilets. They have 'holes' in the floor, where you stand over and do your business. Again, completely filthy!

Dennis - The company I am with has a few locations in China. Like Huck said, where would you be travelling to?

The places I go the most are Shanghai, Ningbo and Hangzhou. When I started going there in the early and mid 90's it was way different than now. The Sheraton Shanghai was the only "western" type hotel back then. The food most everywhere else was horrible by our standards. There was one Colonel Sanders in Shanghai back then. It was familiar and they served beer so I went there a lot.

I used to get a shot in my ass and take a huge Cipro tablet everyday as a preventative antibiotic. (A Brit I used to travel over there with refused to take any meds and got the crud bad and was hospitalized for weeks) Don't need to do that anymore but you have to be very careful what you ingest.

The country has improved a lot with its' infrastructure now. There are many options for western type hotels, reasonable food is everywhere etc. Our facility in Shanghai is state of the art.

I have been off the beaten path to some factories back then and it was like going back in time. One place had actual toilets in the bathroom but no door into it and no doors on the stalls. Weirded me out the first time walking up to the bathroom looking at about 5 women taking care of business. It's not considered rude to stare in China and those women just stared at me as walked to the mens room.

They didn't often get to see many fair skinned Irish guys in those parts. It was winter during that trip and the only heat in the gigantic factory was in the conference room. They also worked odd times due to the weak power grid in the area and they could only be running on certain days and times due to their allotted power amount.

Keep us posted on the job change if you do it!

Traveled once to China for work back in '03. Glad I went as I most likely will never go there on my own dime. Was a learning experience. Flew into Hong Kong, nice clean city (where I was anyhow) and the next day took a fairy to mainland China (believe I went to Shenzen). I had a guy from Hong Kong with me as an interpreter so that was nice. The facility I went purchased a machine from us in US and I went to start it up. The factory was huge, complex where the workers stayed at 24 hours a day. No safety standards when I was there, climbing on make shift ladders, no LOTO, etc. People were nice and wanted to make me feel comfortable. Had lunch each day at the facility, they gave me a fork to eat with...and made sure I would always get a Coke. When I went was around the Chinese News Year, the company was having a party and invited me to it, had shows with traditional Chinese dancing, the "dragon" dance, etc. Pretty neat but I was glad to go home. Back in Hong Kong went to a "floating" restaurant on a boat, aquariums all around the perimeter that you picked up what you wanted to eat... The last day back in Hong Kong I was on my own. Walked around exploring a little on my own, was tempted to go to a strip club but wussed out not knowing what would all go on in one in a foreign country....

Been there 4 times, importing fireworks business, major cities not bad. The places & towns I had to go are primitive.

restaurants without toilets, is just a minor issue. jets are like something we wore out then sold to china, ripped seats.

never flew directly into China, always Hong Kong. Find out where you'll be.

If it's Beihai, That place is nice, right on the water, lots of businesses have headquarters there, it has weather very

similar to Hawaii. January is as cold as it gets, 65 degree average. (see beach photo)

3 to 5 star Hotel $40-$50

Oh yeah, toilets....none in the factory, have a spot for your feet and a hole in the floor....

Don't eat the street meat. Apparently a shockingly high percentage of food vendors use recycled waste product (shit) as their cooking grease.

I lived in Chongqing for 2 years, 2010-2011 (designing motocross bikes :p) Yeah some days the pollution is bad, some toilets will give you nightmares, every now and then the food will have you on the toilet for a couple days. But in all honesty, 'limited travel' is really nothing to worry about, it will be absolutely fine.

I was also there for a couple of weeks at the beginning of this month, the average wealth has definitely increased over the last couple years. Western food is more readily available (especially in the larger cities) and the cost of Chinese food / living is rising, as well as the number of expats growing country wide. There is even a national American Football league, although I prefer the national rugby championship, of which unfortunately the team I captained while there lost in the semi final last month.

Chinese airports are hit and miss, in general they are OK. I've flown in and out of a lot, domestic and international, though I prefer flying in/ out of Hong Kong, then catching a bus to Shenzhen and flying internally from there. One because it's generally a lot cheaper and two, I really like Hong Kong!

I absolutely loved street food, the bbq in Sichuan/ Chongqing was awesome, but TripleFive above is not far off the mark, I think officially it's something like 10-20% of all oil used in China is recovered from drains... I very rarely had an upset stomach in my years, but quite a few friends got them often, then again we did consume ridonculous quantities of chilies.

Overall how you find it is up to you, some of the people are the friendliest you will ever meet (especially minorities), and there are some downright beautiful places to visit. Also keep in mind that due to the geography, a lot of the cities are just very foggy / cloudy which can be perceived as pollution, and in the last couple of weeks the UK and Europe have had dangerous levels of pollution, it's not like the west is immune...

So if the job is something you want to do, just do it and don't worry, it'll be fine.

Let me know if you go. I ordered some knock-off sports gear from a website that sells from China. 4 weeks and my shit hasn't arrived yet.

You going to have him go 'collect'? lol

Who doesn't use their own shit for BBQ fuel?

Every weekend at my house.

Was there in 91, 97,98,03,07. It has changed dramatically in that time frame. 91 first time the coal dust used to power the generation stations was bad in Beijing, Tanjin. Service was poor. Has improved 500% since then. Doctors were great. I ended up being sick on the dust. They fixed me up with some Chinese medicine. Ready to go instantly. The women at the time I thought were very naive ( compared to N.A.women). The Chinese were very gracious and good hosts. However rush hour in the subways is crazy at rush hour. Everyone has same colored hair, eyes. All pushing to get on/off of subway at same time. Almost comes to a standstill. Remember shanghai has 25,000,000 + population. There are a couple of megacities. History was fascinating with thousands of years of history. Herevin N.A. We have 300 yrs. The biggest change for myself was the population density. 1,300,000,000. Crazy! Good luck, have fun and keep and open mind.

I hope you didn't buy a helmet.

Ask your friends in the group that goes there about email and the dilemma with internet as well. I just got this email this morning from my girlfriends brother.

OK brother i will check with you soon, when i land in indonesia. Now i was in China, in this country internet access so terrible, so many limited wifi and website was blocked in China.

I have another person I do business with who is currently in China. I haven't been able to connect with them all week. If you know ahead of time what you can and can't rely on, it might make your trip a little easier.