This thread is for the 4th, 5th....Nth tier cities that don't really have enough happening to rate a thread. Might also go for cities like Lhasa that some of us have seen briefly but none have lived in or visited at length.
Kunshan, Jiangsu
Part of Greater Suzhou City. It's sometimes presented in job ads as being "suzhou"; uh, it ain't Suzhou. Not a bad place, but pretty small. Lots of industry, including a few smokestack industries (big chemical plant in the middle of town) little seen in Suzhou proper.
Still, the town seems reasonably clean and liveable, especially considering that we're in China. Great economy. The town is heavily infested by Taiwanese- this seems to have become their enclave while others moved on to Suzhou.
Maybe the best thing about Kunshan is that it is about equidistant to Shanghai and Suzhou, and not far from either. It's well served by trains and buses. Relief is not far away.
Lager added: HUZHOU Zhejiang (my last city)
This is sort of a poor mans Suzhou...A pretty place with canals running through it---but a very small town.
Good location-Shanghai is 2.5 hours away, Hangzhou one hour.
Small enough to walk almost anywhere. A supermarket has begun stocking Western stuff-even NZ cheese---DVD selection as good as anywhere---cost of living very low...Was a "bicycle" friendly place if you enjoy that.
Touristy stuff pretty standard--a lake a temple the usual..There are a couple of better places nearby for sites---small camal towns mostly...
CAN certainly get boring. No real nightlife to speak of and really only a handful of foreigners.
Gengrant added: Huizhou, Guangdong
This place has it all! Shopping, Restaurants, Bars, Bowling & Golf, Home to Carlsberg Beer in China. Built around West Lake (note: not the famous West Lake, which is in Hangzhou, Zhejiang...), the city has beautiful walkways around the lake and lots to do. Transportation is fair, with taxi meter drops at 5 yuan Bus station & train station to just about anywhere. about 2 hours from Hong Kong to the Southwest. Day trips to Guangzhou and Shenzhen are easy...as are trips to the South China Sea. Luofo Mountain is a great place to visit, with a mountainside monastary that has a giftshop the size of Texas (cause we FT love to hit giftshops!). Lots of teaching jobs available here...Huizhou University, Public Schools, Private Language; if you can imagine it, they probably have it. Wages are comparable to other parts of China. Crime is VERY low, only a couple traffic lights, so I wouldn't recommend owning a bike here. I'd live there again in a heartbeat!
Da Dan added: Jishou, Hunan
This is a smaller city in northwest Hunan, one train stop from JangJiaJe (sp? famous national park) or a 5 hour drive from there; it is the nearest airport.
Jishou is a 24-hour train ride to either Shanghai or Beijing.
I lived in a really small town that is 3-hour bus ride into the mountains from Jishou so this is a general short write up of the area.
Jishou University often posts around the net looking for teachers.
I really enjoyed this area & will happily recommend going there!
It is the real China & has the small town atmosphere & friendliness.
If you're into big city life, maybe you should only visit for a few days of R&R, if you want to get to know & see how normal people live in China, this is a good place for living a term or two. Pay won't be high as it is a poor region but that also means the cost of living is quite low too so you can save easily.
The people are very friendly & curious about foreigners, it is not uncommon to be the First one they ever saw in person so expect people to look at you. It is a poor area so many are not well educated in ways of the book, Many are educated in the old fashened ways in what they need to know to survive in their part of the world though & happy to share anything they have with Special guests.
The "Hello!s" are rarely meant in bad ways, often it the only word they know & you see in there smiles that most are just trying to be nice.
Go to some of the small villages in the nearby mountains & you Will end up eating & staying in peoples homes. A lot of wooden homes built without a single nail, I loved looking at how they constructed things the old way.
A lot of local crafts there too, they use the lunar month system with the markets, the vilage people come to the bigger towns on certain days with their goods so finding really cool things in the markets is easy once you learn which days are for which kinds of goods.
Food is HOT! ALL of it!!!
For me, that is a good thing but if you're not a chili pepper eater, ya might end up losing some weight in these parts. They use the bigger peppers, not the little red ones, the long ones that turn red & a little sweeter & less hot in time, that just means they put more into the dishes. I liked the flavor of these peppers more & they add great color to the dishes... ALL of the dishes!
Also being a smaller city with many village peoples, they eat everything, nothing is wasted.
The area is pretty mountainous, big mountains with of them having large rocky cliffs, a lot of the rock pinnacles here & there & it stayed green all year.
I thought is it a beautiful area. Many places that you can visit for great day trips, rivers, valleys, hiking, villages that never saw a white face in person...
Winters get cold but not like in the north, `maybe 10 days of snow.... `maybe none...
Summers can be Hot & Humid!
Anyways.... I don't know what to say.
If anyone wants info on this area, Please feel free to ask, I can answers questions better than thinking of things off the top of my head.