CHINA EXPAT INTERVIEW
Today I’m interviewing Kevin. I’m Kwadwo, creator of Elementary Chinese where you can learn real Chinese, communicate, and have fun.
Kevin, you’re the creator of Monkey Abroad, right?
Kevin: That’s right.
Monkey Abroad
Kwadwo: Why don’t you share a quick bit about that?
Kevin: So Monkey Abroad is a channel just sort of encouraging you to pursue your own dream of traveling or living overseas. A lot of people do that if you’re from the West via teaching. I kind of use that as a platform to build my own blog and also to study Chinese because I didn’t want to just come here and make some money. I wanted to learn more about the world and sort of give myself a new skillset.
Go remote to improve your Chinese
Kwadwo: So you want to go to China and learn Chinese? I hope you do because it was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. Would you say that too?
Kevin: Absolutely.
Kwadwo: An easy way to get here is to teach English. I’ve taught English and your first place teaching English?
Kevin: It was in Shandong province.
Kwadwo: We were just talking and that is the best decision we both have made in our lives was coming to China because you can work a full-time job, but you have so much mental space available to pursue a side hustle or add a new skill. So at any rate, this video is about what can you do if you’re teaching English full time and you want to make the best use of your free time to learn Chinese? So how did you do it?
How did you best make use of your free time to learn Chinese?
Kevin: I would say when I was there compared to because I’ve lived in multiple cities throughout China in the past few years. Compared to a city like Shanghai or Beijing where we’re at right now. It’s a really international city here in Beijing and if it’s your first time living in China, it’s really easy to lean back on the things that you’re used to back home.
There’s an international community here. There are lots of international brands and if you live in a small town like I did in Rijal, then you’re not going to have any other choice but to just get acclimated with what life is like there.
Kwadwo: True. This is going to be really hard.
Kevin: So find a city that’s not a big city and if your goal is to improve your Chinese, then it’s a lot better than living in a place like Shanghai or Beijing for sure.
Kwadwo: Yeah. Shanghai is a party. I go to Shanghai, I want to spend all my money hanging out with friends because it’s like happy hour here, fancy diner there and you’re definitely inside of the foreigner bubble. So if you’re going to try to speak Chinese, listen to what he says. Go somewhere remote. How remote is good?
Kevin: That depends on you man. If you want to just be completely off the grid, I think that’s probably more in line with improving your Chinese. You want to be somewhere in the middle where you can still have an international community but also learn, like a tier two city would be good.
Kwadwo: Tier two cities. What tier is Yangshuo?
Kevin: Yangshuo I believe is tier two.
Kwadwo: Is tier two. What he’s not telling you about, but we’re about to tell you about right now is he goes to a school because you’re still learning Mandarin in Yangshuo. It’s called Omeida. It’s pretty good.
Kevin: I had a great time there. The class sizes are really small. The teachers are really great and friendly.
Both: Elementary Chinese. Good good study, day day up.
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The Great Firewall of China
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