[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1bZ4sp5K04]
Not everyday you see this from work! Made my day .
flypast over London
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The Train
I’ve had some great travel expereinces on trains in China and some not so good travel tales but they are always an experience and I’ve found them interesting and on the whole enjoyable.
In the UK It’s a different matter. I spend more than 3 hours a day commuting to and from work on an overpriced, slow and very uncomfortable train. Across a very boring dull landscape surrounded by anti-social morons shouting into their phones or subjecting the others to what they’re listening to on their IPODs. Some people refer to these people as commuters, but I think primitive androids is a more accurate description.
I cannot possibly imagine how people do this for most of their working lives. I’ve only been doing this for months and I’m tired already… I can only think it must be that most people doing this do it out of routine, apathy and insular thinking – ‘it’s what all my friends do’ etc etc etc . I cannot believe that anybody enjoys commuting into London by train, so why do it for most of your life?
I’m doing it for the prospects, once I get the opportunity to go elsewhere, I’m gone!
I’ve been trying to work out why when I was in China commuting to work it wasn’t like this for me. In China I had some equally long commutes (sometimes longer) but the difference is that at least there each day was eventful – I would literally see different things each day. It was a learning experience.
Sometimes It was uncomfortable, hot, cramped -often I was wishing the train was faster; but I never felt as if I was wasting my time- the feeling I get here when I’m travelling. I guess the big reason behind this is that I am over familiar with the UK. Being away for a while has given me a wider perception on what life is like in the UK, perhaps It’s realisation of just how rubbish many things actually are in this country.
It is for want of a better word – so incredibly Boring .
Whereas in China I would see things as interesting and different and new, Here everything just blends into a big long smudge. The below picture pretty much sums it all up.
Bad Joke
If 50 European cars can fit into a car park and 30 American cars into a car park –
How many Chinese cars can fit into a car park? 
Answer: 2. One to block the entrance and one to block the exit.
I thought this was funny anyway – so true!
6 months on… 半年后
Been back in the UK for 6 months. 😯
It’s been an interesting experience, some things have sometimes not gone as planned and It has been tougher than I expected. Now things are starting to get better, though I still miss my life in China.
There are many frustrating things about moving back to your home country that you don’t consider until you’re actually back here. Thins which you don’t consider before leaving. I knew the transition would be quite difficult, I had planned for it to be tough, but still there are many things about life here that is just so infuriating.
Over the past few weeks I’ve written some of the more frustrating things I’ve come across in trying to reintegrate back into UK life.
What I’ve noticed is that you start get used to things after a while, but that necessarily doesn’t mean that you like those alll of those thongs. For me the biggest advantage (or disadvantage perhaps 😕 ) of being outside the country for a while, is that I now think about many things about my life in the UK that previously I never even gave a second glance to. It’s certainly made me more critical of things and as a result of this sadly I’m getting more and more cynical.
I think there are many things to worry about living here that I never had in China.
It isn’t all to do with money but the incredibly high cost of living is a major factor- but there are other wider issues that concern me about living in the UK.
I think you basically have to realise that there really are no systems in place for British nationals coming back after living abroad for a while. It’s as if you are being punished for daring to leave the motherland! 😈
Many people are supported in various ways in the UK, actually pretty much everyone except you – because you don’t exist – and even if you did you can’t be trusted until you’ve been resident in the UK – but of course you still pay tax – Children, Old people, not-so-old-people, sick people, disabled people, certain ethnic groups, single parents, married couples, unmarried couples, gay partners, transsexuals, fat people and prisoners, the list goes on…
I wouldn’t be complaining if I paid little tax and could opt out fromt the system, but I can’t.
My views about taxation have changed considerably since living in China. I agree that people should pay tax, what I disagree with is paying such a high rate of tax on everything; inproping up an overblown controlling state apparatus, in effect supporting the system I disagree with.
As someone that has come back to the ‘motherland’ (I’m searching for a noun for this) You do not exist.
You are a non-person.
You may think (as I did) So what? What difference does that make anyway? Well, from my experience, it can make things really hard because if you have not been in the country, basically, you are not on any of the big-brother computer systems that dictate whether or not we can do something.
Because I have been out of the country for 3 years, OBVIOUSLY, I have had no UK addresses since then. This is not a difficult concept to grasp. But to the authorities you surely have something to hide, nobody leaves the UK to live abroad, right? To the government you are lower than a person that has just come out of prison, at least in their eyes they knew where they were and what they were doing!
The thing is, I can actually prove where I have been, I have various rental contracts and contracts of employment that show this, passport stamps, visas – but this is of no use to anyone in the UK.
To the UK government if you go to live in a place like China you might as well have gone to live on the moon.
For me this is exacerbated because I left here straight after university, meaning I have no investments in the UK i.e property; had not paid into the tax system, – I had nothing to link myself with here.
Here are some other issues I’ve encountered from not being in the UK:
Not eligible for many jobs. Can’t pass basic security clearance (and so many jobs unnecessarily require this) – criminal records checks. Can’t pass credit reference checks ( and so many jobs unnecessarily require this too!!!) Ineligible for many government jobs (probably a good thing 😉 ).
I just think it’s all gone too far. It’s beyond a joke – westerners may complain about many Chinese not being able to think for themselves, not being able to join-the-dots – but here people have seemingly have lost the ability to use common sense. People are constantly looking over their shoulders, worried about breaking some rule or regulation, frightened about saying something that may offend despite it being the right thing to do… Anyway
Can’t open Bank accounts as – No UK utility bills, not on the electoral roll (even though I have the right to vote, UK nationals can’t vote at UK embassies- must have UK address) no UK tax receipts, no rental agreements, mortgage statements, etc etc etc…..
Basically nothing that I can use to prove where I have been living for the last few years that they will accept. So I am an outcast It’s so annoying as there is no flexibility in the system – you are either in or out.
I feel as if every single corner of your life is tightly controlled by the government, but of course this only affects the law abiding people. It’s normal people who suffer, and so I my eyes you are effectively punished for being law abiding. This is partly why I have come to the conclusion that government and over regulation is the problem, not the solution.
The irony is that the UK is meant to be a capitalist country and China a communist, command economy – but to me it’s almost the opposite. People in the UK think that this is a democratic country, think they have rights, when in reality it is a very shallow democracy and your rights in the UK are being eroded everytime parliamant makes another law. Afterall therei s is no entrenched written constitution in the UK, and all the political leaders have been to the same schools, came from the same backgrounds;- its the same whichever country you live in…
I’m not saying thatthe Chinese government is perfect, far from it. They have some disgusting practices and cause so many people to have hard lives, but my point is that generally speaking for most people living their lives, most of the time the government takes very little interest in your own affairs.
Contracts 合同 Part 2 – Bad Contract
Here are some of the more important parts of a particuarly bad contract that I once signed with Star Education – It’s bad but not the most unfair contract I’ve seen in China. Most teaching contracts are set out in a similar fashion to this and do I hope this can be of help to anyone who wishes to sign a contract to teach in China.
In the contracts there’s all sorts of waffle that really isn’t so important to you, most of it is there as it’s government policy to put these things into work contracts.
Below is taken from the annex or the part of a contract that is written by the host institution (i.e a company/language centre), not the government SAFEA booklet as that’s standard accross China and only used by mainly public universities and colleges.
3.1
This is a real trick that could get you into a lot of difficulty with a dishonest employer. Usually you should ALWAYS have the amount of hours you work PER WEEK – and state that what exactly a week is i.e. – Monday to Friday.
Having hours per month means that you will probably have different class times each week, no real fixed schedule. It will mean lots of travelling between schools and will kill your free time.
The employer will say that 20 hours a week = 80 Hours a month, If so then why not put 20 hours per week into the contract not 80 hours per month?
The worst thing is that if you only get paid if you work all of the hours in the contract (i.e handing in timesheets) , and if the company you work for can’t give you all the hours – for whatever reason – you will not get paid fully. Also if the company says you must work 60 hours this week to make up all of the hours you are meant to work in a month, you have to do it – essentially it puts lots of strain on your time
It is in the employers interest to have contract that specify monthly hours, not yours. It is a practice used by farming companies and some private schools.
3.2
This is too general, try to get it narrowed down to exactly what you will be teaching. I.e oral English, English writing or whatever it may be.
3.3
Again far to broad. Changchun – although not a big city in China – still has about 7 million people living there. Also the way the Chinese designate their cities through the various sprawling districts, you could end up working 40km away from the city centreitself as it’s still classed as Changchun. I once worked an hours coach trip from the centre of Changchun in a place called shuangyang （双阳）which is still considered part of Changchun by the government.
This means that you may have one class in the east of the city in the morning and anoter in the west in the afternoon. You’ll have no time for lunch because it will take you all the time to get there. You may have to take a taxi because the buses take too much time and and the end of a days work you may have made very little and be totally exhausted.
Try to get the locations fixed, the names of campuses, buildings if possible. If you have to work elsewhere – get transport (i.e taxi) paid for – good schools will have no problem doing this.
3.4
Again get it as specific as possible unless you don’t mid teaching all ages.
4.
This is a trick clause and should be removed from all contracts before signing. Bsaically what it is telling you is that the company/school probably can’t get you enough classes and so don’t want to pay you all of your salary. It puts you in a very diffcult position if the employer has no work for you, as you are still employed by them but are not being paid! A good employer will never have anything like this in it’s contract, if you see it in an initail contract it’s a big red flag. Avoid.
4.2
So leading on from the previous point, when you dont work 80 hours a month you will only be paid pro-rata at 62 an hour. This is very bad indeed. Furthermore as most classes last 40 or 45 minutes you will only be paid 42 or 47 yuan per class. If a class is cancelled (as they often are) you will have to make up the hours in your free time.
To put this in perspective, I know Chinese English teachers who make more than this per hour and they work far fewer classes a week.
Good organisations do not do this. A class, whether it be 30 mins, 40, 45, 50 or 1 hour is classed as a teaching hour. Again, if you see this in a contract – run.
4.3, 4.4
Repeats the above condition. Just remember, why would an employer put a clause like this into a contract? What are his/her motives? It certainly isn’t in the interest of his employees…
You get paid for the months classes, so if you start mid-month, will only get 2 weeks pay. Basic meaning is that you will be paid in arrears. Universities don’t pay in arrears, they pay on a fixed date (usually the 15th) and the pay is for the full month.
Agreeing to this could cause you to lose half a months pay – as you may never see the pay for the arrears worked.
Your overtime will be paid at 80 yuan an hour – but only if it exceeds 80 hours a month. So if you have only worked 70 hours in the month, there is nothing stopping your employer making you work 10 hours in one day and you will not see any overtime.
This clause protects the employer from ever paying overtime to his employees, he/she will give the work to those people that have not made up 80 hours a month rather than pay over time. Incidently, overtime is always paid at a miniumum of 100 Yuan an hour and personally I wouldn’t put this into the contract. I would deal with any overtime as it comes, on case-by-case basis, and negotiate at the actual time. I have been paid 200 yuan an hour for some jobs, It depends on the actual situation.
4.6
No holiday or vacation pay. Very bad indeed, everyone should get paid for at least the October and May holidays. And make up the classes missed. No winter vacation pay, so will have at least 2 months where there is very little work available and no guaranteed income. Unless you moonlight.
4.7
Probably the most straight forward part of the contract, you get 800 Yuan for rent each month. This is extra to your salary and you get it each month regardless of how many hours you work. 800 really isn’t enough to get a decent apartment in central Changchun, for that you need more like 1500 yuan a month.
Actually I was told that this 800 would not be paid to me as the company had no classes for me – and so I wouldn’t be teaching for 2 months – As you can see that is basides the point, I get this regardless of how much I work. This eventually led me to perform a runner from the company as it was my only prudent choice of action at the time.
5.
Note the wording ‘fulfill the contract’ this can be misconstrued and twisted by any employer. Get dates i.e. 31st July 2007 will get paid …. for Flight ticket – this leaves no ambiguities. Also only from Beijing, you still have to get to Changchun. Wihout discount that’s another 2000 Yuan to your ticket price. To be honest to get to the UK from Changchun return, if you include all transport costs is 7000+.
The final passage is next to meaningless as it says should not, which in legal documents means nothing whatsoever.
7.4
Again badly worded, can be misconstrued. Get exact pay dates into the contract.
7.5
This is potentially disasterous for the teacher. If a school re-schedules, you MUST obey any class shifting – even if you are only given 30 mins notice. This should never be agreed to, it must be reasonable.
8.3
Standard government stuff, but is far to sweeping and needs to be tidied-up. Not to enagage in any mass activities is far too excessive – you could argue that by signing this you cannot teach as that in itself is a mass activity! 😉
8.7
Ignore, not important – almost all contracts have something like this in it. Just don’t tell party A, but make sure other work does not clash with one this work.
8.10
Ignore. Just dont tell them, it’s none of their business what you choose to do in your free time. They are trying to cover themselves if you get hurt or injured whilst not working as technically as an employer they are vicariously liable for you.
10.4
Designed to scare you more than anything else. I highly doubt whether this is based on actual fact, but to be honest it’s not important. You have to ask the rhetorical question – Why would somebody ‘ sudden disappearance/departure of party B from his or her post’ ?
Clearly they have had problems previously and are trying to scare people into not running from a contract that has been dishonoured by the employer. In my experience people don’t just run for no reason. Some are home sick and leave very soon after arriving in China, but most do it because their employer is screwing them/going to screw them.
Contracts 合同 Part 1
Been writing this for ages, will add to it over the next few days. It’s about employment contracts and my experiences with them in China.
The concept of written contracts is a relatively new concept to China and as such the options for legal redress and peoples interpretation of them is not as a westerner would expect.
If (legally) working in China you will sign a contract at some stage. If working for a public body you will sign a government standard contract written by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA) in Chinese and English.
This is in the form of a small book, inside the first page contains the salary information and how much RMB can legally be changed to foreign currency. This has to be signed and dated and red stamped by the host institution to be valid. This will be registered with the SAFEA and means that if you have serious problems you can use them to arbitrate – not that they will help you! 😥
Legally speaking It’s a particuarly badly translated contract and is badly worded, but as translation standards go in China, It’s better than most.
You will also have an annex or another contract that is written by the Institution you will work for, this contains the most important things to you as an employee. It will be several A4 pages long and also in Chinese and English.
Make sure that everything you want in this section is written in 100% unambiguous language.
Words like can, should or might do not belong in a legal agreement!
If need be, list in bullet points on everything you expect your employer to do for you. Make sure everything is precise, from EXACT paydays to when you are entitled holiday pay – and which day you will receive this. The emphasis is on making your employer react in a positive way, i.e have to do something.
Never leave things to be assumed through implication, there has to be a positive burden on the employer to act.
Do not assume anything, even things that are implied through conduct of one or other of the parties – WILL NOT NECESSARILY MEAN that you should be owed something. Many Chinese bosses only just understand the idea of offer and acceptance – trying to use western legal concepts will almost certainly fail.
An option is to try recording what your employer says to you, as this may give you quid-pro-quo if your employer denies he/she said something to you at a later date.
Unfair Contract Terms:
Make sure you don’t sign something that could cause you to lose pay for something that was out of your control. The below clip is from a Star Education contract, It’s a classic example of an unfair contract term: 
If you agree to this then – for example – If on the way to work you were in an accident and you were last for class, you would still face a financial penalty.
As a rule if a term is written for one party to do or not to do something, then there should be something similar relating to the other party.
I’ve seen some pretty one-sided contracts In China, contracts that protect the employers rights for pretty much anything yet ignoring the same such rights for employees. In my experience, with the public schools, Universities and colleges in Changchun the contracts have been fair and straight forwardly written. Infact they are petty much verbatim copies of the Government recommended contracts issued by the SAFEA.
Private schools and Companies are another matter. I once saw a contract that was 6 pages long, full of clauses and terms imposing one-sided obligations on the employee, but not emposing such obligations on the employer. For Chinese employees this is normal, they often have to sign completely one-sided contracts of employment – but for foreign teachers this is should not be the case. Anyone telling you otherwise is not telling the truth.
Sometimes in those terrrible contracts (this is quite common for Chinese employees) the employer will try to keep a 3 month ‘bond’ on the employees salary – i.e Your employer keeps 3 months pay until the contract is completed, whereupon you get it back. Or, more likely the employer can steal 3 months of your pay and not give it back to you because after you’ve finished your contract you have exhausted any quid pro quo you might have had before the contract finished.
Some say this is to protect the employer from teachers running from their employers, but I say If you have worked, you get paid AFTER you have worked. You are not paid in advance, therefore the employer will lose very little. Employes seldom pay for flight-ticket up-front. The employer will at most lose a few hundred yuan for sponsoring the visa. If i see these type of contract terms, I run a million miles!
Avoidance :
Of course you want to avoid getting into a bad situation in the first place, probably the best way to do this is to seriously research your potential job.
When negotiating your contract don’t be rushed into signing the agreement. Get the contract altered if needbe, come back with your counter-proposals. What you mustn’t do is accept the first thing you are offered by the employer, always try to get more than what they initially offer and meet them half-way if you can.
Get It written down in the contract, in plain English. Verbal agreements are worthless.
Afterall, If they mean what they say then there is no-problem getting it in writing, right?
I have had many situations where the employer has said something, or promised something but not actually wanted to write it into the contract. The reason for this is that they probably cannot deliver on what they say but still want you to sign the contract and will say anything that makes you put pen to paper!
In many situations you should be aware that employers like to ‘speak big words’ but fail to deliver when It comes to the crunch, getting it into the contract will help you if a situation like this occurs.
This is of course misrepresentation but In China you cannot rely on western legal concepts – forget the rule of law, forget an equitable solution. You have to protect your own interests first. Or you will only have yourself to blame further down the line.
Get it signed by both parties and preferably have a 3rd person present to Co-oberate what was said.
Get in touch with people that are working for them now, people that have previously worked for them – get as much information as possible from as many sources as possible. Yoy may search for them on the internet, check out forums, chatrooms, blogs to enable you to have the full picture, before making the decision to sign a contract.
This is difficult as some people will say bad things about a particular place because of reasons known to them not necessarily because of their employer. Many foreigners come to China, don’t like what they see, fail to adapt to the situation and end up leaving after a semester with a bad taste in their mouth.
There are also many people who genuinely have tebbible situations with their employer through no fault of their own, who are lied, cheated, threatened and all sorts of other horror stories.
You can find many of these on the web – people tend to write more vividly about the bad stories they’ve had than the positive ones. This may also be because there are – certainly in Changchun anyway -more bad places to work than good.
The big problem with teaching contracts in China is not just that they can be broken It’s that the contracts are virtually unenforcible if one or other (or both) of the parties chooses to break it.
Chinese people and anybody that has been in China long enough knows this and so this is something that must always be considered when signing an agreement.
You must consider when signing the contract ‘what will my employer get from this?’ ‘What will I get from this?’ – If it’s too one-sided or looks too good to be true, then it most probably is!
I’m In the UK now 我现在在英国呢
So I’m no longer actually in Changchun or China for that matter 🙁 , but
back in the UK for reasons stated in this previous post
今天是我的生日- 祝我生日快乐！ 呵呵 Happy Birthday to Me! :-D
It’s my Birthday again… and for the first time since 2003 I’m in the UK for it! and of course it’s raining! 
Time has gone so slowly since I’ve been back in the UK.
Time has gone so slowly since I’ve been back in the UK. The last year has been eventful with lots and lots of changes, some good, some not so good but, I have certainly learned many new things for the better.
Seems like it was years ago I was in China, feels as if so many new things have happened since then. It’s as if time has slowed down over the past couple of months. It’s weird how time passes…
London Chinatown 伦敦中国城
Been lazy/too busy to update things here… Have lots of things to write about, will put them here once I have time. 😀
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The other day had the opportunity to check out London’s Chin.jpg)
a Town, I’ve only been once before, many many years ago.
It’s situated very close to Leicester Square and makes up a much smaller area than I expected. I really was expecting a little more than just a few streets…
As expected, Chinatown is not really reminicant of any place I’ve seen In China, for me the only striking simularities being the obvious characters on signs (almost all traditional characters) and the Chinese looking people walking around the area.
Cantonese 粤语 is the main language spoken here, most Chinese here I would guess have links with Hong Kong / Taiwan or southern China. I haven’t heard much Cantonese before and I have to say it’s a very ugly language to listen to and sounds really aggressive to the untuned ear.
I was sitting in a cheap buffet restaurant (£5/75元 all you can eat – Incidently – you wouldn’t want to eat too much food here!, but for London prices it’s very cheap) and the manager was telling the fuyuan (waitresses) in really stongly accented Mandarin where he wanted the customers to sit, whilst chatting with some customers in Cantonese. The fuyuans were clearly mainlanders.
I wondered how/why they got/came to the UK, they clearly were not students/skilled migrants, but I didn’t ask them for obvious reasons. From what I heard they spoke very little english beyond restaurant vocab.
I couldn’t help thinking that their quality of life here couldn’t be much better than what they had in China？ Perhaps I’m wrong and they are here legally, but knowing how very difficult it is for Mainland Chinese to get work outside ancestry, I highly doubt this. – My guess is that they paid a gang in China and came here illegally…- working in Chinatown for less than minimum wage…- posting cash home or paying off the debts to the gangmasters… Who knows?
I think there are two sides to Chinatown; the obvious side you’ll see walking down one of the pedestrianised streets- tourists sightseeing, taking pictures and visiting restaurants. Locals and tourists alike wanting to try sample ‘real’ Chinese food and perhaps what they think It’s like in a Chinese restaurant in China.
The problem with this, I think, is that there are so many rules and health and safey regulations that to have a ‘real’ authentic copy of a Chinese restaurant in London would probably be illegal! And to be honest I dont think It would be popular with British people ‘laowai’ 😀 – so you end up with a compromise, not one or the other. Just as in Changchun the ‘western’ restaurants (i.e. 欧娄巴） are also compromises – it’s a question of supply and demand – you give the customer what he/she wants or expects, whether its ‘real’ or not is not the point!
And the other side, the darker side. Chinese people and immigrants from other asian countries working (many illegally, but they do jobs that many people here simply wont do.) for very little pay and poor working conditions.
Something else that I noticed or at very least percieved was the relative ‘poverty’ of the Chinese (excluding asian looking tourists/students – who stand out like saw thumbs) looking people – I’m sure most chinese speaking immigrants end up here,
I am also sure there are operations in people trafficking probably operated from within this area. -I’m not making a judgement I’m just saying, I think that’s how it is.
There was an interesting banner draped over a shop that looked as though it had recently been closed down, (see pic on left) stating that the British were not supporting migrant workers – I can only guess why this shop was boarded up, It would be interesting to find out why. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has something to do with hiring illegal workers.
What I found funny was the way in which the Chinese have exported their business models and how they are being used in London – here you can find small shops (just like those in Changchun) selling anything – fake DVDs, SIM cards, foreign foodstuffs, you can even change your renminbi
There are adverts places outside, posters, billboards – just like those in Changchun. I think the the Chinese here are incredibly entrepreneurial and profit conscious, they even use western selling ideas (never seen in China) – such as buy one get one free or two for the price of one. Also it’s the only place in the UK where I’ve seen there are too many staff!
It much harder to do this here as its not so easy to strar up a business, but i think there is greater potential to make more money long term.
I have spent some time in various Chinese restaurants and being t.jpg)
he UK they wont let you take in your own drinks, afterall this is financially to their dis-advantage and how other restaurants operate in the UK. Yet they keep other Chinese practices – such as service being very direct to the point- which of course in the UK, can be misinterpreted as being rude and impolite.
But it’s accepted by the customers I think. Personally I would rather have one or the other – western service or chinese service and all that goes with it – but that’s not how things have developed.
I find it curious how the Chinese food here has been anglocized with things that people from the UK think is ‘Chinese’ just as western foods in China are ‘Chinacized’ to suit tastes, because that’s really what Chinese people expect of western food.
This runs through many areas and happens I think because of a combination of perhaps ignorance on the customers part, stereotypes things from films TV, and adaptation on the businesses part – that is changing a product to meet more local demand.
Anyway, The ‘Chinese’ food here I’ve tried thus far is pretty bad. Awful.. 🙁
If I want Chinese food I like then the only way is took cook it myself but I knew this would probably happen before I left China…
Luckily I have a sweet toooth and so can get used to things here but I can imagine how difficult It must be for someone new to the UK. The food isn’t as bad as I remember, it just seriously lacks taste and flavour!
I’m not so sure now that If you look hard enough, you’ll be get lots of different types of Chinese food, as I only seemed to be able to find the Cantonese restaurants!:evil: 广东菜真难吃了！
I did find several Chinese supermarkets and was very happy to find they sell many of the same things I saw In Changchun. Those packets of instant noodles for 30p (5元), sunflower seeds for 2 pounds (30元) a packet and one of my favourite drinks – 水晶葡萄 grape juice for a very reasonable 60p (10元) a bottle!
Unfortunatly I was unable to find many of the sauces that I recognised in Changchun. Predictabally, almost all the ingrediants are imported from Hong Kong and so are quite different from the stuff in dongbei.
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An interesting problem I encountered was working out what was what, as the characters used are traditional and so are difficult for me to read and a westernised English name or Cantonese name is used, rather than pinyin
For example: hoisin sauce is haixian jiang 海鮮酱. I dont know the English name or cantonese spelling/pronuncaiation so I am having to learn!
But I did find these sunflower seeds (xiang guazi) 香瓜子 for a very reasonable 2 pounds for a big bag!
Qingdao Beer
Recently I’ve been on a bit of a quest to find some Chinese things here where In the UK as I’m just curious about these things. I’ve finally found Qingdao beer in the local shop. 🙂 It’s different from the Qingdao in Changchun in size and flavour. The bottle is a very small 330ml almost half the size of the ones in Changchun. It cost £1.38 or 21元 which is a little expensive considering the size, but not so much here relatively speaking.
Strangely this is 4.7%, much stronger than the 3.8% Qingdao in Changchun and so it tastes quite different! Not as good in my opinion!