we love china :: interviews with expats

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

WELCOME TO WE LOVE CHINA

at 5:46 AM | 0 comments |

Zebra Music Festival, Chengdu, 2009. Photo: Misse Ward
Welcome to we love china! There's no shortage of adjectives that can be used in the description of this country: beautiful, gigantic, weird, confusing, exciting, frustrating, challenging, full of opportunities and the old favourite, "full of contradictions."
When a coutry like China, doubly rich in history and opportunity, opens its doors to the modern world, you're guaranteed to get an equally fascinating diversity of people (at times, bordering on the weird and obsessed) - from all around the world, wanting to make some little corner of the motherland their own.
I have started this blog firstly out of a personal interest about what other expatriates get up to in China. If I've learnt anything from living here for six months is that not everyone here is an English teacher or a business executive in Shanghai (not that there's anything wrong with either of those two vocations, and I aim to interview plenty of both!). I've heard about a foreign man making money as a stripper for Chinese women and corporate clients, translators, International Development workers setting up eco-tourism projects in Sichuan, drug dealers making millions in Guangzhou, foreign actors and playwrights bringing their own productions to the stage in Beijing, musicians playing in bands in Kunming, and an expat who supplements income from his own karate-school by making organic pork sausages.
Who knows what else expats out there are getting up to? I think I'm not the only one who wants to find out!
From now on until (hopefully) forever, I will aim to interview a few foreigners every week about their experiences living in China. Please bookmark this blog if you think it sounds interesting, I hope it will grow to become a really useful information resource about living in China.
If you're an expat in China, whether you've been here for two weeks or twenty years, and you're interested in being featured on this blog, then please send a friendly email to misseward@gmail.com.
Happy China Loving!

we love china :: interviews with expats