Who Needs Tin? In Praise of Wuxi

("Wu Xi" = "No Tin")


Well, I made it out. I've left Wuxi, and I've no plans to return*. There were a lot of things that bugged me about the place, and we'll get to that, but I thought it best to focus on the positive first, and to praise the city as much as I can. Good things about Wuxi:


The People - the Chinese people that I came to know during my brief stay were, all in all, friendly, outgoing, helpful people. They may have been surprised to see a foreigner walking down the street, but they weren't leery of me, either.


The English - English was spoken more in Wuxi than in any other foreign city I've lived in. The Chinese, unlike the Koreans, seem to be much more willing to gamble "losing face" and speaking broken English to the laowai. Random everyday people: taxi drivers, McDonald's workers, strangers in bathrooms, travel agents...all were willing to try and communicate with me in my native tongue rather than bombarding me with a string of incomprehensible derka. I appreciated that.


The Food - the Wuxi style of Chinese food is a little sweet for my tastes, but there's a reason Chinese cuisine is one of the world's favorites.


The Foreign Amenities - Wuxi had more foreign bars, restaurants, and shops than any other Asian city I've lived in. There were 6 or 7 dedicated laowai bars/cafes, compared to Incheon, which has 2, and Bucheon which has 3. Again, Wuxi +1.

The Omnipresent KFCs - holy fried chicken Batman, the Chinese are crazy about KFC. It's like Starbucks in Seattle, there's one on every corner. I found the fare to be alarmingly disgusting, but the ubiquity of the chain and its popularity with the Chinese I found to be, well, cute.

The Work - all in all, I enjoyed my job. The students were fairly advanced and fairly attentive, and the hours were great. I didn't care for the hour plus commute each way, but that's a minor quibble.

The Next Door Neighbors - Wuxi's close (an hour or so via train) to a lot of attractive cities - Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou and Hangzhou. Incheon has Seoul, and that's it, and Seoul's got nothing on Shanghai. Well, maybe a little something, but not much.

The Prices - I wasn't making much, which was part of why I left, but day to day I lived quite comfortably on under $20/day, and this includes boozing, taxi rides, things like that. China can be quite cheap.

That's about it.

*Of course, I wrote something similar after leaving Korea the first time