Jeff manages his travel business, Outcast Vagabond, where he provides marketing and consulting services to travel-related brands and individuals. He has been to over 100 countries and aspires to travel to every country and territory in the world.
Living and working in China as a foreigner, especially as an American, comes with its challenges, but it also comes with its benefits. Most people are ignorant of China and Chinese culture, mostly due to two factors; never having visited the country themselves, and being brainwashed by Western-propagated media. For me, and for so many others, teaching in China offers a viable career path toward full-time digital nomadism. A teaching job just gets one’s foot in the door and serves as a stepping stone, as other lucrative opportunities are also available in the Middle Kingdom for foreign people.
Since studying the past of a place helps answer questions about its present, I figured it’s best to provide a brief history lesson about China’s long, complex history.
A brief history of China
China has a very long and elaborate history that dates all the way back to 2,000 B.C., making it one of the oldest civilizations in the world. China’s history is generally divided up into several dynasties. During these dynasties China was ruled by a succession of emperors. Ancient China is credited for having invented papermaking, printing, the compass, gunpowder, the decimal system and the abacus.
Below is a concise timeline highlighting some of China’s most notable history, with direct references from this link and here.
Xia Dynasty (2100 to 1600 B.C)
Is said to have been ruled by Emperor Yu, though there isn’t much evidence to confirm that this Dynasty actually existed.
Shang Dynasty (1600 to 1050 B.C.)
Was ruled by Tang of Shang, a tribal chief for 17 years. This Dynasty witnessed key advances in both astronomy and math.
Zhou Dynasty (1046 to 256 B.C.)
Is the longest-known dynastic regime in Chinese history, which spanned some 789 years. It is also among the most prominent of all Chinese dynasties, due to world-renowned philosopher, Confucius, who lived from 551 to 479 B.C. Confucius is known for his thoughts on ethics, good behavior and moral character, which have helped shape Chinese culture and government policy for centuries. His beliefs have been recorded in several books, most notably the Lunyu.
Qin Dynasty (221 to 206 B.C.)
Was the first official empire that standardized regional written scripts into a single national new one. An imperial academy was established to oversee translated texts. The first Asian superhighway was created, a 500-mile-long straight road. During this Dynasty construction on the Great Wall began, and the Terracotta Warriors were created.
Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to 220 A.D.)
The Western Han Dynasty was 206 to 23 B.C. and the Eastern Han Dynasty was 25 B.C. to 220 A.D. During this Dynasty the Silk Road (125 B.C.) was established and paper and books (105 A.D.) were invented. The Silk Road had its eastern terminus in Xi’an, China and spanned some 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers) all the way to Europe, with numerous routes. Trade on the Silk Road began in 130 B.C. and lasted until 1453 A.D., when the Ottoman Empire closed off trade with the West. Cai Lun developed paper by pounding together bamboo, hemp, bark and other ingredients to spread the pulp flat. The use of this invention quickly spread and eventually led to the first Chinese dictionary being written by Xu Shen, and the first book of Chinese history being written by Sima Qian.
Three Kingdoms {Cao Wei (220 to 265 A.D.), Shu Han (221 to 263 A.D.), Eastern Wu (222 to 280 A.D.)}
Is known as one of the bloodiest eras in Chinese history. It refers to the period between the establishment of Cao Wei in 220 A.D. and the conquest of the Eastern Wu by the Western Jin in 280 A.D. This period resulted from the fighting that ensued among warlords in different parts of China.
Western Jin Dynasty (265 to 316 A.D.)
In 265 A.D. Sima Yan (Wudi) deposed the last of the Cao emperors and established one of China’s earliest legal codes in 268 A.D. When he also overthrew the ruler of Wu in 280 A.D., he reunited China under one monarch. After Wudi’s death in 290 A.D., the empire collapsed into several separate autonomous regions that were divided up among the ruling family.
Eastern Jin Dynasty (317 to 420 A.D.)
In 317 A.D. a prince of the Sima family established a court in present-day Nanjing, and this Dynasty became known as the Dong Jin, known as one of the Six Dynasties. This period was plagued with corruption, revolts, wars and refugees.
Northern Dynasties (386 to 581 A.D.)
Toward the end of the Sixteen Kingdoms the Tuoba Xianbei people, a minority nomadic group, had become powerful. They occupied central China and established the Northern Wei Dynasty. They conquered all of the other northern China regimes and unified the region. The Northern Wei was highly influential and ruled China for over 100 years.
Southern Dynasties (420 to 589 A.D.)
Were four short-lived dynasties based in present-day Nanjing which ruled over much of China, south of the Yangtze River. The Four Dynasties during this period were the Liu-Song (420 to 479), the Nan Qi (479 to 502), the Nan Liang (502 to 557) and the Nan Chen (557 to 589). Chinese culture grew a great deal during this time.
Sui Dynasty (581 to 618 A.D.)
Was a short-lived Chinese political dynasty that reunified China and brought the Northern and Southern Dynasties to an end.
Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 A.D.)
Developed a successful form of government and administration, based on the Sui model. This Dynasty stimulated a cultural and artistic flowering that led to a golden age. Though its 8th century splendor of arts and cultural milieu made it a model for the world, this Dynasty was also plagued with corruption and anarchy.
Five Dynasties {AKA Ten Kingdoms} (907 to 979 A.D.)
Is a period between the fall of the Tang Dynasty and (907 A.D.) and the founding of the Song Dynasty (960 A.D.), when five would-be dynasties followed one another in quick succession in North China. This period is also known as the Ten Kingdoms because ten regimes dominated areas of South China during the same period.
Song Dynasty (Northern Song 960 to 1127 A.D., Southern Song 1127 to 1279 A.D.)
Is split into Northern Song and Southern Song and was a period when China was experiencing a notable cultural epoch. It was an imperial dynasty that was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who dethroned the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the remaining Ten Kingdoms, ending that era.
Liao Dynasty (907 to 1125 A.D.)
The Liao dynasty, also known as the Khitan Empire, and officially the Great Liao, was an imperial dynasty of China that existed between 907 and 1125 A.D., ruled by the Yelü clan of the Khitan people.
Western Xia Dynasty (1038 to 1227 A.D.)
The Western Xia or the Xi Xia, officially the Great Xia, also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as Mi-nyak to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China that existed from 1038 to 1227 A.D.
Jin (Jurchen) Dynasty (1115 to 1234 A.D.)
Dynasty that ruled an empire formed by the Tungus Juchen (or Jurchen) tribes of Manchuria. The empire covered much of Inner Asia and all of present-day North China.
Yuan Dynasty (1271 to 1368 A.D.)
The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth khagan-emperor of the Mongol Empire from the Borjigin clan, and lasted from 1271 to 1368 A.D.
Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644 A.D.)
The Ming Dynasty ruled China from A.D. 1368 to 1644 A.D., during which China's population would double. Known for its trade expansion to the outside world that established cultural ties with the West, the Ming Dynasty is also remembered for its drama, literature and world-renowned porcelain.
Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1911 A.D.)
Was founded by a northeast Asian people who called themselves Manchus. Their history, language, culture and identity were distinct from the Chinese population, whom they conquered in 1644 when China was weakened by internal rebellions. The Wuchang Uprising in 1911, in modern-day Wuhan, ended the Qing Dynasty, and the dynasty-era in China.
Republic of China (1912 to 1949 A.D.)
Was a sovereign state in Mainland China that was established in 1912 after the Wuchang Uprising (Xinhai Revolution) in 1911. The ROC was ruled by General Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (Nationalists), as a one-party state, which was based in Nanjing from 1927 until they fled to modern-day Taiwan in 1949 after they were defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communists in the Chinese Civil War. The ROC now rules Taiwan, whose official name is the Republic of China with the same traditional flag.
People’s Republic of China (1949 to Present)
On October 1st, 1949, Mao Zedong declared victory over the Nationalists and announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. At the time of this writing, China has the world’s 2nd largest economy in the world ($18 trillion), the 5th largest military in the world (3.2 million personnel), and the world’s 2nd largest population (1.4 billion). China has currently spent about $2.4 trillion in global projects to help boost foreign trade among several nations, much of this as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. And with being a prominent member of the BRICS economic bloc, this all helps to highlight China’s growing prominence in the world, and thus helps people to understand how it has become a land of opportunity for Chinese and foreigners, alike (especially foreigners).
How most of the world sees China
Today, China isn’t such a popular place on the global scale and this is due to many reasons.
The Chinese Communist Party has become more assertive with their territorial claims among their neighbors, including in the South China Sea with their unofficial “nine-dash line,” an unofficial boundary that constitutes territory that China lays claim to, using “ancestral history” to back it up.
COVID-19 is also a big factor which created a mass exodus of foreigners from China in 2020, essentially killing the ESL (English as a Second Language) Industry that hired tens of thousands of English-speaking foreigners as teachers; the Industry has been in recovery mode this past year and continues to recover.
Espionage concerns including spy balloons, Chinese police stations abroad, cyber hacking, farmland purchases, Chinese nationals abroad being paid to steal secrets and other concerns involving countries’ national security and sovereignty.
China is a close ally to Russia and not only has failed to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but has supplied critical parts to Russia in the form of trade, that the Russians have used for weaponry, and thus remains China’s top trading partner, all helping to fuel Putin’s war machine and “special military operation.”
China also has friendly diplomatic relations with North Korea, particularly with respect to trade and tourism, which Western nations condemn.
Human rights concerns in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and other areas under Chinese control have brought the attention of several international entities including the United Nations and other groups.
Detainment, disappearance and imposed exit bans of foreign nationals have also discouraged foreigners from staying in and traveling to China, along with U.S. State Dept. (& other countries) travel warnings.
All of these concerns are for the most part, legitimate concerns. I say for the most part, because although there is truth to every one of them, there is also a great deal of propaganda that has been injected into them by the Western media outlets, in an effort to amplify the current fractured Sino-American relationship to help politicians get elected and re-elected, to sell newspapers and magazines and to boost Nielsen ratings for the news networks who benefit from the narrative that China is an “Evil Empire” that is out to destroy America and her Allies.
How I see China
I see China as a land of opportunity. I will explain why shortly but to learn more about my China story, for now I will just refer you to my “about” page of my website. I’ll also talk about my China life a bit in this article. And I’m currently writing a book about my 8+ years in China and how I went from being a broke, miserable English teacher paying off a mountain of student loan debt, to a thriving world-traveling digital nomad who has been to over 100 countries and who now has financial stability, all thanks to my China life and the opportunities that I’ve been able to take advantage of here. Since living and working in China has given me opportunities that I haven’t been able to take advantage of elsewhere, It’s impossible for me to follow the Western narratives about China the way that most Westerners do, and it breaks my heart just to hear all the Sinophobia that is coming mostly from people whom have never even been to China, and are brainwashed by the Western-propagated media that is, again, geared to help politicians get elected and media outlets improve their ratings. Since most people are simply ignorant of China and Chinese culture, I do my best to be diplomatic and balanced in teaching people what this country is like from my own personal experiences. I mostly highlight the positive aspects, as I should, while also not ignoring the real-world issues revolving around China. And I should say that every foreigner who has visited or lived in China has their own unique China experiences, respectfully.
When I say diplomatic and balanced, what I mean is that I don’t ignore the controversies or tell people to “shut up” when they try and talk to me about a country that I’m more familiar with than they are, but rather, I listen to them, and I respond with what I agree and disagree with without being an asshole. When it comes to China, I talk about the negatives and the positives, but mostly the positives. And since I have spent several years in the city where COVID-19 spawned, it makes it even more difficult to not only talk to people about Wuhan and China, but to defend them as well, but I feel that I do a decent job at it. I will always defend Wuhan because it is the city that changed my life forever, and for the better.
Today, in my opinion, there has never been a better time to live and work in China as an ESL instructor (English teacher), since due to the mass exodus of foreigners that occurred in 2020, and “double reduction” laws that were passed in 2021, China’s ESL Industry is starving for native English speakers who want to teach. Due to supply and demand, schools in China are offering lucrative salaries and benefits to live and work in various Chinese cities. At the time of this writing, teaching salaries are easily ranging between ¥15,000 RMB ($2,085 USD) and ¥35,000 RMB ($4,864 USD) per month. These numbers, when combined with China’s relatively low cost of living and the other contractual benefits that these kinds of jobs offer, one can really save a lot of money if they spend just a year or two teaching in China. Some schools offer free housing, or housing allowances and airfare bonuses for completing contracts, and other perks.
Five opportunities I’ve benefited from in China as a foreigner
Living and working in China as a foreign expat have given me the opportunities to be prosperous, safe, cultured, educated and the opportunity to become a world traveler.
Prosperity
As of this writing, China has over 6 million, dollar-based millionaires (link provided later), second only to the United States. There is a lot of wealth in China.
I went from being a broke, miserable English teacher with a mountain of student loan debt., to a thriving world-traveling digital nomad who has been to over 100 countries. I just completed my second circumnavigation around the earth, as I had left China and flew west to Europe, then to North America and then back to China from the east. The first time I did it was in 2018, on a similar path and also for 3 weeks.
My position in life right now would have never been possible had it not been for opportunities that I’ve had for years in China, where competitive salaries combined with the low cost of living, have given me opportunities to save and invest a great deal of money over the years. I paid off my student loans in 4 years after college.
Many notable and successful digital nomads started off teaching English in Asia, including my own role model, Johnny Ward here.
Safety
China is the safest place that I’ve ever been to, as there is almost no domestic crime.
There are no shootings, no rioters, no burning buildings down to the ground after they’ve been robbed blind. This just doesn’t happen in China.
The Chinese just don’t tolerate crime like we Americans do.
Foreigners have been put in prison for bar fighting in China, and foreigners have been sentenced to death for dealing drugs in China. I won’t provide specific stories. People can do their own research.
I live in a city of 11 million people and I can walk around anywhere, day and night, anytime, and never ever once have to worry about my safety. This is a beautiful feeling and a much-needed relief from the anxiety and the American madness that I was used to in Miami.
Chinese people are more predictable than American people, so this makes my days and my interactions with other people in China more predictable, and less anxious.
Culture
Chinese culture is one of the oldest cultures in the world, as I pointed out in the beginning of this article while elaborating on the dynasties. China’s history dates back as far as 2100 B.C. with evidence of the Xia Dynasty.
With China’s elaborate culture and history comes a number of fascinating tourist attractions; which include the Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Sanxingdui ruins, Yinxu archeological site, the original Yellow Crane Tower and more.
Chinese traditional medicine dates back as far as 3,000 years, and can be traced to the Yin and Shang dynasties. There are hospitals and universities that practice and teach Chinese traditional medicine, often affiliated with each other, as these methods are still used today. Anyone who is involved in any medical field can especially appreciate all this.
Education
China isn’t just another country, it’s another world. There is just no other place like it, and every province and city are unique in their own right. What I’ve been able to learn in China and teach other people about it is invaluable. And I do this with the power and influence of travel media content and with my Outcast Vagabond brand.
Recently, we had our first China Social + Travel Network event in Changsha, with the goals of bringing Chinese and foreign people together and promoting tourism in China. I personally believe that the best way to counter the awful Western-propagated media narratives about China, is by producing and publishing travel media content as a person who understands what China is really like, first-hand. There is strength in numbers and if there are enough influencers who do this, the Western media would eventually have to change what they’re saying about China, from negative to positive. Otherwise, it will affect their ratings and subscriptions; their profits. I also believe that if we can improve Sino-American relations; we can alleviate poverty, make travel more accessible and even create and maintain world peace.
The more foreign people who can live, work, visit and go to school in China and have positive experiences, the more foreign people will spread the word about China in a more positive light, which can have a tremendous impact on our world. And this will also encourage more Chinese people to travel to other countries for similar reasons.
Travel
The following part of this article, after this, will elaborate on my travels and how China relates to it all. But in short, China is a great place for anyone who loves travel. Just about everything in China is less expensive than many other places, most notably the U.S. and Europe (especially northern Europe). I’ve seen accommodations as low as $9 USD/night in Shanghai, one of the largest cities in the world, and this was not a hostel. And train travel is very comfortable, convenient and affordable in China, especially the high-speed rails. A person can literally travel between Beijing and Shanghai in a little over 4 hours for less than $80 USD via high-speed rail.
Aside from the amazing sights that can be found in China’s cities, there is also a great deal of well-known and hidden gems that are located in rural China that many people either don’t know about or just don’t try to visit due to mobile challenges. China is a very big country and it is impossible to explore all the top tourist attractions (& hidden gems) in one lifetime. But the best of the best can all be experienced if done right, and it can be done on a reasonable budget. Almost everything is negotiable in China, and this includes pricing as it relates to tourism. The average foreigner in China typically earns more money than the average Chinese person does, and this gives foreigners in China purchasing power and the upper hand in negotiating prices.
Given the easily accessible and relatively inexpensive travel options, with respect to transportation and accommodation, China is a great place to start for anyone looking to become a world-traveling digital nomad, career-wise, or just for anyone who wants to see more of Asia. There are many flights, trains, buses and ferries traveling within and outside of China from dozens of locations in China.
I mentioned some really cool places to check out earlier, but among my favorite places that I’ve visited in China are the Great Wall, Forbidden City, the Bund in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, Hainan Island, Tian Shan Mountains in Xinjiang, Shenzhen, Dalian, Changsha, Xi’an, Nanjing, Harbin and Chongqing, among others. Places that I would like to see that I haven’t yet explored include the Gansu province, Kunming, the Inner Mongolia province, Chengdu and Tibet, among others.
A summary of my own China story
Here I will discuss the highlights of my 8+ years of living and working in China, without too many details and without too much drama. I will save all the good stuff for my book that I’m currently working on, which I’m still considering an appropriate title for, and am still piecing together. After all, my China life is still a work-in-progress.
2012 to 2013 (Dalian, part I)
I moved to China in 2012 shortly after graduating from the University of Miami with my second Master’s degree. I accepted a position at a school in Dalian as an English teacher, teaching children aged 3 to 12. I had never been a teacher before or had any kind of job like this, but I had a friend from back home who was doing it in Guangzhou, so I was confident that I could do it, too. I found the job shortly before graduation via the Toppel Career Center’s database, the University of Miami career center, which at the time was ranked in the Top 20, Nationwide.
It’s safe to say that I was introduced to China in all the wrong ways. I tried to do sufficient research before embarking on my journey, but second-hand information is never a substitute for first-hand experiences. You learn the most about a place by actually visiting it and living in it, hands-on. My top concern at the time was paying off a mountain of student loan debt that I had acquired from three college diplomas.
After I graduated from the University of Miami in May of 2012, I had a six-month grace period before I had to make my first payment on my student loans. Since I couldn’t speak enough Spanish at that time to land a decent marketing job in Miami, I decided that for the time being any job was a good job. And after consulting with my friend from back home who seemed to be making it all work in Guangzhou, and the fact that I had never been outside of the United States and that I was single with no kids, these were reasons to go ahead and take the job. It just seemed like a good post-graduation move at the time, and I will still young back then.
Getting all of the required documentation to my employer and my agent during the final weeks before Graduation was rough, especially considering that I was working more than one part-time job at the time, prepping for graduation and having to stay up past my bedtime to speak to my employer in China via Skype, due to a 12-hour time difference. But the excitement of it all motivated me to do what I had to.
One thing led to another, and after several steps completed including acquiring my very first passport in Miami, I was on my way to China. I said goodbye to “mi familia de Argentine” in Miami, the people I lived with in Miami from Argentina. Then I said goodbye to my mother and niece at the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans after staying with them for about a month in Mississippi, and off I went venturing into the unknown, into a new world.
I arrived in Dalian, China after a 24-hour layover in Taipei, Taiwan with a brief stop in Los Angeles (LAX) before that. I was exhausted, to say the least. I was met at the Dalian Zhoushuizi International Airport by a couple of staff members from my school. They gave me a ride to my hotel, which is where I stayed for about three days while we looked for an apartment and I met other people at the school. The apartment I moved into had some serious electrical issues, so much so that I had to connect every cord in the place to one single surge protector, creating a serious potential safety hazard.
I taught at Best Learning English for one year, under a 12-month contract, from May 2012 to May 2013. The salary was about ¥10,000 ($1,378) per month, but only if you were teaching enough classes. If you weren’t teaching enough classes, you were always paid less than that. One thing I learned in the first month of being in Dalian was the extra money that people could earn from doing what was called “private work,” or private teaching and tutoring. And this constituted anything from sitting with a business professional with a laptop at Starbucks for an hour or two, to having private classes in rich people’s homes in the evenings with books and a dry-erase board. Almost everyone I knew in Dalian, the foreign teachers, were doing some kind of “private work” like this. Our schools forbade it, but people did it anyways because the money was decent, as one could earn between ¥150 RMB ($21 USD) and ¥300 ($42 USD) or more an hour for this kind of work. It was a great way to supplement your income and some people even did this full-time, without working for a school. There were all kinds of “cowboy schools” that were operating illegally that would hire foreign teachers and pay them under-the-table. People would literally turn their apartments into makeshift education centers without being licensed to do so. I also worked as a conference coordinator, part-time, for a year while I was teaching full-time at Best Learning.
As I mentioned earlier, I was introduced to China in all the wrong ways. When I arrived in Dalian in the summer of 2012, I started discovering some awful truths. First, my school, Best Learning, had to invite me over (invitation letter) from another school down the road because come to find out, my school wasn’t legally allowed to hire foreigners at the time. Second, I quickly learned that I was the only teacher at my school with a legal working Z visa, as all the other teachers were teaching illegally with L (tourist) visas. This broke my heart because I had spent over a whopping $3,500 USD to get all the necessary documents, and along with travel expenses, to come teach for Best Learning legally with a Z visa (becomes a residence permit after 30 days). And I wasn’t getting paid as much as other teachers, because I wasn’t teaching as many classes, being a new teacher and all. I was also one of the only teachers at the school with a valid (& required) TEFL/TESOL certificate. Most other teachers, to my knowledge, had fake ones made with the help of the school admins. A bachelor’s degree (in any field) was also required, and I know at least one other teacher didn’t have one. One teacher was a documented criminal, which I learned by doing a background check years later.
I wasn’t exactly sure what some of these other teachers were doing outside of the school, but I was confident that they weren’t model expats. I did know where they spent their time Sundays and Mondays (Mondays & Tuesdays were off days) and some people had no problem at all talking about their crimes publicly, in front of others. I went out to these expat venues the first two weeks I was in Dalian, and after that I’d had enough. I met several questionable characters. I met some great people, too. But getting a crash course in China’s then corrupt ESL Industry in such a short time was all frightening to me. I was witnessing stuff that I didn’t want to see, and hearing stories that I didn’t want to hear. And to be honest, I wanted to leave China within the first month of being there, but considering what I had spent to get to China and how much I owed with student loan debt, I just had to find a way to make it all work. There was no going back to the USA anytime soon. I was given a bunch of lemons in the beginning of my China life, but toward the end, I was making lemonade with those lemons and soon I’ll explain more about how I did this.
There was a fat couple from Miami who were married and teaching at Best Learning when I arrived, a man and a woman. I found out from doing a background check sometime in 2015 that the woman had been arrested for cocaine possession and theft back in Miami. And I wish I had learned this the first week I was in Dalian, rather than later in Wuhan. Had I known this the first week, I could have just mentioned it to both of them and they would have shown me some respect. She was also illiterate as I learned this from sitting in her classes with her students, for training purposes, and I would watch her frequently misspell words on the board while “teaching.” She would miss work all the time due to laziness or being hung over, about every fourth day, and sometimes multiple days, and she would exaggerate her health issues so that the Chinese staff at the school would feel sorry for her and the boss would excuse her absences. Other teachers had to cover her classes for her frequently. And she complained and gossiped, along with her husband, like they were back in Miami which helped to create a toxic work environment for everyone at the school. The guy was also lazy and wasn’t very active with his students, and they eventually fired him, and he has had dozens of teaching jobs since being in Dalian because he can’t hold a job. Both of them were trouble makers, they both loved to double-up on people and make them feel uncomfortable, to show off in front of each other, as it made them feel empowered. They would defame people while they were out at the bars with their gossip and their lies. They were very critical of other people and quick to point out others’ flaws, without looking at themselves in the mirror. They’ve also been known to steal items from public places and they had awful attitudes toward Chinese people, even using racial slurs. We’ve all heard the expression, “misery loves company.” Since I had just moved from Miami, I was familiar with the culture in Miami and I understood these people very well. However, the Chinese staff at the school did not as they were basically ignorant of American culture and couldn’t see what myself and other Americans could see. The woman was treated like gold by the boss (headmaster) and other Chinese staff because she had been one of the first teachers to arrive at the school when it opened, and she was “teaching” a lot of classes. She had the Chinese staff wrapped around her finger and she used this to brainwash and manipulate them into believing what she said about others, and they would also excuse all the rules that she was breaking at the school. I know she didn’t have a required bachelor’s degree and it’s doubtful she even had a high school diploma, maybe a GED (general education diploma), but the school managed to produce the required bachelor’s diploma for her. Her and her husband both tried, but failed, to get me fired because we didn’t get along. But they did succeed in ruining my reputation among the Dalian expat community, including the other foreign teachers at Best Learning. This is because the woman somehow saw me as a threat to her, because the boss liked my initial marketing ideas when I first arrived, which were geared to attract new students, and started having all the teachers use them during the demo classes. I guess the woman felt that I was going to ruin her hustle and take away her status as everyone’s favorite foreign teacher, somehow, so that’s when she started giving me trouble, even complaining about me showing up early to work. Her husband followed suit with this malicious behavior. I tried to explain to the boss what was going on but it did no good.
They had turned the boss against me and after the boss threatened me, I threatened the boss back and she backed off and allowed me to finish my one-year contract and collect my contract-completion bonus, which was ¥10,000 RMB ($1,378 USD) and I really needed that money at the time. I didn’t like threatening the boss. It was a very risky move on my part, but I felt that it was necessary and that I had no choice. I really needed that job. These people are colloquially known as the “fat couple from Miami” in Dalian, everyone knows who they are and they have an awful reputation. The Dalian authorities have had their eyes on these people for years, and the boss of the school has been aware of their reputation and the woman’s criminal past (& criminal present) for a long time. If you move to or visit Dalian, stay away from these people and their friends. They will teach you how to get deported from China or imprisoned in China. They are on their way to getting deported from China or going to prison in China themselves. You can’t miss them because they are so fat and everyone knows who they are.
These people ruined my reputation with the Dalian expat community, before I could even establish one myself. They just have no morals, and they do whatever they want because they can. And they just can’t keep their noses out of other people’s business.
I recently visited Dalian for a weekend getaway to see an old friend of mine, and we had a great freakin’ time on Friday and Saturday night. I hadn’t been to Dalian since 2016. But Saturday, during the day, I ran into the “fat couple from Miami” and I approached them with a smile and with respect, thinking that what was in the past was “water under the bridge,” as I hadn’t seen or spoke to them since 2014. I was shocked when the woman immediately accused me of doing something that I didn’t do, but I wasn’t surprised when she hurled an insult at me that was so disgusting that I’ve chosen not to repeat it here. I guess some people and some things just never change.
I can’t explain how painful and dramatic of a shift it was to go from south Florida attending the University of Miami, a top-tier university, having classes and working jobs with some of the best and brightest people in world, to living around and working with these bottom-of-the barrel kind of people in China, some who needed an English teacher themselves. It just wasn’t something that I was prepared for, as it really was impossible to get ready for it.
Best Learning English in Dalian has since shut down, but the same administrators and investors simply just rebranded and opened a new school with a new name. Out of respect for my friend who is still affiliated with them, I will not mention the name of the new school. I don’t know if they’ve cleaned up their act and are now following the law (or not), but I do know that the “fat couple from Miami” are both still affiliated with the new school, so this isn’t a good sign, but a sign that the school is indeed very desperate for teachers.
I could have taken revenge on these people years ago; the school administrators and their sketchy “teachers,” especially after I did the background checks and consulted with former teachers (foreign & Chinese) of the school. And also, with reading reviews about the school online. But because I’m not like them, I’ve opted to take the high road and leave them to their own demise. After all, Best Learning English in Dalian eventually did shut down and is no longer there in Dalian.
I wish them all nothing but the best, I truly do.
The year I taught for Best Learning English in Dalian, I didn’t miss one single class, nor was I ever even late for one. And there was only one day of work I missed, but there were no classes that day, as it coincided with May Day holiday. During this time, I traveled to the Philippines for the first time, for 3 days so see my then girlfriend.
Even though Xi Jinping has cracked down on a lot of China’s ESL Industry corruption, and the COVID purge got rid of most of the foreigners who used to live in China, every major Chinese city still has people like the “fat couple from Miami,” foreigners who have been in China for too long and are still feeding off the same corruption that has supported them from the beginning. Unskilled and uneducated people with criminal pasts whom have found refuge and a hustle that works for them, will do whatever they can to keep it, because what they have is as good as it will get for them in life. They know how to buck the system and evade the law, with the help of their sketchy Chinese employers (& friends) that just want to use them as marketing ploys to bring in more students and make more money. Many employers are well aware of their criminal past and criminal present, but as long as they help turn a profit for the schools and their investors, who cares, right? And many employers enjoy having foreigners who are criminals because then they have leverage over them and can control them. On the same token, the foreign criminals working for these schools also have leverage over their employers who are breaking the law. So basically, two criminal entities are helping each other to benefit from each other, by breaking the law together.
Back in these days, it was common for recruiters to collaborate with Chinese employers at these English training schools, and specifically find people whom they deemed lowlife, bottom-of-the-barrel kind of people. These recruiters and employers were smart enough to do background checks on people themselves, they knew how to acquire information about candidates and they knew how to create whatever fake documents they needed to make them appear as legitimate foreign English teachers. By hiring people like what I’ve described, they could control them and they could earn their loyalty by making them feel that they’re worth something, by giving them some kind of “promotion” or other praise after they’d been “teaching” at the schools for so long. They would give them “pay raises” but then “tax” their salaries even more, which basically meant that the employers were just taking back the extra pay with what they were giving their teachers after “promoting” them. With this kind of control and loyalty, these foreign teachers would have no problem doing whatever these employers wanted them to do, including telling lies to the parents that involved the children, or even lying to the authorities during interrogations, or teaching classes out-of-residence for other affiliated schools. This was all part of a popular and common practice that was known to be what was called “putting profits over pupils,” or focusing on bottom-line revenue over the quality of education, and safety and well-being of the students at the schools. There were many other sketchy ESL Industry tactics that I won’t mention until I write my book. Fortunately, Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have since put a stop to much of these practices.
Xi Jinping came into power in 2012, shortly after I had arrived, and he became President with the promise to clean up China’s corruption while he touted the “Chinese Dream” and his Belt and Road Initiative. His elaborate agenda included cleaning up the then ever-so-corrupt ESL Industry. Many schools at that time were breaking the law in so many ways, and foreigners at that time were not even required to do background checks to acquire any kind of visa for China. Needless to say, given the very flexible process of living and working in China as a foreign English teacher, basically anyone, and I mean anyone, could come to China to teach. This made the then ESL Industry in China a vacuum for many different varieties of malicious kinds of people. And though COVID-19 purged many of these people and sent them home, some of them have returned and some have even remained in China throughout the entire Pandemic. Many have been deported or imprisoned.
Dalian is a beautiful coastal city, but because it’s a popular place, it attracts many different kinds of foreigners and this includes many bad apples. Dalian taught me that it’s not the Chinese people you have to worry about in China so much, but the foreigners are the ones you really need to watch out for.
The first year I was in Dalian and China, I was able to earn about $53,000 USD (after taxes), and this included investment income. I kept an excel spreadsheet with details of all my earnings. This may not be a lot of money to a lot of people, but to a post-college graduate with a mountain of student loan debt, it was a true blessing and something I really needed. I studied marketing in college and I’ve always been an exceptional salesperson, as I’ve worked a lot of sales jobs, and these skills came in handy when I needed to market myself to Chinese people and their kids who wanted to learn American English, and acquire more knowledge about life in the United States, where many Chinese people aspire to live, work and go to school, or send their kids to.
2013 to 2014 (Dalian, part II)
After my first year in Dalian, I then signed a new 12-month contract with another English training school in town but this one was for adults. It was called, New Dynamic Institute, or NDI. The main difference between Best Learning and NDI, aside from the age of the students, was the people I worked with. Best Learning was made up of all Americans, with one American-Australian dual citizen. But NDI had no other Americans, but rather two Brits, one Australian, one Mexican and one teacher from Senegal. This did make a difference in my experience there, and as any American who knows what it’s like to be around non-Americans, you catch a lot of heat and are expected to answer for American politics and American social issues. Not to mention, people who have never really been to the United States or who don’t really know too many American people, tend to have a lot of preconceived prejudice toward American people. This ignorance leads to some really annoying attitudes. And it’s the same with people whom have never really been to the China, and their attitudes.
The pay at NDI was around ¥9,000 RMB ($1,245 USD) per month compared to the roughly ¥10,000 RMB ($1,383 USD) per month at Best Learning. And this is why most foreign English teachers would do “private work” or had some kind of side hustle, so that they could make up for the low salaries in Dalian. The environment at NDI was also toxic to say the least, similar to Best Learning, as it just seemed like the people who worked there had poor attitudes, sob stories and drama in their lives that made them difficult people to be around. I know for a fact that one of the teachers there was working there illegally, as was told to me by the head foreign teacher and Chinese academic manager.
It’s no secret that alcoholism, drug abuse and criminality are pretty common with the foreign people who work in China’s ESL Industry, at least it was a problem back then. One disadvantage that I had working at Best Learning and NDI was that I didn’t drink back then. In fact, I didn’t drink from 2007 to 2018. So, this really put a hamper on my social life in Dalian. Back then it was difficult to find foreign people in Dalian who didn’t go to the bars. People saw me as snobby and antisocial with respect to this. But boozing just wasn’t my thing back then, as I had to pay off my mountain of student loan debt, and I was making some real progress toward this the first two years in Dalian. I was all about priorities and progress.
Though I was earning some decent money with everything I was doing in Dalian, I neglected my social life and this really took a toll on me mentally and physically. But I was willing to accept this toll, just as long as I was making money and paying off my student loans. I invested what was disposable income. And when you consider the relatively low cost of living combined with what I was earning, it’s not just a matter of what I was making, financially, but more so what I was saving, financially.
I resigned from NDI after 8 months of teaching there, due to differences that I had with management and some of the other teachers. But the main reason was the animosity toward American people from the other foreign teachers. I then spent the next three months working at another English training school for adults called, Web English, which was in the same mall as NDI was. The same day I left NDI, I walked over to WEB and after a brief conversation with the HR Manager, I was hired.
I only spent 3 months at WEB English and then I felt that I really needed to get out of Dalian. I had spent two years in that city without traveling anywhere internationally except for a 3-day trip to the Philippines during the 2013 May Day holiday to see my then girlfriend and to meet her family. I hadn’t been home to the States in two years, and I was really homesick and in need of a serious break. The first two years I spent in Dalian were promising, from a financial perspective, but were depressing from an emotional perspective, and things didn’t get any better when I moved to Wuhan after I accepted a new teaching position at another English training school called, RISE (Riverdeep Immersion Subject English) in the summer of 2014.
It’s important to note that in mid-2013, in a restaurant in Dalian, I was inspired when I read my first article about a digital nomad named, Johnny Ward This was the article and the moment where my digital nomad aspirations really came to life. But honestly, my late mother was the greatest contributing factor to my world-travel aspirations; a story for another time.
I refer to my first two years in Dalian as the “Dark Days of Dalian.”
2014 to 2016 (Wuhan, part I)
I arrived in Wuhan in the summer of 2014 after returning from the States, which I hadn’t been to in two years since I left in 2012. I had never been to Wuhan before but RISE school was offering me a better package than my previous jobs in Dalian. They offered a substantially higher salary and also paid for my apartment. And one of the best perks of the job was that there were multiple RISE schools around Wuhan, and each school had its own foreign teacher. This was a huge break for me; it was a notable change that I was looking forward to; a new city, a new school, a new beginning. Another key difference that I should note is that RISE was very exclusive, as they only hired American teachers to teach American curriculum, and this made the school very popular and very expensive, which enabled the school to pay the American teachers a higher competitive salary along with providing us a free apartment. Again, it’s not what you earn, so much, but what you save.
But not long after I arrived in Wuhan, the hangover from Dalian began to kick in. I started to experience a kind of trauma that I had never experienced before. It was the beginning of a two-year depressive phase that I thought would never end. It took every bit of discipline, self-control, diligence and toughness that I had to maximize my time and my profits in Dalian, but while I made my money, I was also losing myself.
I never talk to my family, as I’ve always basically been the black sheep of it. They are just a highly dysfunctional bunch that I don’t want any part of. And I take pride in being independent, being my own person and having a strong sense of individuality.
But when my mother died, it was something that hit me hard.
About three months after I had arrived in Wuhan my mother passed away, and not too long after that my girlfriend of 3 years broke up with me. It was just one blow after another that kept knocking me down. And though I was making progress toward paying off my student loans, and putting money back toward investments, every day was a challenge for me. I struggled just to get up out of bed in the mornings. I was taking prescribed meds to help me sleep at night due to my anxiety. But I knew that I couldn’t quit, because I did have a great job and I was making money and saving money like I never had before. So, I was willing to do whatever it took to make it all work. I had already come this far and I wasn’t about to give up now. One thing I hate more than anything else is quitting, I hate the feeling that comes with it. China was my life, and though I was going through hell, I was making some real progress and that’s what mattered most to me.
After I completed my 12-month contract with RISE, I renewed it for another year. I managed to make a few friends the first couple of years in Wuhan, but I still didn’t drink, as I had quit drinking in 2007, and smoking that same year. That very critical, life-changing decision I made back in 2007 contributed a great deal to my long-term, overall financial and personal health, as I was able to save and invest more money. But again, at the same time, my social life took a hit and I had to forgo many potential great friendships and lifelong memories that I could have made over the years. After all, alcohol is a social lubricant. But life is all about making difficult decisions and compromising with hard sacrifices to have a better future.
I joined a gym in the Jinkai Wanda Plaza where I lived and I’d go there almost daily. The way that my work schedule was setup, like other English-training schools, I would work from 2pm to 9pm Wednesdays through Fridays, and then 8am to 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays. I’d have Mondays and Tuesdays off. Saturdays and Sundays are the busiest days for English-training schools because that’s when most of the parents are off work and the kids are out of school at their primary schools. So, on these days the marketing teams are in full gear trying to get more parents of prospective students to sign up for classes, and also getting parents of current students to renew tuition.
2014 to 2016 were two of the most brutal years of my life, as I was dealing with post-traumatic stress from the non-stop, constant grind of the two previous years in Dalian, along with personal issues involving my family and my relationships. But at the same time, I was making decent money and since my apartment was covered by my employer and just about everything else was cheap in China, I was able to earn and save a great deal of money that I put pack toward investments.
I also created Dragonfire Recruiting in early 2016 during Chinese Spring Festival and I visited 8 different Chinese cities in an effort to find schools to recruit for, and teachers to recruit for those schools. I still recruit English teachers with my business partner, my own recruiter, but I changed the Dragonfire Recruitng Facebook Page to the China Social + Travel Network Page.
The next phase of my China life would be a life-changing one, for the better.
2016 to 2019 (Wuhan, part II)
During this time my life changed dramatically, forever and for the better, and it began to change in late 2016 when I finally paid off my student loans, after 4 years of making non-stop payments, and I decided to book a Christmas trip to Jakarta, Indonesia to meet with a girl whom I’d met online via a dating site.
Now that my student loans were taken care of and were no longer a burden, I figured I’d spend more money on other things. In late 2016, I was finally overcoming two years of miserable, post-traumatic stress. I’d like to think that because I didn’t give up on my life in China, my persistence and perseverance were being rewarded. Not to mention, my business education and sales experience helped me a great deal. And finally paying off my student loans, along with my anticipated upcoming Jakarta trip, helped to alleviate a lot of my internal issues, as it all gave me hope. I was looking forward to better days and I had no intentions of leaving China anytime soon. In fact, before all this, after my second one-year contract had expired a few months earlier during the summer of 2016, I had negotiated a 3-year contract extension with RISE HR at the Wuhan flagship center in Hankou. They gave me more responsibilities that involved marketing, recruiting and event planning, along with my regular teaching duties. They even gave me a small pay raise. I was grateful for all this. I had negotiated the 3-year contract extension because I was getting closer to paying off my student loans and I had anticipated a much better year ahead with 2017.
One more thing, and not to get political, but newly-elected President Trump was looking very good for the financial markets, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 126 records during his Administration, so being an investor during this time was a great thing: click here.
The combination of my 3-year contract extension with RISE, a healthy investment portfolio, and aspirations to become a world-traveling digital nomad, by late 2016, China had become my legitimate land of opportunity that was showing increasing signs of a bright future that offered freedom, prosperity and adventure ahead.
This all didn’t really sink in entirely until toward the end of my Christmas trip to Jakarta, while I was at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, awaiting my flight back to Wuhan. As I sat there reflecting upon my wonderful 10 days that I had just spent with my new friend and her family, celebrating Christmas, my birthday, and the New Year with fireworks in my 5th country traveled, I realized my calling in life. I knew in my heart that I was going to become a world-traveling digital nomad, and that this was the beginning of a dream life come true, with special thanks to China and also that article that I had read in mid-2013 about an Irish traveler named, Johnny Ward, and of course my late mother.
When I returned to Wuhan, I wasted little time creating my Outcast Vagabond Facebook Page, and I was already exploring hosts to create my website with. Later I built my own website for Outcast Vagabond using Wix as a host.
I was excited about all of this and needless to say, my two-year, post-traumatic living nightmare was over. This was another new beginning for me.
All of my hard work and sacrifices had finally paid off, and there was no going back.
I was going full-speed ahead with my world-travel ambitions.
Shortly after my Jakarta trip, for Spring Festival in 2017, which was mid-January, I took a two-week trip to the States and visited multiple cities. I was able to catch up with old friends and make some new ones. The highlight of this trip was being able to see and explore New York City for the very first time. This was a wonderful trip that I dubbed, “America in Two Weeks,” and was second to my “Christmas in Jakarta” trip that I documented as a traveler with travel media content as projects, my first two real digital nomad types of trips that made me very hungry for much more.
In 2017 I started learning about various travel conferences that I may have wanted to attend around the world, and I was subscribing to different popular travel blogs from other digital nomads who had made a full-time career out of being world-traveling digital nomads, and who understood the “business of blogging.”
2017’s travel itinerary included trips to Boracay and Manila, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau. I spent Christmas in Sydney and my birthday, which was two days later, in Auckland, then I enjoyed the extravagant, world-famous 10-minute New Years’ fireworks show back at Sydney Harbour with friends.
I continued to learn more about digital nomad lifestyles from others with educational resources online. I was basically a teacher and a student during these days. I was teaching at my school and learning at home and in coffee shops around Wuhan. I had quit “private work” altogether by the end of 2016, because I didn’t need to do it anymore. I was networking with other people and trying to make more like-minded friends both online and around China.
2017 was a very productive year for me, and I felt like a brand-new person pursuing this digital nomad dream and preparing for my future of a life of eventual full-time travel.
By the end of 2017, I had then traveled to about 15 countries.
In early 2018, during Chinese Spring Festival, I embarked on my very first trip to Europe. In 14 days, I traveled to 8 different European countries (including Vatican City) and even though the February weather made it nasty, everything else about the trip compensated for that. I visited London, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rome and Vatican City. This was probably the best two weeks of my entire life. There is just nothing like a first-time visit to Europe. I dubbed this trip, “Europe in Two Weeks,” as I created a great deal of travel media content about it, and touted it as my first European project as a world-traveling digital nomad.
In 2018 I traveled quite a bit. I had negotiated an arrangement with my boss (headmaster) at my school that if I could have 4 days off the last week of every month to travel, then I’d be willing to work one of my days off each week, the first two weeks of every month. So, I started coming in to work on the first two Tuesdays of every month, and then I’d be rewarded with the Wednesdays and Thursdays off the fourth week. In other words, the fourth weeks I’d have Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays off, which gave me ample time to travel internationally to a new country in Asia every month. This was a sweet arrangement, as it helped me cover a lot of new ground and get closer to my ultimate goal of traveling to every country in the world. And it was also further confirmation that almost everything in China is negotiable.
During that summer, I attended my first travel conference in the Czech Republic on a one-month vacation that was my first circumnavigation around the world. I started in Wuhan, traveled west to Doha, my 22nd Country, Prague (#23), Ostrava, Dublin (#24), Malta (#25), Lisbon (#26), Miami, Atlanta, NYC, San Francisco and then back to Wuhan from the east. I’m not going to try and explain the jetlag and fatigue that I felt when I returned to work, I’ll leave that up to your imagination. But this was a new travel goal that I’d accomplished.
I visited several other Asian nations between that summer and Christmas, and I also decided to travel to Dubai (Christmas) (32), Nairobi (birthday) (33) and then Cape Town (34) to ring in the New Year. My first trips to Dubai and Africa were amazing and memorable.
By the end of 2018, I had traveled to over 30 countries.
In January of 2019 I flew from Cape Town direct, non-stop to Hong Kong, then back to Wuhan. I had some visa-related issues at the time but I was able to get them all settled with the help of my friend and former RISE HR Manager, who now works at the U.S. Consulate General in Wuhan (a great friend to have).
My 3-year teaching contract with RISE was set to expire in July of 2019, and I was undecided about what to do after that. I had options, but I was leaning toward taking the leap toward full-time digital nomadism. I mean, I had everything working in my favor, I had the money and I was earning money with my investment income. And I was meeting other like-minded people online, at my travel destinations and with the travel conference that I had attended in the Czech Republic.
Not to mention, I was publishing content weekly on my Facebook Business Page and my website. I was working hard on monetizing my blog and I was getting more and more followers all the time. I also had my YouTube channel that I created in 2017 that seemed to be stagnant for the longest time, mostly because I feel that I wasn’t investing enough time into it. When it comes to social media platforms, I’ve always tried to be a “jack of all trades” rather than focusing on just one or two of them. I created my Instagram account while I was in Bangkok back in 2017, and my X (formerly Twitter) account during that same time. Nowadays, I have ongoing paid ads on my Facebook Business Page and YouTube channel which helps to earn more followers on those platforms every month. And every follower is a potential customer. I’m working on improving my shops and ad placements on Facebook and YouTube so that these accounts will reach more traffic and become more profitable.
July of 2019 finally rolled around and it took me a week to pack 5-years-worth of belongings in my apartment that I had accumulated throughout my travels and my time in China. But before I left China and headed back to the States, I wanted to get one last bit of Asia travel in. So, I booked a two-week trip to the Fiji Islands, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. These were countries 42, 43 and 44, respectfully. It wasn’t long after I returned from these trips that I moved out of my apartment and flew back to the States for two months.
When I arrived in Jacksonville, Florida I had met my old Army friend who was from southern Georgia, and he had agreed to help me drop my stuff off at a storage facility in Lucedale, Mississippi where I had an occupied storage rental. I’d had this storage unit since I dropped my stuff off there in 2012 shortly after graduating from the University of Miami, since my late mother had lived nearby with my stepdad.
This is when I began my road trip journeys. I started my Heritage: A Travel Campaign road trip project that is a sub-project to my greater Road Trippin’ USA: A Travel Adventure Series project. I had rented a vehicle from a Nissan dealership in Tifton, Georgia where my friend was from, and spent two months on the road exploring my own American heritage; 10 Southern states and 15 Western states. I drove a good 35,000+ miles in a Nissan Sentra, spending most nights at Love’s Travel Stops and getting free showers with my Army friend’s Love’s card, because he is an over-the-road truck driver. During this time, I visited American Revolution and Civil War battlefields, museums, Native American reservations and other places of historical significance. And I captured it all on film. I also attended a travel conference in Montana and gathered the necessary documentation for a new job in Beijing, working for RISE again at one of their schools there (associated with the HQ).
I returned to China (Beijing) in October of 2019, moved into an apartment and was back at it as an English teacher for RISE. My contract didn’t technically begin until January 1st, 2020, so I began teaching while on a probationary period. However, in late December before my probationary period expired, I notified RISE HR and informed them that I would not be starting my contract on January 1st. I decided that after 7 years in China, it was time to move on. I picked up my new passport at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in mid-January, packed my stuff and moved to the Philippines in the Cavite province, south of Metro Manila, in a studio apartment that my girlfriend’s family had helped me to secure. A week after I arrived in the Philippines, which was the third week of January, I noticed an article online about a “mysterious Wuhan virus.” I left China at the right time.
I will note that during this short two-month stint in Beijing, I did visit the Xinjiang province for the first time, which was amazing with the Tian Shan Mountains and ethnic Uyghur culture. I was able to visit Wuhan a couple of times to catch up with old friends there and I visited Santorini Island (Greece) for Christmas, which was my 45th country visited. I also was able to catch up with an old friend and former student of mine from Dalian, a Korean-Chinese girl, who was living with her boyfriend in Beijing. And I made a couple of different trips to Macau to see my girlfriend.
2020 to 2023 (Full-time digital Nomadism)
A new beginning & COVID-19
During this time, I did some serious traveling and focused on managing Outcast Vagabond, full-time, creating customized marketing campaigns for various clients and offering free travel consulting. I also began teaching online, part-time. 7 years of living and working in China enabled me to earn, save and invest a great deal of money and since this is the number 1 thing a person needs to travel, it was no longer a preventive factor. I attended numerous travel conferences where I learned new digital nomad skills and networked with other like-minded people who had similar lifestyles and goals. I was grateful to be finally living my dream that I had worked so many years to achieve; from my late mother’s travel magazines that I was exposed to growing up, and the first article I had read about Johnny Ward back in mid-2013 up until I moved to the Philippines in early 2020, it was actually happening. There was no more part-time travel; I was no longer stuck in China teaching English full-time; those days were long gone. But again, I was teaching English online, part-time.
Shortly after I had moved into my new apartment in the Philippines, I was on my way to New York City on a 17.5-hour (non-stop) flight to attend the very last New York Times Travel Show, where I connected with some old friends, made new ones, learned about different destinations, and learned some new skills while I soaked up my 2nd visit to NYC. During this conference I was able to meet some notable travel influencers and digital nomads, including Matt Kepnes (Nomadic Matt) and Dave & Deb from The Planet D I listened to John DiScala (Johnny Jet) and Pauline Frommer speak. After that conference I flew to the Caribbean and visited the Bahamas (46), Jamaica (47) and the Dominican Republic (48). I then flew back to NYC and then back to Manila on another 17.5-hour (non-stop) flight.
I was back in the Philippines for about two weeks and then on March 1st I flew from Manila to Istanbul (non-stop) for my first visit to Turkey (49). I was in Istanbul for a few days and attended an InterNations event there, then took a train to Sofia, Bulgaria (50). I was in Sofia for a few days and the COVID drama was heating up. I canceled an InterNations event in Sofia due to these concerns. The greater purpose of this Europe trip was to end up in Catania, Italy for a travel conference. It was looking more like that wasn’t going to happen. Though countries began closing their borders, I decided to be daring and go ahead and take a shuttle bus to Skopje, North Macedonia (51). The border officials gave me trouble because I was American and Trump had recently banned Europeans from traveling to the States, but they went ahead and let me through (after a serious lecture). I was in Skopje no more than two days and then I knew I had to get back to Manila before I got trapped in Europe. I managed to book a flight from Skopje to Manila, with a short layover in Istanbul. Two days after I arrived in Manila, the Philippine government locked the city down.
I spent two weeks at the D&A Transient Inn (where I have a studio unit now) in Taguig and then I was able to find a ride to the RedDoorz hotel in San Juan. Here I met an Australian father/son duo, a lady from India, a guy from Bangladesh and Miss Choo, the Filipina manager. I was able to negotiate with the owner a discounted price of $20 USD/day, since I knew I’d be there long-term. We all became friends with each other, as we were all facing a similar uncertainty with the COVID lockdown situation that we were in. I was closer with the Australians than the others. We’d drink beer together often, even after the liquor ban was imposed, because we bought it black market at that time. I’d walk with the dad almost every day to the local supermarket to buy food. The Australians were the first to leave on a government-chartered flight to Sydney, then the guy from Bangladesh and then the lady from India. I was the last one to leave on July 1st, and I almost missed my flight due to not being able to get a ride to the Airport. The immigration officer hit me with an enormous fee violation of overstaying my visa, even though I wasn’t able to leave due to the lockdown. I thought this was B.S. but what could I do other than pay it and complain? I flew from Manila to Los Angeles (LAX), and then to Miami.
Road trippin’ USA: A travel adventure series
After a few days in Miami, I rented a car and decided to continue to work on my Road Trippin’ USA project, since traveling anywhere internationally, other than Mexico, was basically out of the question. So, I opted to explore more of my own country via the open roads. I was already working on my Heritage project that I had started the previous summer, which involved two months of American road trips. From July of 2020 I spent 3 months on the American roads touring some of America’s most notable road-trip routes; including the Pacific Coast Highway, the Appalachian Trail (road), Atlantic Coast, Southern Pacific and others. You can read my Brainz article about American road trips called, “Road Trippin’ USA-Tips for Trips.”
From 2019 to 2023, I’ve taken numerous road trips around America and can now say that I’ve driven through all 48 Contiguous States with Hawaii and Alaska still on my list. Road Trippin’ USA is an ongoing project, along with its sub-project, Heritage, both which I’m still putting together and contributing to with newer trips all the time.
I’ve road tripped through several other countries in cars, trucks, vans, buggies and scooters. These countries include Mexico (Yucatán), Thailand (Phuket), Laos, Greece (Santorini), Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Moldova, Ukraine, Philippines, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Saint Vincent & The Grenadines and Antigua & Barbuda, Sri Lanka, India, Uganda and the Seychelles. I’m planning Road Trippin’ Canada and Road Trippin’ China projects for the future.
Christmas in a new country every year
My first international trip after my 2020 American road trippin’ adventures was a Christmas trip to Rio de Janiero, Brazil, my 52nd country traveled. COVID restrictions were still a concern, but Brazil was pretty lenient about it all. In fact, they didn’t even require a COVID test. I spent about 10 days in Rio exploring the city’s most notable tourist attractions and enjoying every second of Copacabana Beach, and other beaches. I loved the Christ the Redeemer statue, Sugarloaf Mountain and my self-guided walking tours of Rio’s streets. This was an amazing experience. And the Brazilian steak that I indulged on daily was so freakin’ good.
And since 2015, I have spent Christmas, my birthday (Dec. 27th) and New Year in a different country every year. It’s become a personal holiday travel tradition for me. In 2015 I was in Harbin, China; 2016 in Jakarta, Indonesia; 2017 in Syndey, Australia (birthday in Auckland); 2018 in Dubai (New Year in Cape Town); 2019 in Santorini; 2020 in Rio de Janiero; 2021 in Buenos Aires; 2022 in Palau; 2023 in Nepal and I’m planning my 2024 trip now. I never announce where I’m going until I go. I like to surprise people, and on December 1st every year I play a guessing game on Facebook. This is one technique I use to keep my followers engaged with what I’m doing.
Mexico, Latin America and Europe
After I voted in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections on November 4th, I flew to Mexico on November 5th and booked a cheap OYO hotel in Playa del Carmen that was run by a Mexican family who also lived there. Since the Philippines was still closed due to COVID policy, Mexico seemed to be the next best inexpensive option for me. Two of the family members, the stepfather and a daughter, were municipal police officers which made me feel safer. But Playa del Carmen wasn’t that dangerous at all, at least for me. Nonetheless, I didn’t have the best experiences there due to an awful dentist, corrupt Mexican municipal police and shady vendors that were trying to rip me off all the time. I also couldn’t sleep in the room that I was staying in at the OYO hotel because of all the noise outside and being in a room with no soundproof.
With that said, I did have some good times with my Yucatán road trip experiences thanks to Mex Rent-A-Car and their insanely low deposits and rates. Seeing Chichén Itzá and some of Mexico’s most notable beaches were amazing. I also miss Tequila Barrel and those wild nights with the dancing girls and sporting events. Not to mention, the girls I met that came back home with me at night are very memorable. There were ups and downs to living in Playa del Carmen, but overall, I’d say it was a less-than-stellar experience. And I believe I personally feel this way because comparing Mexico to all of the other places that I’ve visited and lived in, I’m convinced that it is one of the worst places for an American tourist expat, for my own reasons and for other reasons that I won’t elaborate on right now. From now on, I’ll only visit Mexico for no more than a week at a time, and I’ll continue to go to the Cancún Dental Specialists to get dental check-ups when I’m in that part of the world.
The year I spent in Mexico, I also did a lot of international travel. So, I guess I was really in Mexico part-time in 2021. The most notable highlights of this year’s travels came in the spring when I flew from Cancún to Istanbul, and then to Minsk, Belarus (#55), where I spent 10 days. I enjoyed the Minsk nightlife. Then I flew to Yerevan, Armenia (#56) for a few days and coincidentally I was there during the Armenian Genocide Memorial Day, and I walked an hour from my hotel to the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex and laid flowers down with the Armenians who were also there. What an experience that was!! Then I flew to Tbilisi, Georgia (#57) for a few days, then to Tirana, Albania (#58) via Istanbul. After about 4 days in Tirana I flew to Pristina, Kosovo (#59) and stayed at a guesthouse there. In Pristina I was able to walk down Bill Clinton Boulevard and saw the Bill Clinton statue. I tried to rent a car in Pristina but it didn’t work out. At the Pristina hostel, I flew a drone for the owner of the hostel I stayed at to help create a promotional video for him, but the police showed up and brought me and my Colombian friend down to the local police station. There we were questioned for 3 hours, as we were under the suspicion of being foreign spies (no lie), due to the Palestine-Israel protests that were going on at the time. They brought in a Kosovar secret service agent for a special interrogation. I convinced them all who and what I was, and with the help of the hostel owner, I didn’t have my drone confiscated and I didn’t have to pay a fee. They let us go. I believe being American helped me here. I then took a bus to Podgorica, Montenegro (#60) and rented a Skoda (diesel) vehicle, and drove around the entire country, from serene mountain villages to coastal old towns. From Montenegro, with the same rental vehicle and with their permission, I did my very first cross-border road trip into Bosnia & Herzegovina (#61) where I spent time in Sarajevo and Banja Luka. I met former UFC star, Denis “The Menace” Stojnić, and visited the site where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, an event that triggered WW1, which was the prelude to WW2, which both wars together resulted in the deaths of almost 100 million people. I then flew to Belgrade, Serbia (#62) via Istanbul and rented a Fiat vehicle at the Nikola Tesla Airport. I stayed at a hostel with my own room; I drove around as much of Serbia as I possibly could during the day and spent the evenings with my newfound Cuban friend, who helped me get a Serbian SIM card, and we frequented a place called the “Old London Pub” in the evenings. We spent time there with two very tall and very beautiful Serbian women. The highlight of my Serbian road trip was hands-down the historic Golubac Fortress. My last day in Serbia, with the permission of the vehicle rental, I drove with the same car from Belgrade to Zagreb, Croatia (#63) in my second cross-border road trip. I checked into a HI Hostel with my own room in Zagreb. I spent about 5 days in Croatia and it was absolutely amazing. The first day I explored Zagreb, and the remaining days it was all about the coastal old-town cities, with the most notable being Dubrovnik. I was also able to visit an old friend east of Zagreb who used to live in Wuhan. But the highlight of my entire Croatian experience was hands-down, Plitvice Lakes National Park. After 5 days in Croatia I drove back to Belgrade, Serbia to return the rental car to the Airport. Then I flew to Chișinău, Moldova (#64), checked into my guesthouse and then rented a Kia vehicle from Sixt rent-a-car. The Sixt staff gave me special paperwork so that I could get into Transnistria, a Russian-occupied autonomous region that the Moldovan government has no authority over, but technically is a part of Moldova. I had my first encounter with Russian soldiers when I drove to Tiraspol, Transnistria. The highlight of my Moldovan road trip was the Cricova Winery tour. After a few days in Moldova, with the same rental vehicle and with permission, I drove into Ukraine (#65) toward Kyiv and spent a couple of days there. Then I drove west toward Lviv and spent a couple of days there, before driving back to Chișinău to return the vehicle. This concluded my 3-month European trip. I flew back to Cancún via Warsaw, Poland and since it was just an airport transit, I didn’t count Poland off as a country traveled (until I visited it for the second time in 2022).
While living in Playa del Carmen, Mexico I was able to visit almost every Latin American country in Central and South America. The only two I haven’t visited as of to date are Venezuela and French Guiana (French territory).
Return to the Philippines
The Philippine government re-opened the Philippines up to foreigners on February 10th, 2022 after being closed for about two years. And this was my signal to leave Mexico and head back to Manila; I was so happy and relieved. I had been keeping up with the news and with people back in the Philippines to find out when I could come back. Direct flights from the States to the Philippines were outrageously high-priced, so I opted to fly from Cancún to Miami, then Istanbul and onto Manila. I traveled for about 30 hours, altogether, but saved a great deal of money this way. It took about two hours to get through the Ninoy Aquino International Airport with all the COVID checkpoints. But once I got out of the Airport and to the Nichols Airport Hotel, I felt so good and I slept very well. I was able to catch up with some old friends while at the Hotel.
I rented a vehicle and decided to start a Road Trippin’ Philippines project and drive from Metro Manila to Iriga City (Bicol) and film it all. I drove 10.5 hours from the Nichols Airport Hotel to the Iriga Plaza Hotel. It was a wonderful trip. I went there to meet my girlfriend’s family and I stayed a few days. On my way back I stopped in Dasmariñas (Cavite) to move from my old apartment into my new apartment in Taguig (Metro Manila) at the D&A Transient Inn, the same place I stayed for the first two weeks of lockdown in March of 2020. It took me a couple of trips to get all my stuff. I returned the rental car and then my friend’s uncle helped me shop at two separate SM Malls with his van and I spent about $1,000 USD furnishing and fixing up my new studio unit. This was my new base, I named it “Globetrotter Studio” and it was where I was planning the rest of my 2022 travel itinerary, which included 6 travel conferences. I visited Europe twice this year, in the spring in March and in the fall in September. In September, I literally traveled to 15 countries in 30-days’ time and some of this was airport layovers.
In November I attended a travel conference in Phuket, Thailand, rented a scooter and road tripped around the entire island multiple times in about 10 days. I spent most of my time around the Patong Beach area and was even able to connect with a friend and former Chinese boss of mine from Dalian, who is also a world traveler and now a college professor.
By the end of 2022, I had then been to 98 countries in total, the 98th one being Palau, which is where I spent that year’s Christmas, birthday and New Year’s vacation with my friend and marketing manager/brand strategist. This trip was our gift to us for finally being able to see each other again after 3 long years of COVID travel restrictions.
2023 (Wuhan, part III)
After our Palau trip, my friend stayed at Globetrotter Studio in Manila while she was looking for a new job and I headed back to the States and decided to rent a vehicle in Miami and continue on with my Road Trippin’ USA project while I collected the necessary documentation for my new job in China. I had recently signed a contract with an English-training school in Changsha and this is where I planned to go. I also spent a great deal of time learning about the city and networking with other foreigners there via Facebook and WeChat. I was trying to get myself as prepared as I possibly could. Since Sino-American relations have declined more in recent years due to a number of different factors, it was difficult for me to get a Z (work) visa. It wasn’t impossible; it’s just that the Chinese Embassy in Washington required some additional steps with the notarization and authentication of my diplomas, background check, etc. The U.S. Dept. of State also required more steps (& time).
After road trippin’ on and off for a couple of months, mostly in Florida, and island hopping and road trippin’ in the Caribbean in Grenada (99), Saint Vincent & the Grenadines (100) and Saint Lucia (101), I decided to stay with friends in Mississippi for a while, about two and a half months, then I went to Georgia and stayed with another friend up until about July, when I finally had the necessary documents in hand that had been mailed to me from my agent in China. With my invitation letter and work permit, I was now ready to apply for my Z visa.
Since I had done it in Chicago 3 times before as both an Illinois and a Florida resident, I attempted to do so a 4th time at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, but they broke my heart when they told me that I had to do it at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. It took me several alcoholic drinks and several hours to recover from this. I was already at the point of no return and I had spent the better part of 2023 trying to get back to China, not to mention, I had also spent hundreds of dollars on accommodation, rental cars, and documents all related to this task. So, I had to decide if I wanted to pay a visa service to submit my documents to the Chinese Embassy in Washington for me, or go there myself. Honestly, I was exhausted and I just wanted to get back to Asia. Since I had already booked a flight to Hong Kong before my bad luck at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, I ultimately decided to just send my documents to a Washington visa service that I had used before, fly to Hong Kong, book a long-term stay at an accommodation there and wait for them to send me my passport with my Z visa to me in Hong Kong. Also, while in Chicago, the school that hired me in Changsha didn’t like my bad news, and they weren’t willing to wait an extra month. But within the same hour, my agent (& now business partner) found me a new teaching job in Wuhan. This was great, but since it was a new school in a different province, this meant that they had to apply for a new work permit for me, and send it to the Washington visa service because they needed it for the Z visa application. This took more time.
Well, I spent the entire month of August at the Bishop Lei International House in Hong Kong dealing with all this. Since they needed my travel history from the past 5 years, this meant they also needed all three of my passports. So, my friend and marketing manager express-sent me my other two passports from Manila, and I literally had to comb through all 3 passports and type up in ascending order every country I had visited in the past 5 years. This was crazy work, but I had to do it. I express-sent all 3 passports along with my travel history to the Washington visa service. I had to schedule an appointment for them online via the Chinese Embassy website. And I’m not lying when I say that the visa service express-sent the passports back to me, including my Z visa, the very day before my pre-booked flight to Wuhan was to depart from Hong Kong. It was perfect timing. I had to be in Wuhan by September 5th because I had to start my new teaching job on September 10th, and I still needed to get a required medical physical before then and find an apartment as well. I already had a bank account.
Since September 10th, 2023, I’ve been teaching at the same school in Wuhan and I feel really good about being back in China. My contract was up July 31st, 2024 and I signed a 6-month renewal contract, since the HQ in Beijing is only doing those now. I do plan to stay in Wuhan teaching at my school until August of 2025, so I will sign another 6-month renewal after my first one is up, if it’s offered to me. I will only teach in China until August of 2025, because by then I will be ready for full-time digital nomadism again. And I’ll be ready to move to Buenos Aires, Argentina to establish residency there so that I can begin my two-year path toward American-Argentine dual citizenship, with the help of an immigration lawyer. Once I get there, eventually, I can apply for Argentine permanent residency, and once I get this, I can apply for Argentine citizenship. Of course, it’s not this simple and there are a lot of other factors involved. But this will dramatically improve my life as a world-traveling digital nomad because as an American-Argentine dual citizen, I can travel to countries whose governments aren’t fond of Americans, as an Argentinian instead; North Korea, Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela, etc. This will all take time and money to accomplish, but it will help me to reach my ultimate goal of traveling to every country in the world in a more convenient and legal way.
I need to finish writing my first two books, focus on new business ventures and new investments, and be my own boss again. And get back to my life of freedom, prosperity and adventure.
My China life right now and beyond
Since returning to China last September (2023), I have visited numerous new Chinese cities during weekend getaways, have been back to Hong Kong and Macau, and have visited several new countries. Since I get paid for Chinese holidays and am granted 5 days of paid leave per contract term, this enables me to continue to travel part-time, while I work full-time. After just two weeks on the job, we had a rare 8-day paid vacation in October because two Chinese holidays overlapped each other. So, during this time I traveled to Sri Lanka (102) and India (103). Seeing the Taj Mahal was a surreal experience and I couldn’t have asked for a better tour guide. I visited Nepal (104) for my Christmas trip and was able to see Mount Everest by way of a flight excursion, courtesy Buddha Air and Hotel Shanker. For 2024 Spring Festival, I traveled to 11 African countries during the month of February; South Africa, Namibia (105), Zimbabwe (106), Zambia (107), Botswana (108), Mozambique (109), Uganda (110), Rwanda (111), Kenya, Tanzania (112) and the Seychelles (113).
For May Day holiday I went to Dhaka, Bangladesh (114) for a few days.
I recently signed a 6-month contract extension with my school here in Wuhan and when summer break came along in August, I decided to do some traveling. I was supposed to have a month off, but our boss said that we needed to come back a week early for marketing duties, so us foreign teachers only had 3 weeks, instead. On July 31st I left work at 12pm by taking a half-day of unpaid leave, so that I could get from Wuhan to Zhengzhou via train much quicker. The next day, I flew a direct, non-stop flight to Luxembourg City, Luxembourg (115), which took about 10 hours. After spending a few days there and exploring the city and cities around the small country via their free public trains, seeing all of the American WW2 history there, I then took a train to Bern, Switzerland (116), and stayed at an accommodation in nearby Fribourg. I was able to visit Thun via train and embark a 4-hour cruise from Thun to Interlaken West on Lake Thun. After being in that area for a few days I then took a train to Buchs, near the Liechtenstein border. I explored several cities in Liechtenstein for a few days and I got my “passport stamp” in Vaduz. From Zurich I flew to Montréal and explored every bit of Old Montréal. I also took a big bus tour around the entire city and a St. Lawrence River cruise. After about 3 days there I flew to Miami, rented a car upon arrival at the Miami International Airport and then drove to Key West. I stayed the night there after partying on Duval Street and drove back to Miami the next day, booking a hotel in Brickell and spent a few hours at Batch Gastropub. The next day I returned the rental car at the Airport and flew to San Francisco, and then back to Wuhan, non-stop. This marked my 2nd ever circumnavigation around the world. I left China flying west and returned to China from the east. The first time was in 2018, also during the summer, on a similar path.
As of right now I manage Outcast Vagabond, part-time, along with my China Social+Travel Network events, part-time. I’m working on putting together a new video series that I aim to share on Brainz Academy called, “Outcast U Travel Education,” where I provide tips, tricks, travel guides, travel wisdom, free travel consulting and other perks. I’m still working on producing and publishing more videos for my ongoing Heritage: A Travel Campaign and Road Trippin’ USA: A Travel Adventure Series, along with other video projects across my social media platforms.
I know that I will always be partial to China, whether I like it or not. But honestly, I love it. I’ll admit, it’s a challenge to be an American in China these days for obvious reasons, but I knew that coming back for a couple of years would be the exact kind of reset and recovery that I needed after traveling to over 100 countries which took a real toll on my mental and physical health, not to mention my finances. I had originally planned on just one year, but given all that it took me to get back over here in 2023, staying an extra year totally made more sense.
I plan on finishing my work with my school in Wuhan on July 31st (2025), if I’m offered another 6-month contract extension, then doing some traveling for about 3 months or so, and then moving to Buenos Aires, Argentina after that. But before I move to Argentina to begin the next chapter of my life, I will need to fly to Manila to pack up my things at “Globetrotter Studio” (my studio unit in Taguig) and ship it all to Buenos Aires, whatever I decide not to sell. And, well, I may get a bit of Boracay time in while I’m in the Philippines, or possibly El Nido.
Even after I move to Argentina, I will still be very well connected to China and I will still be traveling there often for different reasons. Again, I plan on applying for a 10-year, multi-entry visa which allows me to visit China for 90 days at a time. And after my teaching contracts are up, I will visit China more as a tourist and explore and learn more about the country while working on improving my Mandarin. China has so many beautiful, well-known and hidden destinations. I want to share these with the rest of the world, so that people can see China from a more positive perspective. And I will continue to host and coordinate my China Social+Travel Network events.
There is too much money and too many opportunities in China for me to just say “goodbye” and not come back. Not to mention, too many memories and too many friends. I feel so welcomed, loved and needed in China in ways that I’ve never felt before, anywhere else in the world. I love teaching Chinese youth and interacting with their parents. Chinese people are very easy people to make friends with, especially when you’re a foreigner that they’re curious about you. Chinese people don’t call me a racist, a chauvinist or a homophobe. It’s all respect. I will always and forever be connected to China. I will always continue to meet new people here and abroad who are also connected to China in some way. I will always continue to explore new opportunities in China. China is my land of opportunity, and Wuhan has changed my life forever and for the better.
And I will always try to improve Sino-American relations with my travel media content, and help the rest of the world understand the positive aspects of China, Chinese culture and Chinese people from my own American-expat perspective.
China is a very safe place and I don’t have to worry about the same issues that I do in the States. I live in a city of 11 million people and I can walk anywhere day or night and never have to worry about harm. There is almost no domestic crime here and I can pretty much predict how people are going to act toward me every day, whereas in the States I never know what I’m going to get from people on a daily basis. Again, in China, I feel loved, respected, appreciated and needed. Chinese people are among the easiest people to live and work around. And they are very diligent people with an admirable, collective work ethic and profound respect for authority. My neighbors are quiet and respectful, and both my Chinese and foreign co-workers (nowadays) are easy to get along with. The low cost of living combined with a competitive salary enables me to save and invest money without being taxed to death. Not to mention, almost everything is negotiable in China. I can’t enjoy these kinds of perks in my own country, as much as I love the United States. And truth be told, I love both the USA and China for different reasons, and I often find myself defending both of them in the same breath when I travel, usually to people who are ignorant of and biased against both places.
A brief thought on Chinese work ethic
China is a communist country and after living and working around Chinese people for so long, it’s apparent that Karl Marx’s theories on labor are still practiced in modern-day Chinese society. What has astonished me over the years is how Chinese people are willing to work more for less, while everyone seems to respect their roles and the authority figures who are their superiors in impressive ways. I know that every country has these kinds of values, in their own capacity, but Chinese people truly take pride in working hard and I feel that it’s the collective attitudes that people here have, that make the labor force in China so effective, rather than individual attitudes and ideals. People in China understand strength in numbers and work toward tasks that benefit the entire group, rather than being motivated to benefit themselves. And this absolutely comes from communist, or communal, ideology.
Of course, I’m not implying that all Chinese people are alike, but rather, I admire the everyday Chinese work ethic here that has most definitely rubbed off on me in a very positive way. I myself have become more collective-minded and hard-working in ways that make me want to complete tasks that benefit other people, not just me.
Having the opportunities (& privilege) to be exposed to people who work like this on a mass scale, and having it rub off on me in a positive way, is one benefit and one reason why I call China my land of opportunity. There is power in community, unity and hard work and this is why the “hammer and sickle” is the symbol of communism, because these values revolve around this kind of communal labor concept. The “hammer” represents industrial workers and the “sickle” represents farm workers.
A brief thought on Chinese family values
Again, Chinese people are a very collective, group-oriented kind of people and aside from Chinese laborers, Chinese families illustrate this a great deal. Since most Chinese couples have only one child, nowadays sometimes two, this child (or children) represents the family legacy. So, this means that the entire family, collectively, puts their efforts into this child from birth up until adulthood, and beyond. In return, when the child grows up to be successful, they take care of their parents and grandparents. There is an enormous amount of pressure on Chinese youth because of this, and I can confirm this being a teacher in China and being around Chinese youth, daily. The typical Han Chinese family system is setup where there is a husband and wife, one child, and one or two grandparents from either the mother’s or the father’s side, but seldom both, in one home. So, while the parents are at work, the grandparent(s) takes care of the child, or children, while maintaining house chores. As far as I know, there aren’t as many “nursing homes” in China, where people dump their parents off when they get old and let total strangers take care of them until they die, like in the States. Families in China, as an entire unit, take care of one another from birth to death. These are impeccable family values. I understand that what I’m describing is also parallel to many other cultures; but Chinese togetherness, with respect to family, is a beautiful thing to witness. This is especially true if you come from a toxic, dysfunctional American mess like I do. It will all inspire you. And being able to witness this and learn from it, is another opportunity that I’ve been able to take advantage of while being in China. It’s helped me to become a less selfish person.
Being in China for over 8 years has made me become more collective myself, or more group-oriented, mostly because I’ve been naturally forced to be this way due to just being here, and assimilating with everyone else and the Chinese ways of life.
My invaluable Chinese social network
Since 2012, I have had countless Chinese students, and I’ve kept in touch with many of them and their families. Most of my former Chinese students have grown up and have become successful adults. Some of them have attended prominent universities around the world, including notable institutions in the United States. Some of them are now working for major global corporations, some have become doctors, some have become educators and some of them are now even involved with the Chinese Communist Party as government-affiliated personnel. I’ve also kept in touch with many of my former Chinese co-workers, and other Chinese friends whom I’ve met over the years. Many of these friends and acquaintances of mine have helped me in more ways than one, including helping me to get back to China in September of 2023 to start a new teaching job, when it took me almost a year to do so, partially because I’m a U.S. citizen. Those who are still in Wuhan, I like to meet up with when I can and catch-up with them in person. Everyone else that I’ve stayed in touch with, I typically communicate with them via WeChat. Of course, it’s impossible for me to stay in touch with all of them, since I’ve had so many students and have met so many people over the years, and all of my younger students have grown up and have become adults with their adult lives. I feel that my 8+ years in China have paid off in more ways than one, and having what I’d like to call my invaluable Chinese social network, has worked in my favor in multiple ways.
In conclusion
Much of what I mention in this article doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with the opportunities in China for foreign people, but actually, every single bit of it revolves around this concept. I wouldn’t be in the comfortable position I am today in life if it weren’t for my time in China, doing what I’ve done here for the past 8+ years.
I came to China in 2012 as a broke, miserable English teacher saddled with a mountain of student loan debt, and by the time I left in 2020 I was in a secure financial position, debt-free and ready to be a full-time digital nomad.
I made the decision to return to China in September of 2023, and by the time I leave China again in August of 2025, I will be in an even better position in life, ready to move to Argentina and ready to pursue bigger, better, more ambitious kinds of goals. Moving to China after college graduation in 2012 was by far the greatest decision in my life, even more critical than joining the U.S. Army back in 1997.
Teaching English in China is simply a stepping stone, or rather an entry-level kind of job that one can take on while they improve their Mandarin, network with people and pursue more prestigious and lucrative kinds of jobs here. I’ve known foreign people to work all kinds of different jobs in China, including working as translators, proofreaders/editors, actors, reporters, athletes, conference coordinators, foreign ambassadors, DJs, musicians, managers, hotel staff, waiters, digital nomads, reps at their embassies and consulates and of course, numerous kinds of business owners. With the help of modern-day apps like Google Translate, being fluent in Mandarin isn’t absolutely necessary to succeed in China as a foreigner who speaks a foreign tongue and little to no Mandarin. And a growing number of Chinese people can speak at least some English thanks to modern technology, and it’s more common with younger people. With that said, learning some daily Mandarin will earn you more respect from Chinese people.
According to Statista, China has about 6.2 million dollar-based millionaires, second only to the United States.
China also has the world’s second largest economy that at the time of this writing is worth $18.5 trillion USD, behind only the United States ($29 trillion USD), see here.
Chinese automakers account for more than half of the electric vehicles (EVs) produced worldwide, see here.
And China now owns a growing number of American brands: click here.
China has made numerous investments in countries all over the world in what is called, “dollar diplomacy.” That is, they make investments in countries that need Chinese money, in exchange for political allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party. Since 2005, China has invested about $2.4 trillion USD in other countries, click here.
As of 2023, about 44.6 billion USD has been invested into China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 150 countries and 30 international organizations, click here.
A recent CNBC article suggests that the Chinese yuan currency is becoming more global, click here.
The world’s largest gold reserve was recently discovered in China, worth $83 billion USD, see here.
A major AI conference was recently held in Shanghai and is called, World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC). Chinese companies own more generative AI (GenAI) patents than any other country, see here.
I like to play a game with American people back in the States to help them understand the growing Chinese influence in our world. I ask them how far they have to go from where they’re standing right now to reach a Chinese-owned business. This is including Chinese-American-owned businesses, since many Chinese-Americans do have family back in China that they still keep in touch with and support in some way. Typically, their answer is something like “about 5 to 20 miles away,” which isn’t far.
Foreigners, depending on nationality and general appearance, are perceived in different ways in China. And I’ll be honest when I say that being American in China can be both good and bad, depending on the situation, given the current Sino-American relations. It wasn’t so easy even the first time I was here from 2012 to 2019, especially after Donald Trump got elected. Life in China is even more of a headache nowadays under the Biden Administration. And now that Donald Trump has been re-elected, things are liable to get very interesting for me here. But if you’re one to have an open mind, work hard and play your cards right and you actually try to immerse yourself into Chinese culture as much as possible, you can reap the same kinds of rewards as I and others have. Remember; no risk, no reward. It’s also very important to mingle with the right kind of people while you’re in China as a foreigner and stay away from bad company. I, myself, have worked as a teacher, proofreader/editor, conference coordinator, marketer, consultant, digital nomad, investor and recruiter during my time in China. The opportunities in China are endless and with China’s growing global influence, more opportunities will arise for foreign people, in and out of China.
Part of what I do with my travel media content and my social networking is I try to portray China in a positive light. I get mixed feedback due to this, but the people who criticize me the most are the ones who have never even been to China themselves, nor have any friends who are Chinese, or of Chinese descent. And sadly, in a post-COVID world, Sinophobia has infected much of our world and it has not only become common to bust on China, but it has also become acceptable and even mandatory in some social circles. I had to recently distance myself from one notable American travel conference for several reasons, with the omnipresent Sinophobia being one of those reasons. One of my goals with my China Social+Travel Network events is to encourage more China expats to use travel media content and their power as social media influencers, to counter the Western-propagated media machines, by showing the world what China is like from their own, first-hand experiences. I feel that if we can get enough people to do this, the Western-propagated media machines will be forced to change their narratives about China, from negative to positive. I’m not saying that we should ignore real-world concerns involving China, but we shouldn’t be biased, racist and ignorant about China, either.
Since I have a strong sense of individuality, I’m not willing to compromise my values just to fit in with others. I don’t need friends; I just need money, as money treats me better. With that said, I appreciate my friends and the people who have helped to inspire me and help me along my tumultuous journey. If I listened to other people during the past 10 years of my life, rather than to my heart, I would have never taken the risks that I have in life. In fact, I’d probably still be back where I grew up in the Upland South as a miserable and broke person, working a job that I hate, married or divorced with kids, dreaming about “someday,” dwelling on my mistakes in life and pondering on the “good ole days” and hating the “real world,” with other miserable people while owning the fact that my best days are behind me, rather than in front of me.
I’m not going to elaborate on all of the Chinese stereotypes or controversies that are not true, partially true or mostly true because again, I aim to promote China in a positive light. As I mentioned above, China is a very safe place with almost no domestic crime and Chinese people are very easy people to live and work around. I don’t have loud neighbors and again, I can pretty much predict how I will be treated by people on a daily basis, whereas in the States, you never know what you will get with people. I don’t have to worry about being called a racist, misogynist, homophobe, or any other name that non-Chinese people like to label me with because I’m a straight, White, American man. I feel that I have a kind of peace and prosperity in China that I could never have elsewhere. Chinese people, in general, don’t hate American people and I feel safer in China than I do in the States. China also has a lot to offer with respect to tourism, and this is also what I try to promote with my travel media content. China is a big, beautiful country with so many amazing places to see and awesome things to do.
Again, almost everything is negotiable in China and this gives foreigners a chance to save more money on items and services, and earn more money with employment contracts and business deals.
I repeat much of what I’ve already said because I want it to sink in.
China is my land of opportunity and it can be for you, too. If you’re interested in teaching in China and making that first step toward a promising future, as me and so many others have, then I can help you do this. You can contact me via my China Social+Travel Network email here and also “like” the China or the Social + Travel Network Facebook Page I will answer any questions you have about living and working in China as a teacher, or even as a tourist who wants to explore China and just get a taste of it. I can’t personally help with visas, unless it’s a work visa, and that’s only if you want to teach in China. But I can connect you with my own recruiter and business partner to help you with a work visa and with landing a teaching job.
Everyone who lives and works in China has their own unique experiences. What I’ve mentioned in this article is my own story. My life was rough the first 4 years of being in China, but I endured it all because I knew the benefits outweighed the costs and I was thinking about my long-term goals. I had nobody to coach me back then in 2012 when I accepted a position as an English teacher in Dalian at Best Learning English. I was introduced to China in all the wrong ways and things got worse before they got better, but when they got better, they got a lot better. I’m here to help offer people more guidance and help those who are interested in living and working in China as a teacher. I will teach you the dos and don’ts and even send you city guides about cities that you’re interested in. I’m currently putting together an expat guidebook that will soon be available on my website and via email.
Before completing this article in Wuhan, I recently completed my 2nd circumnavigation around the world and visited my 117th country traveled, which was during summer break. I had 3 weeks off from work from my school in Wuhan.
Please contact me with any questions you may have about visiting, living or teaching in China here. With all other inquiries, please email me here.
Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and visit my website for more info!
Jeffrey A. Epps, MBA, Digital Nomad, Marketer, Investor, Educator
Jeff manages his travel business, Outcast Vagabond, where he provides marketing and consulting services to travel-related brands and individuals. He has been to over 100 countries and aspires to travel to every country and territory in the world. Jeff has lived and taught full-time in 3 separate Chinese cities, from 2012 to 2019, and taught online, part-time, from 2020 to 2023, while traveling full-time. Jeff returned to China in 2023 and is teaching full-time again in Wuhan on his 8th year in China. Jeff has been a Florida resident since 2012, based out of Miami.
As an avid investor, he helps to coach others on money management and with investment advice. He has 3 college diplomas including a Bachelor's in Marketing (SIUC), MBA in Marketing (SFASU) and a MALS degree from the University of Miami.
Jeff is a heritage traveler who likes to create travel media content that focuses on peoples’ ancestry, cultural traditions and ethnic identities. He believes that heritage is sacred and that it should be protected and preserved at all costs, and that forcing a person or people to disown their own heritage is sacrilegious. When he travels he visits places of historical significance and likes to immerse himself into local cultures, in efforts to understand why places are the way they are, why people are the way they are and how these places can be better understood by the world. He likes to discuss topics such as race, race-relations, gender issues, American politics, geopolitics, Sino-American relations, global affairs, human rights issues and informational integrity. He has spent the last 15+ years as a white, English-speaking minority in places such as Miami, Mexico, Philippines and China, which has given him a very unique perspective on race, culture and his own identity as an American world-traveling expat.
Jeff also manages Outcast U Travel Education, an ongoing video series that highlights wisdom from his last 8 years as a world-traveling digital nomad; emphasizing heritage travel, travel tips, money-saving advice, finance and investing, brand partnerships, improving Sino-American relations, opportunities in China, life philosophies and travel therapy.
Other video projects that Jeff is currently working on are “Heritage: A Travel Campaign” and “Road Trippin’ USA: A Travel Adventure Series.”
