ZDL comments on Record Numbers of Younger Women Want to Leave the U.S.

Record Numbers of Younger Women Want to Leave the U.S. (news.gallup.com)

submitted 1 year ago by ZDL@lazysoci.al to c/boycottus@lemmy.ca

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But why?! The USA is a paradise for women! Isn't that what Margaret Atwood taught us!?

[–] ZDL@lazysoci.al [S] 4 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I've been living in China for 25 years. My salary is 1/10 of what I made in Canada (Ottawa) but I'm much better off than the colleagues I left behind right now.

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[+] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

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[–] ZDL@lazysoci.al [S] 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I live in that city basically nobody outside of China ever heard of until 2020. 😉

Cost of living in Canada has shot up stupidly in Canada in the past two years on top of the already pretty stupid costs vs. salaries. I was making quite a bit of money, but I still had to pay close attention to my budget.

In China my salary is a tenth of what my Canadian salary was 25 years ago and I rarely have to worry about money. It's quite liberating.

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[+] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

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[–] ZDL@lazysoci.al [S] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Talking of cost of living, however...

In ... I want to say 2007? ... an old colleague and his wife visited my SO and me for six weeks. When he got back home he started going over their finances, cringing at the anticipated expenses.

They'd saved money.

They spent a ridiculous sum on airfare. They lived in a hotel near my home for the entire six weeks. We ate out for each meal daily. And yet, when they got home, between the drastic reduction in their utilities usage over the period and the zero cost in groceries for six weeks they came out ahead (by about two weeks, according to his analysis).

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[+] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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[–] ZDL@lazysoci.al [S] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What are your favorite snacks in China?

This is going to sound weird because of a vocabulary issue, but ... sweet potato jerky. ("Jerky" is just the closest word I can use for what this stuff really is, but it doesn't cover how tender, sticky, and oh-so-sweet that it is.) "Spicy sticks" are also a guilty pleasure of mine. I grab a pack every second day or so and just eat them over the course of a day at work. And there's any number of street foods I love, with 锅盔 being my current favourite.

Are you fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese?

Nope. Never touched Yue, Wu, Gan, Min, etc. at all. Mandarin is rough enough for me, thanks!

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[+] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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[–] ZDL@lazysoci.al [S] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

The closest I got to Guanzhou proper was Hong Kong, and that only to deal with visa issues before that avenue was closed. I've never lived anywhere with Yue as the dominant language. I lived briefly in a city (Xiamen) where Minnan was a huge influence, and lived for two years in a city (Jiujiang) where Gan was a major dialect, but most of my actual living here was done in Wuhan where a form of Mandarin (albeit a very loose form of it!) is the dominant dialect.

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[+] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

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[–] ZDL@lazysoci.al [S] 2 points 1 year ago

武汉话 is a 普通话 dialect, but at its most extreme is incomprehensible (right down to having a fifth tone!) to 普通话 speakers. It is, naturally, also one of those dialects for whom "四十四是四十四十四是十四" comes out as "sisi si si sisi si sisi si sisi".

I knew quite a few people who spent time in Foshan. They seemed to like it as a laid-back place like Shangrao in Jiangxi province for those I knew from there.

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[–] ZDL@lazysoci.al [S] 2 points 1 year ago

No, weirdly. I worked in tech firms, but I did marketing. Switching to teaching English in China was a huge step down in my salary. Now I'm back in marketing, as of 2016, working for a local company as their "cultural expert". (Officially on paper I'm a PA, but in reality I tend to lead all the stuff related to international things.)