Lain,
visiting China and living here are two totally different things, relax make your plans and move in the
most seemless and uneventful way that you can. when you start living here then you can stress each
day with the many many strange things and events you will see and hear each day. but as you are here
at least you will be with someone who will grow with you each day and help you to understand all the
many things that you will see that are totally different to what your accustomed to seeing or doing. especially
in a city like Zhongshan which is quite different from a bigger city here in China. but it think in time you will relax
and really enjoy the life here as it is quite a nice life. if one adapts well to all the other nuances that you encounter.
and dont take some of the postings to heart so much, take it from someone who has lived in China and has seen
it first hand and had to make those adjustments.
and when you land in Zhongshan get a shirt made up with "im the other western man" so the locals dont get you mixed up with the other westerner living there 'Willy' will save you some explaining lol!!!!!
I am not stressing over the how to live part..in fact part of my trip there was actually going to the grocery store and finding my way around as I would of I was to live there....In fact I think once I am there I will find life actually really nice since I will no longer stress over the costs of living as I do here in the US....As for the food, well even if I cant order off the menu I like virtually everything to eat and I am not against eating any animal so long as it tastes good..so no matter what they bring me I will most likely eat it!
The stress is getting my business together, planning for worst case scenarios in the event that I have connection issues with my networks and the act of simply getting it all packed and shipped over. Heck just today I FINALLY finished going through 8 cases of old company documents and paperwork to either shred, place in storage...or pack to bring with me. Wished that I had optically imaged all those things as they came in over the years....maybe starting next year!
Also I am getting frustrated at the "systems" of either my government, or China's when it comes to getting real information and accurate documentation for issues ranging from tax laws, to marriage docs. I wish to have everything together before I am there so its a simple process when, or if the time comes that I will be required to have such documents but it seems that I will just have to gather everything I can and hope its enough.
Just to update everyone...My plane leaves October 1st at 6pm here, land at Los Angles LAX and take off for Guangzhou at 11pm. It was a rather weird route that I had never seen in my airfare searches but works out perfect for me as it will have me landing in China at 7am in the morning and it only has one stop in California.
As for the "western man" shirt....well I will be living in Xiaolan so to the best of my knowledge...I will be the only one?? When I walked all over for about 10 hours there I did not see another westerner of any sort. Even Jiong Li tells me that she rarely ever sees westerners in town and she knows of no others that live there. Well not much longer till the experience begins, so we will see?
