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Q: Where is the best place to live in China?
I will soon be starting my return to China, but looking at places where I:
- won't freeze to death from cold weather
- won't suffocate from pollution
- don't have to sit in traffic for hours
- can get by on Mandarin and not have to listen to some unintelligible dialect
- can enjoy nature, or what is left of it
I am leaning towards Sichuan/Yunnan. Any suggestions?
Zhuhai.
- today is 25C
- blue sky
- well, there are free city bikes to circumvent traffic and the city is working on some tramways
- Mandarin works well here but many speak only Cantonese
- You can be out of ZH easily e.g. by ferry to Hong Kong where they have a lot of green nature, or to one of the many small islands that is part of the Zhuhai zone.
Scandinavian:
as much as I bitch about China, I really do like Zhuhai. If only it was further away from Changsha.
Scandinavian:
Do have family in Changsha, but thye are nice enough :) I just find it the pinacle of what is wrong with China. Polluted, thriving with ignorance, celebrating Mao, food is either really spicy, really crap or a combination.
Back to Zhuhai
http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MjM5NTU0NzcwMQ==&mid=201410279&idx=1&sn=5aea3945c2c8fef3d27f5e719ba27294&scene=1&key=cf5c39e24befc13905308d49a5c28816e97f7652f3258d15e3f54eb22799d8ba96299b00eb0749a4d9efa286b09dfe05&ascene=1&uin=MjUxOTAwNDc0Mg%3D%3D&devicetype=webwx&version=70000001&pass_ticket=F52rzBSBPmEfAMKQXOx0i6wZxAdkn%2FzfzjPRmqeP56pPKQ86UqqlaMMDhXl8Ul3l
Yes, Yunnan probably covers off all of those prerequisites. Though obviously, minority or ethic groups will use a different language or dialect, I am sure that many of them can also converse in putonghua.
Qingdao yantai in the north. Xiamen, zhuhai in south
Kaiwen:
Qingdao & Yantai:
Not too sure about what you would class as freezing to death (it is certainly not as bad as dongbei) but the sea sometimes freezes and the cold winds in January and February are enough to cut most people in half. At least the same sea winds make the temperature more pleasant in summer.
Stuck in traffic:
Maybe in comparison to tier 1 cities, Qingdao compares favorably but don't expect free flowing traffic. The congestion in certain parts of Qingdao and now even the development zone can get pretty bad especially around peak times.
Enjoy nature while it lasts:
There are mountains around Shandong where you can just about escape back into nature but, generally speaking, Qingdao and Yantai are as urbanized as most other parts of China. The pollution isn't so bad most of the time though.
tbh66:
Qingdao only suffers traffic during rush hour periods, additionally subway will open soon to relive traffic.
For me i has t be, Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu 1 hour west of Suzhou, 2 hours west of Shanghai Suzhou would be the 2nd choice, 1 hour west of Shanghai.
Sichuan is cold, wet and very miserable in the winter so I would rule that out. For weather, air quality and nature I would head south.
Xiamen and Zhuhai are both nice. Xiamen is a little more developed and has many more foreigners. Also consider Hainan. I worked in Sanya for a year and a half. Good weather, good nature and no pollution but you do have to put up with endless tourists.
Eorthisio:
But Sichuan women are hot looking and easy. Otherwise I agree, Chengdu is a miserable place in winter, cold enough to freeze to death but not enough for beautiful snow to fall, and no central heating.
But Shanghai or Beijing are also miserable in their own way during winter.
estern:
My problem with the Chengdu winter is the weather + pollution combining to make every day incredibly grey. Don't know why but the pollution seems much worse in the winter than summer.
From when I lived in Shanghai I remember it to be the opposite. I even remember a few crisp winter days. Freezing cold but clear blue skies. That would be totally unheard of in Chengdu.
Eorthisio:
Yes, blue skies are rare in Sichuan, Chengdu or Chongqing the same, it has more to do with high humidity and natural haze than pollution, but amplified by the last in recent years sadly. Chinese often say that Sichuanese women have the whitest skins in China due to very few sunny days (and Chinese men love fair skin complexions), and they have apparently said so for centuries, so not only a result of pollution in modern China. However I can tell you that pollution in Sichuan is far lower than in North-East China, especially Beijing and Tianjin were the smog is sometimes so thick that cars use their lights by noon as it looks like it's night time.
Ningbo or the smaller cities around it in Zhejiang province.
You won't freeze to death but they have 4 seasons so expect a cold and humid winter. Weather in the summer is generally comfortable and it is conveniently only 1 hour away from Shanghai by bullet train.
The traffic and pollution levels are some of the best I have seen on the Chinese East coast and it generally seems like a pretty comfortable city to live in.
About Sichuan
* You won't freeze to death. But it's humid as heck, which make 5c feels like the freak'in Antartica. With 3 months non-stop of gray skies.
* Chengdu, hum, it's gonna be polluted and it's crowded. Don't know Chongqin, but it's unlikely to be different.
* It seems that people in Sichuan are proud of their Sichuanese dialect, and I remember being told that "having to speak in Mandarin in companies was such a pain in the arse". I don't say the locals are terrible, I just say, they might just be proud of their province.
* Nature, Sichuan as plenty of it, in the gorgeous format. But it's several hours of bus on mountain roads/tracks, so not really doable in a week-end when living in Chengdu.
Thanks all, taking note of Zhuhai and Zhejiang province in general. How about Jiangsu provence, places like Nanjing?
DrMonkey:
Suzhou is great, hard to beat without a beach ^^ Nanjing is kinda the Beijing of Jiangsu : it's the capital, it's crowded, heavy industry, most hu tongs are gone, it's not very pretty but it have some historical sites, some old mansions from the early days of the First Republic. Suzhou have much more green spaces, better urban planning, more cosmopolitan, cleaner.
Xiamen rules, 3 years here and still happy.
Zhuhai - thought of trying it out, even found a job, but my wife's hukou is in Xiamen, so we'll stay here. As someone else said - many foreigners here (maybe more than 2000 working...and many students), many things to do here, many international stores/bars/shops etc. 
Zhuhai is nice but too touristy for my liking. I'd say Guangzhou, if it wasn't for the nice folks selling drugs on the streets at night. Good weather in winter, lots of culture and history, well developed, a great city park...
it is nice if you can choose the city, guess thats the big advance of teachers.
i probably always have to live in the shit cities in shit industry zones.
I started off in guangzhou and i liked it the most in china
Stay away from Shijiazhuang or anywhere else in Hebei for that matter.
If you incline towards Sichuan/Yunan and you speak Mandarin so I would certainly recommend you Chongqing.
Air polution is lower than in Chengdu and the city is far more compact due to the mountain landscape (in Chengdu if you do not have a car so it's kind of a problem but in Chongqing it's quite OK).
Cousine is basically the same in Chengdu and Chongqing (tastes a bit differently but the difference is not big).
Sichuan dialect is close to Mandarin and almost everyone, with exception of old people and people with no education, can speak decent 'Southern' Mandarin. I never had a problem to get along with Mandarin more or less anywhere in Sichuan.
During the winter it's not too cold, usually never freezing, but the problem can be long lasting rains - it can rain for a week or two without interruption.
The people in Sichuan are generally very straight forward.
Chongqing is then the municipality directly under Beijing and the city is rapidly developing.
However if the person does not speak Chinese at all so both places (Sichuan and Chongqing) are the wrong choice - there are really few English speakers in there.
In Yunnan I think the weather is far better than in Sichuan but based on your question I would see the problem with your requirements using Mandarin without problems - there are a lot of nationalities in Yunnan and the people have 'very relaxed' apporach towards the life - that can be sometimes annoying and sometimes even a bit dangerous but if you stay in Kunming so it should be kind of OK.
But my preference would be anyway Chongqing or Sichuan 
