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Totally unrealistic for both Shenzhen and Guangzhou unless you happen to work right across the border.
It will take you 1 hour to the border, half an hour to cross it and 1 hour to get to your work.
So if you start at 9, then you need to wake up at 5, so you can leave at 6. They may let you go at 6 if you are lucky. And you will get home at 9, eat and go to sleep.And what do you do if you need to do overtime.
And transport cost will be high too. I don't remember all oh the cost, but it should be at last 200 per day. That is a cost of 50000 per year, which could have been spent on rent. Also ferrying settled and being understood is much easier in Hong Kong.
Definitely live in HK, it's not worth the time cost of commuting, and ultimately I doubt you'd save much at all except in housing. Maybe your company can help you find reasonable accommodations.
As for learning a language, I'd stick with Cantonese. You can learn Mandarin in the future if you want, but for where you're headed you want to go with Cantonese.
If you want to keep improving your Chinese, I'd suggest you learn Mandarin instead of Cantonese.
(1) 95% Chinese speakers understand Mandarin, including the vast majority of Cantonese speakers. Even in Hong Kong, all young people understand Mandarin.
(2) Cantonese does not really have a mature written language. In short, even in Hong Kong formal Chinese documents are all written in "Mandarin", using Mandarin grammar and Mandarin vocabulary.
However if you just want to say "how are you" "how much is this", it makes sense to learn Cantonese.
Hey.
A month or two ago i decided i needed some adventure in my life. I applied for a position in my company in hong kong, and got accepted. I currently live in LA and found a school that can teach me cantonese. I enrolled for a class that starts in November (Im moving in April, Im so glad that I could find a class that starts so soon) But i have one main question. How hard/ expensive would it be to live in Guangzhou and daily commute to HK? Guangzhou seems much cheaper, and its seems to be more traditional chinese city. How realisitc would that be?
Hmm...what kind of income are they offering you?
Guangzhou is a few hours away from Hong Kong, plus you have to cross an international border consistently. Additionally, mainland China charges Americans an arm and a leg for visas, and they are quite random what they might give you. You essentially pay $150 for a visa for China, and it's not guaranteed that it's a multiple entry visa either. You might pay that just for a 'single entry visa' and than have to process another visa the next day as you try to go home to Guangzhou the next day! Imagine the consistent stress of that, etc.
I dont know, regardless of how expensive Hong Kong might seem, your world will be a million times easier to live and work in Hong Kong and stretch your Hong Kong dollars. Trying to live in Guangzhou to save 'rent' or something, will just cost you a tremendous amount of money and time in a multitude of other ways.
Last edited by Tiger Beer; 10-16-2013 at 01:22 PM..
However, Americans are used to commuting for hours every day. So people from other countries may not understand it.
Many people I know drive 100+ miles every day.
Guangzhou seems much cheaper, and its seems to be more traditional chinese city.
I just wanted to tap on this common statement. This fact that Guangzhou will be better because seems more 'traditional Chinese city'. This implies that Hong Kong is less Chinese. It's like saying that Los Angeles isn't the 'real' America. When one could argue that Los Angeles is very American, despite not being 'Texas' for example. (Granted HK does have a slightly different status, but is very much filled with Chinese people, Chinese culture, and Chinese things - with a nice prevalent understandable English availability to all that as well).
Hong Kong feels very Chinese and has an excellent international feel which will be very very very desireable as an international person living abroad. The 'I'm going to become like a Chinese person and live like a Chinese person and speak like a Chinese person' is a very common misconception that foreigners buy into prior to actually living abroad. The reality changes quite a bit once actually trying to live out that situation/scenario.
The real reality is you'll be wanting to get to know your co-workers and colleagues, and absorbing yourself into their Hong Kong existance, etc. You'll want to find that 'Mexican' place that you heard of existing, that some other American colleague will mention. Spending all your free time commuting several hours to that cheaper Guangzhou apartment that is just above that same chain chinese noodle shop that also happens to be across from your workplace in Hong Kong, will probably wear thin real quick. You'll lose out all those many invites and opportunities and socialization situations in exchange for a far inferior situation.
I just wanted to tap on this common statement. This fact that Guangzhou will be better because seems more 'traditional Chinese city'. This implies that Hong Kong is less Chinese. It's like saying that Los Angeles isn't the 'real' America. When one could argue that Los Angeles is very American, despite not being 'Texas' for example. (Granted HK does have a slightly different status, but is very much filled with Chinese people, Chinese culture, and Chinese things - with a nice prevalent understandable English availability to all that as well).
Hong Kong feels very Chinese and has an excellent international feel which will be very very very desireable as an international person living abroad. The 'I'm going to become like a Chinese person and live like a Chinese person and speak like a Chinese person' is a very common misconception that foreigners buy into prior to actually living abroad. The reality changes quite a bit once actually trying to live out that situation/scenario.
The real reality is you'll be wanting to get to know your co-workers and colleagues, and absorbing yourself into their Hong Kong existance, etc. You'll want to find that 'Mexican' place that you heard of existing, that some other American colleague will mention. Spending all your free time commuting several hours to that cheaper Guangzhou apartment that is just above that same chain chinese noodle shop that also happens to be across from your workplace in Hong Kong, will probably wear thin real quick. You'll lose out all those many invites and opportunities and socialization situations in exchange for a far inferior situation.
If I were OP, I would stay in HK.
However, many single males go to China for certain reasons, and I agree GZ provides more opportunities in that aspect.
I just wanted to tap on this common statement. This fact that Guangzhou will be better because seems more 'traditional Chinese city'. This implies that Hong Kong is less Chinese. It's like saying that Los Angeles isn't the 'real' America. When one could argue that Los Angeles is very American, despite not being 'Texas' for example. (Granted HK does have a slightly different status, but is very much filled with Chinese people, Chinese culture, and Chinese things - with a nice prevalent understandable English availability to all that as well).
Hong Kong feels very Chinese and has an excellent international feel which will be very very very desireable as an international person living abroad. The 'I'm going to become like a Chinese person and live like a Chinese person and speak like a Chinese person' is a very common misconception that foreigners buy into prior to actually living abroad. The reality changes quite a bit once actually trying to live out that situation/scenario.
The real reality is you'll be wanting to get to know your co-workers and colleagues, and absorbing yourself into their Hong Kong existance, etc. You'll want to find that 'Mexican' place that you heard of existing, that some other American colleague will mention. Spending all your free time commuting several hours to that cheaper Guangzhou apartment that is just above that same chain chinese noodle shop that also happens to be across from your workplace in Hong Kong, will probably wear thin real quick. You'll lose out all those many invites and opportunities and socialization situations in exchange for a far inferior situation.
Tiger Beer knows his stuff. And he would probably agree with me that Hong Kong will steal a big piece of your heart. It's the kind of place that, once you've lived there for even a short time, and left, you will always want to go back. It's a paradise. I lived there as an Armed Forces Brat as a youngster and I yearn for it continually. Don't know exactly what it is but everyone I've known who lived there, feels the same whether it was before or after it was handed back from the UK.
A lot of men, not women do that, travelling between HK and Shenzhen, between Zhuhai and Macau for work.
But the time and fare spend is considered much by HK standard. The trains are tightly packed with cross-border people, which is not comfortable. These men are very rush, often running. They use special automatic gate facilities with their chip ID cards instead of queueing the long line being inspected personally by the immigration officials. They have to exchange money between HKD and RMB oftenly, and the RMB is rising in value for many years. It may not matter though if the person don't really mind the hassles. Less women are seen, probably women don't like to commute in such a way.
There are many foreigners, Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong Chinese on day business and leisure trips between HK and Pearl River delta too.
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