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Why Second Tier cities are the first choice for many expats
Mar 04, 2009By Jessica Larson-WangMany expats in China wouldn’t dream of living outside of the Big Three – Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. After all, China’s mega-cities offer most of the comforts of home in a setting still foreign enough to add a bit of excitement. You can eat at Western Chains like TGI Fridays, shop at The Gap, have access to English speaking doctors, and expat staples like cheese and coffee are abundant, with a Starbucks on nearly every corner, and New Zealand cheddar available in most supermarkets. The big city nightlife, no matter whether you like neighborhood pubs or bustling discos, offers a staggering array of options for drinking oneself into oblivion. International hospitals have foreign doctors who speak your language, and international schools will educate your children right along side the world’s best and brightest. There are many reasons to pick a First Tier city, so why am I, after only a year in Beijing, heading back out to the hinterlands of China’s Southwest, back to the sleepy town called Kunming that I also call home? And why do an increasing number of foreigners deliberately choose smaller locations, even if it means cheese and coffee are scarce?
Photo by neal_mcquaid
First Tier Cities are just too big. Beijing has a population of about 17 million people. Shanghai’s population is nearly 19 million. The “big” city where my parents live, Dallas Texas, has only about 3 million people, which is, in fact, a smaller population than that of most of China’s second tier cities. I, like many Americans, grew up in even smaller places – towns with less than 1 million people. For expats, the sheer amount of people in a city like Beijing or Shanghai is mind-blowing. There are people everywhere, at every time of the day. Busses are always crowded. Subways are often packed. During peak times, like rush hour, traffic jams can tie you up for long periods of time. Commuting from one part of the city to another can take hours and cause loads of frustration. The feeling of being part of a sheer mass of humanity can be overwhelming at times.
Photo by Hector Garcia
Smaller cities have a more tight-knit expat community. In Beijing there are simply too many foreigners to feel any particular connection to most of them. People group together either by nationality or occupation. Ironically, although Beijing has many more expats than Kunming, I have made very few expat friends in my one year here. If you don’t go out to bars, don’t work for a multinational, and aren’t here studying Chinese, you might not have a lot of opportunities to meet people. In Kunming, however, within my first week of showing up I was forming lasting friendships with Italians, Japanese, Croatians, Americans, French, and Canadians, with students, consultants, professors, writers, and musicians. We had very little in common besides the fact that we all lived in Kunming, but somehow that was always enough to bind us together in some way. I enjoyed the “United Nations” feel, and the way circumstances allowed me to make friends with people who I otherwise would never have met.
Photo by Philou.cn
Clean air. Second Tier cities are often cleaner than their bigger counterparts. Unless you live in a highly industrial area, chances are that fewer people means less pollution, and less congestion. Big cities, no matter where they might be, can often feel like a concrete jungle, even more so when summer days offer yellow skies rather than blue ones. In smaller cities, there are often more trees and fewer high rises, and better air quality. Second tier cities are often prettier too. While Beijing has its nicer parts, there are many places in the city where your view is likely that of more high rises, whereas expanding your boundaries outside of The Big Three can give you more options – mountains, beaches, lakes, deserts, and whatever climate you prefer.
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Very good informative article! I'm so envious! I have a fiancee in Changsha and have been there 3 times. I fell in love with the big friendly city on my first trip and didn't mind a bit feeling like the only foreigner! This is one of the worst seasons, with rain almost every day since December, but I'd move in an instant. I no longer feel that I fit in here in America. And it doesn't help being in Houston where I am constantly reminded of China by the large Asian population, although at the same time, it is a comfort to have my Chinese neighbors. I have been trying to find work there since December after I visited for my fiancee's birthday. She works at one of the universities. I even dreamed I was walking into a place that was my job while I'll was there! Any suggestions for a wannabee expat? What salary would I need to make that would be comparable to my $85000 a year here?
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Good article! I feel the same way about Changsha...but we have coffee here
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Come to Xi'An! It's great!
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I have had the same experience.I lived in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tian Jin.They were good cities, Tian Jin is a very friendly city the taxi driveerlove to try their english skills.Guangzhou I enjoyed too. But my first city to live in in China was Nanchang. After four years of big cities i chose to retrun to Nanchang. Yes it is not Beijing!!The taxi drivers drive like F1 drivers, the hospitla is excellent[Have been theretwice to get new eyes!! The locals speak extremely loudly,But something drew me back here{yes in the middle of a Nanchang winter}. I have many Chinese freinds here, they always ready to help. The cost of living is very low, and you can easily get a local bus to the countryside if your tired of thecity. Yes Nanchang is a city and the traffic is choatic I love it.
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So then, what do people think about Qingdao? 2.5 million people make it a very large city by Australian standards. And how far will Y5,000 mth go? I will be arriving there in late April for a one year teaching contract and hope, like some lucky others, that I love the place.
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I don't live in China but spend about 2 months here a year on business (education). The bigs are great, but I'm a big fan of the second tier cities and would definitely live in one if I were to settle here. My favorites (with apologies to gems I just haven't seen): Xiamen, Qingdao, Dalian, Harbin, Zhuhai, Guilin, Urumqi, Xi'an, Wuxi, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Hangzhou. Lots of great choices in China!
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I am fortunate to be retired and presently living in China as a artist / photographer, married to a great Chinese woman and her wonderful family I admire. I travel and meet great Chinese artists which is the center of my relationships. As a Buddhist since 1965 and knowledgeable with Confucianism I consider China my permanent home. Since my departure from the states I never looked back, in fact I feel a self imposed exile from a dysfunctional society. I choose Chongqing as my nesting place which has much historical value, beauty and a unique social environment of its own style. My wife and I live on the outskirts of the downtown area were the natural scenery complements my desire for peace and quiet, with Chinese characteristics. I invite expats to visit this developing future center and experience something different.
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I am in my third trip to China,,Every time I like it more..i will return in a couple of months to establish longer time with my wife We will travel abroad of course.But. Nanning is a lovely place for living with friendly people everywhere,,I had lived in canada many years.Even I am not Canadian,I m not cut to the extensive cold weather and also cold society environment..Im Cuban born and living also in panama....I really enjoy living and develop in China paradise
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I also found Suzhou dull and a bit soulless. It is only a small city, and even the SIP isn't fully developed. The bars are quiet and the expats are few and far between. But the second tier cities are much larger, with populations over 2 million and well developed economies. Qingdao is great and has the beer culture, the whole city drinks beer daily. Kunming is another great. I think for me a city needs to have a thriving (but non industrial) economy, expat haunts (I need to meet and speak with my own kind), and somewhere quiet to run to. Scenery is also important, Beijing has it outside the city, but other cities are on the flat lands. Having the sea or a large body of water, and mountains as a backdrop allows you keep in touch with nature.
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I see where you're coming from and definitely feel most of my American, Australian and New Zealand friends in particular have some similarities with the observations you make about being in such a massive city. Not everyone is cut out, enjoy or are capable of adapting to life in such a big urban center if they have spent most of their lives in places with under a million people. As a American who grew up in New York City, my experience has been the polar opposite. In 2008 I moved to Suzhou after falling in love with China and being drawn here by opportunity in 2006. However, in 2006 I was only a student in Beijing and visited Suzhou as a tourist. I thought it would be fine. It turned out to be the most depressing, lonely, and horrible era of my life. I yearned for my big city life of back home and all the incredible options a big city provide. In 2010 I gave China another go and tried Shanghai this time. This is the place to be! In the major cities you can get the China experience with a mega-city array of options ranging from aquariums, to western food, to theater, to art and endless people you can never finish meeting. I personally opt for this life. After living and breathing NYC rush hour, Shanghai is bearable. To each his own I suppose.
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When one lacks the multitude of distractions and pleasures, one can return to the source of distraction or pleasure or one can return to the source of happiness. The first step is to find some skill based practice that you love. If you decided for example to study the xiao a really old chinese flute, you might find that no matter where you were in China you could be happy. You could also focus on language, studying both the traditional and simplified chinese characters and even into the ancient forms, the multiple dialects, the nuances. The key is being creative and always improving the key thing you are doing. You could study Tai Chi, Qigong, or chinese calligraphy. You could even do something as benging as learning to skip rocks across the surface of water. Each skill based practice in any place in the world has this potential, the only thing that is required is for you to apply steady focus , attention and intention and slowly gradually you will lose the desires and required pleasures of the city living. It takes time and focus to develop a skill though so at first it will drive you to want to revert to your old ways, but eventually with practice andd determination you will see the light and the steady stream of the dao.
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Confucius couldn't have put it better himself! Very enlightening words, and something I totally believe in. Despite being 'seduced' by the ways of modern material living, I too find great peace, solace and happiness in going back to that naive stage of learning something from scratch, and keeping at it.
Of course, mastery of a skill takes years, and more pertinently years of patience, and some say we never truly 'master' anything. But it's the journey that counts!
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Hi,
What ate the educational facilities for expats in the 2nd and 3rd tier cities also what are the health facilities like?
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second tier cities also have good hospitals, for exampla the place i live has several big hospitals where you even have a VIP section, sure its more expansive but you never need to wait and the doctors do speak english and often have been abroard,..) many smaller cities do also have foreign doctors, and international schools, which aren't as good as the ones in Beijing or Shanghai but still good enough, i have friends who do send their kids to chinese school so they learn chinese while they live in China and the other stuff they homeschool them... maybe living in China needs more personal effort, but its definetly a safe place to be...
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Excellent article, I'm glad to see not everyone thinks the big 3 are the only places worth living in. I lived in Dalian before I moved to Beijing and I'm so glad that I lived there first. I feel bad for people come to China and only experience the big city life.
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Come and try it, we have lived in Qinzhou for two years, it is a rapidly growing city with a brand new port that is expected to be the second largest in China eventualy.It has a University with approx 10,000 students a College with 7,000 and a new vocational school with a capacity for up to 20.000 and they nead native English speakers desperately. I have lived in 60 countries and this is by far the best.
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Xiamen, here I come :)
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