Yinjiang Senior High School - Yinjiang County, Guizhou Province

I should probably start by saying you’ve got a really good location and a lovely school. You’re in a very pretty non-polluted town surrounded by mountains with a big house and a really friendly school. Your workload is pretty light and the students and teachers are all lovely. There are plenty of things to do and places to go here, although if you want big city life, you may want to change your placement.

Yinjiang

For me Yinjiang is great balance between a place that’s big enough that there’s things to do but small enough that it’s not polluted or busy. There’s enough small bars and restaurants to keep you entertained during the week, and mountains to climb that you won’t be bored, but it’s also a beautiful town in the valley of the Jiang river. The air is fresh and nothing really smells to bad and the air quality is perfect. If Yinjiang had a train station it would be the perfect place, that’s the only slight issue, it is two hours by bus to the nearest big city where the train station is. There are bus routes to a few different locations around the province though.

Food

Food choices are mainly western Chinese, and by that I mean really spicy. It may be worth eating some Szechan sauce or Hunan style food next time you have a Chinese meal before you leave to china. That said, the food is delicious, loads of cat fish, loads of pork, loads of spicy cabbage. And it’s all really tasty, really flavoursome and there’s loads of it. Everyone always wants you to eat and is trying to offer you food, and generally anything home cooked here is better. Hot pot or hot plate food is really common and most meals times there’s one central piece of food (usually meat or fish) and then loads of different sides (spicey veg, spicey tofu, potatoes etc). It can however get a little bit repetitive as the people here eat mostly the same food every day and there’s not masses of options for western food. There are a few fried chicken shops in town and some cake and coffee shops. There’s also a couple of places that do ‘pizza’. It’s delicious but its more like cheese bread with toppings. Mainly we only eat really good western food when we’re visiting a bigger city or if we’re at my Colombian friend’s house across the road. The school provide you with loads of food too. There are teacher’s lunches and evening meals in the staff canteen, I really recommend going to this, not just cos it’s free but also this is a good chance to talk to people and get to know the teachers. The school also give you a dining card that you can use in the students canteen and that’s open from 9am-6pm everyday and mainly does noodle soups and snacks. Food here is really cheap, and generally the cheaper places are the best. A cheap meal, like a noodle bowl or rice style buffet, will never be more than 10RMB and evening really expensive meals shouldn’t be more than 50RMB, so we eat out quite a lot.

Things to do

Yinjiang is a beautiful mountainous area, so there’s loads of hiking and bike riding. The school has a hiking team of teachers who go out every Sunday for walks and take loads of pictures and eat amazing local food. I’ve also joined a football team which if you’re interested you can come play, there’s also badminton, ping pong and a gym in town so if you like sport and being active that’s good.

The town has two cinemas and some shops in the centre. The cinemas show the main western films in English, and it also has the best 3D I’ve ever seen in a cinema. There are a few really cool bars in town, there are some little ones along the river and then above them there’s a larger loft bar with really good food and a stage. These are less than three minutes walk from your house. I know the owners of a few of these bars too, so we quite often get free drinks or discounts on food, and everywhere you go people are super excited to see you. But you will have to sing in the loft bar. There’s also loads of karaoke places in town. For more exciting weekends we hop on a bus and go further afield. In Tongren (2 hours away) there are a lot more foreign teachers and a few really cool bars and really strange night clubs. Going to night clubs can be awkward because there’s a lot of students in them, so I never go to the ones in Yinjiang, but in Tongren its fine as your students won’t be there. Tongren also has all the stuff you’d expect from a big city; shops, malls etc. In between Tongren and Yinjiang is the nationally famous Fanjing mountain, which is surrounded by a stunningly beautiful scenic park and well worth a visit and a climb. People come from all over China to see this, and it’s in Yinjiang so its pretty cool. Further out from Tongren the province capital Guiyang is only four hours away. This is a really cool city; it has a top division football team, a cocktail bar with a ball pit and temple full of monkeys. Guiyang is four hours away by direct bus. Tongren and Guiyang both have superfast train stations, and once you get to them you can get to anywhere really in China. Guiyang also has a pretty big airport, whilst Tongren airport is a little small.

People

All the teachers in school are lovely they all want to talk to you. But you may find very few do, most of them don’t speak enough English too, and then half of them are too shy, but if you keep giving them chances to speak to you, they slowly will have conversations with you and they’re all very nice and cool. Also if you go to things there at, like lunch or club activities they’re more likely to talk to you and try and get to know you. They may just shout your name though, but that’s quite often because that’s the only word they’re confident enough to know.

Your FAO (supervisor) is amazingly cool and friendly and likes to do stuff with you. He’s also very good at understanding personal space and doesn’t force himself on you and constantly check you’re okay. The head of English is lovely too, she’s also super organised which is really helpful as most schools in china feel very disorganised, and she says “yes we can do that to everything” which is convenient. The other English teachers are all pretty cool, there’s probably like 20 of them which is really handy and they just appear at random helpful times so they’re good to be mates with.

The other highschool in town also has two foreign teachers, a couple from Colombia and South Africa. They’re both pretty young and really good fun so they’re good to hang out with. They also cook amazing food. Outside of that there’s adults in town to hang out with if you can find places to make friends with them, such as a bar or sports team. Basically just swap ‘wechats’ and you can translate and talk through that and make loads of friends and go out for food or whatever with them. The students are really nice and shout hello to you all the time. Their English is alright, some are really good and nervous and some are confident but get confused after hello. Just talk really slowly and you’ll be okay. The teacher student relationship here is very different to what I was used to at home. Apparently it’s quite normal to go for food with students or have them come to your house. I still find this really weird and don’t do this at all. Some students also get your ‘wechat’ number, I try really hard not to give it out, which is sort of unusual, but its fine to give it to the students and they never message you anyway. Saying all this is I do still go play football with my students and our in class relationship is really good. There’s 3 years at the school, and the kids are 15-18 years old. Each year has around 23 classes with about 60 kids in each (not as intimidating as it sounds). So you’ll teach each class once every two weeks. Also at your school there’s another foreign teacher (me). I teach grade two so you’ll probably be teaching grade 1.

Weather

It’s pretty hot. The classrooms have fans and your house has air conditioning and a fan and the school are pretty good at getting more if you want. But yeah it’s hot and humid in the summer. Rainstorms are pretty frequent too, but I’ve yet to experience a proper monsoon, I don’t know if there are monsoons here. Outside is hot; luckily we can teach in T-Shirt and shorts no problem (all genders). In the winter obviously its colder, it never gets snowy cold though. The main thing is the humidity but you get used to it, and you don’t have to go outside much.

The school

Yinjiang Minzu is a senior high school (sometimes called a middle school) there’s three grades of students, aged from 15-18. Each grade has 22/23 classes in it, You’ll see each class every two weeks, so you only have to plan one lesson every two weeks. What you teach is entirely up to you, you are not required to follow a text book, although there is one if you want to use it. You need to teach ‘oral English’ so fun games and talking activities. Don’t worry about grammar or tests you just need to give the students the confidence to speak the English they can already write. Another advantage of this is there’s no marking to do as all the students work should be oral.

You’ll only teach one grade, grade 1, whilst the other foreign teacher (me) will teach grade two. You shouldn’t be teaching more than 3 classes a day and each class is 40 minutes long. Three days a week you’ll also do English Corner, this is an English club that’s “optional” for the students. (but in reality their encouraged to come by their teachers). This should also be oral English and is good fun, also one of the Chinese English teachers come to it. At the moment we swap grades for English corner so you’ll teach grade two and I teach grade one, but the teachers are quite flexible with the format so we can adjust this if you want. On the whole the students are really easy to teach. I’ve taught in a couple of different countries and this is by far the easiest place I’ve had to teach. Your main challenge is just getting the students to talk in class, just try and be positive and fun and you’ll be fine. Don’t stress about the class sizes their surprisingly manageable because the kids do seem to enjoy you being there. And don’t worry if your grammar isn’t brilliant either, they don’t expect you to be dictionary perfect on everything. I quite often have the kids tell me how to spell English words because I’ve got no idea. The class rooms are really modern too, they’ve all got white boards on the wall which move away to display computer screens behind them, so you can use powerpoints if you want. Lots don’t have the internet on them though, and be careful with Chinese internet censorship, you can’t go into class and watch a YouTube video, or even Google something. Don’t stress about teaching the kids, they’re lovely so as long as your fun and treat them like adults you’ll be fine, and if there are any problems all the teachers here are well helpful anyway.

Apartment

Your apartment is massive, and one of the best I’ve seen in China. You’ve got a western toilet, an equipped kitchen, three bedrooms and a living room. And you don’t share with anyone. From lots of the horror places I’ve seen you’re definitely in luck. But it is old, So it’s not perfect but it’s nothing to worry about, after seeing some of the places my friends are staying, you’ve got it very lucky. The apartment is on campus but it’s sort of to the side so you don’t feel like you’re in the school. You can hear and see the river from your window too. It’s fine to have guests stay, in-fact the school encourage it and the front gate to school has security on it 24 hours so is never unlocked. The other English teacher (me) lives on the floor above you. The apartment is fully equipped with a PC, printer, three beds, kitchen stuff, a sofa, Air Con units and everything else you could want really. The head of English is also really helpful and really understanding if you want extra stuff and will try really hard to make you feel at home. But you have to ask if you want stuff for your apartment or if you have any issues, they’re not very good at getting subtle hints, and you can keep asking it’s okay. The internet is a bit slow however, usually you can watch films and stuff, but sometimes it’s really slow, especially when using your VPN (get a VPN before you come to china, it’s much easier to sort out at home. I use express VPN, it’s as good as any and the same price, and you can have one account on multiple devices). The apartment and school are in the middle of town, there’s supermarkets, bars, the bus station and the river all within five/ten minutes walk. It’s a really great location. There’s loads of food places near school too, and people are more than happy to show you their favourite places. The school also has an on-campus shop that sells basic food, drinks and toiletries very cheap and you can use your dining card. The school provides drinking water in the water coolers, you just have to take your empty water cooler and trade it for a fresh one in the water building at school. Also because there’s not really an office in the school it’s completely fine for you to go home between classes (2 minute walk) and use your PC for to plan lessons or anything else you want to do. As long as you’re in class for the start of your lessons, the school don’t care where you are at any other times.

My Experience

I’ve taught English in a few different countries before here and this is definitely the easiest school I’ve ever worked at. The staff definitely value you, and as long as you make an effort to be friendly with them first, you can end up with some really good mates and really sweet nice people. People are scared to talk to you at first so you do have to make the first move, but once you do it becomes hard to stop them talking to you  . The workload here is amazing and you have a lot of free time to explore and do fun things. If you like mountain climbing and being in the countryside, and then going to small bars and restaurants you’re in luck. And there’s enough foreign people or English speaking Chinese people to have fun. You are a little isolated from a big city, the two hour bus/drive is annoying and if you want a night out in the city you do have to find somewhere to stay, and that is the only real issue with Yinjiang. If it had a high speed train station it would be perfect, but that’s not opening till 2022. So if you want big city Chinese life, with lots of foreigners you may want to consider somewhere else. But if you want a more Chinese experience in a really relaxed fun place I’d definitely recommend working here. Also Buckland seem to be very good to work for, you are always paid on time (which is a big deal, lots of my friends at other companies aren’t) and the office staff are really helpful. They can also sort you out with summer work which is really convenient.

Frequently Asked Questions & Quick Facts

City Size: Small County in North East Guiyang, technically part of Tongren city but really two hours away.

Regional Climate: Subtropical climate zone. Annual average temp. is 20 degrees C. Sunny during the summer.

Class Size: 45+ students

Students' ages: 15-18

Teacher's workload 12/13 classes a week plus three English corner sessions. 40 minute long lessons, see each class once every two weeks.

Nearby places: Guiyang City, the province capital, Tongren City, Mount Fanjiang

Things to do for fun: Mountain climbing, Football (soccer), Badminton, small bars and restaurants. Karaoke clubs, Gym and swimming pool. Visiting other cities

Things to bring: Bring any special toiletries and Anti-persperant deodorant.Sort out a VPN before you come. Bring small things from your home town to give to teachers as presents for special events. I find post cards or maps of your town/area are good, tourist information centres are good to raid. If your town has anything famous from it be sure to bring that. Some pictures of family and some money from home are good too, just to show people. Travel adaptors and extra phone charging leads are good to bring, as are a few spare sets of earphones, it’s hard to know what ones here are good quality.

Cost of Living: If you stay in Yinjiang you shouldn’t spend more than 1000 RMB a month, and you can live for much less than that if you want to save money. If you want to go places and drink/party then obviously it’s more but you’d have to live a very wild life to spend more than 4000rmb a month.

       

[CLOSE]

BACK