I have been living in China for 2 years now and have covered a significant amount of China. I have been looking for what you are for most of this time with mostly failed results. I have to agree with the first person, Taiwan is the best, but the opportunities there compared with the mainland are limited. In addition Taiwan can be a bit expensive compared to many places on the mainland.
About my experience: Most places in China I have seen are severely polluted and dirty. In the countryside most of the villagers throw their trash right next to where the grow their food. I have never seen anything like it. The pollute their water sources and then make soup in their homes and restaurants from the polluted water as well as wash and water their vegetables with it. My own health has undergone many changes since living in China. I have gotten food poisoning multiple times, gotten bad cases of pimples (which I never had before) amongst other things, migraines, breathing difficulties, and more. The big cities have "clean" places to live but if you want to enjoy a relaxed life, forget the cities here. Lijiang, Yunnan is nice but I got a little altitude sickness there. The pay for an English teacher is getting lower everytime I look (in big cities about $1000-1500 per month). I run my own business here and make a smaller income than I did in the US, but my expenses are lower and the opportunities look brighter. Why am I still here? I love the tea culture. I have not given up trying to find a nice place, once you get into some villages the people are amazingly friendly. On top of that I love Taoist culture. Realizing there was no heat from Shanghai south was a sobering reality after I stayed in Fujian in November and had to have a heavy jacket on 24/7 and gloves just sitting in any house or store. If I cannot find anything suitable this may be my last year. So if you learn something I don't let me know I would like to see it.
tao 1 - thanks for posting - that info is very interesting. I'd love to know what places you've visited and which you've lived in. Love to hear more, basically.
I think pollution is definitely a factor that anyone considering living in China needs to consider very seriously. I heard that living in Beijing - just living there - is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day (or was it two?). And this was a while ago, before 10 million cars hit the roads. It must be so much worse now.
And I guess you've also explained why I got horribly sick (food poisoning?) several times in the few months I stayed in Beijing.... and this was from relatively nice restaurants in Beijing, the capital and probably the cleanest, most modern city in China - so it must be even worse in other parts of China. Compare this to living in the US, where I eat all kinds of restaurant food and get food poisoning maybe once a decade or so. I also lived in Tokyo, Japan for a year, never got so much as a cold, much less flu or food poisoning.
Have you been to Dalian, Qingdao, Harbin, Xiamen, Yangshuo, and Kunming? I heard those are all pretty nice... with Dalian in particular reputed to have relatively clean air, being practically an island. And what about Shenzhen or Zhuhai? Where are you living now?
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