Name：Christopher Weeks
Country of Origin：United Kingdom
Occupation：Foreign Language Kindergarten Teacher
Years in China:：8 (5.5 in mainland and 2.5 in Taiwan)
How did your journey in China begin?
On January 1st 2013, I was sitting with a friend eating brunch in Manchester, nursing a particularly bad hangover, and reflecting on the previous year. I made a promise that in 2013, I would move to a different country for work. On February 2nd, I landed in Madrid, Spain, which is a different story. On July 17th 2013, I landed in Fuzhou, Fujian ready to start “a year, maybe two in China” working as an English teacher at a training school. I moved across the strait to Taipei for a few years before returning back to Fuzhou, and eventually moving to Xiamen, a city I first visited in October 2013. 8 years later, I still have no plans to go back to the UK.
What do you like most about your city (Xiamen or others) and China as a whole?
The cafes. I have always enjoyed the cafes of the cities I have lived in (Fuzhou, Taipei, Xiamen). They have been home to my constant journey of learning and forgetting Mandarin, writing lesson plans and playing board games. I have seen the quality of the cafes in terms of taste and environment improve over the years and Xiamen has an abundance of nice places to relax and have a latte or single origin coffee.
Christopher enjoying some cake at a local café.
What fascinated you the most about living in China?
Initially, the reason I came, was because I knew no one who had been here, and I wanted to work and travel somewhere a bit different. I originally dreamed of living in Shanghai, until I have grown older and weary of the “people mountain people sea,” three-hour queues to eat at Hai Di Lao and unable to find a seat easily in cafes. Xiamen for me is the perfect size and population. These days, I just love to wander and explore, as you never know what surprises hide around the corner or down an alley. I am fortunate to know people who guide me to places I would have never have discovered myself, and I hope one day to say I have visited every cafe on the island.
Could you list some of your favorite spots in your city?
I love going up to the Sightseeing Tower, north of Bai Lu Zhou Park. and next to the Mountain to Sea Trail. Though the building is shut at night, if you are on the viewing platform in front of it at 10:30 p.m, you can see the “light off” show, as all the building lights gradually turn off around Xiamen, which is quite fun.
Interacting with some local people while on his travels in China
What is your unique China story? Tell us something that you experienced that made you love living here even more.
The reason I love living in China itself is it is rarely boring, and every day has the potential to be interesting, be it for better or worse. Instead of a particular story, here are a few unique moments.
- Being hit on the head by a woman with an umbrella while dressed as a panda after a Halloween activity after we tried to join in square dancing.
- Watching an ayi scream as a rat ran around my apartment kitchen, only for my American flat mate to stomp on it. RIP Ratty.
- Signing my autograph and having my photo taken, because a drunk Chinese gentleman thought I was Lionel Messi.
- Going for a quiet drink and it turning into a nightclub outing, full of pillow fights and feathers covering the nightclub.
- Watching a security guard spit in a man’s face on Shenzhen Metro, because the man spat on the floor in the metro station.
- Seeing a goat solve a math problem.
- Watching my laptop cable melt and set on fire after plugging it in a hostel in Shanghai.
- Having a bust made of my head in 20 minutes on the street in the pouring rain of Hangzhou.
- Going to see the beautiful views from Huangshan, only to have fog and visibility of 5m.
- Meeting an ex African professional soccer player on the Great Wall of China.
- Being the first foreigner an elderly woman in her eighties had ever seen.
- Exploring Fuzhou post typhoon after the river banks burst.
- Seeing a mermaid rescue a man in a business suit to the tune of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”
- A journey back from Shenzhen to Fuzhou, which involved eight people in a six-seater vehicle, dropped off at a service station, and running to get a bunk on a coach, and being trapped behind toilet fumes for eight hours.
- Seeing my old teaching assistants start families and speaking in English with their children.
The bust of his head in Hangzhou that was mentioned earlier.
Some background on his hometown.
The first ever UK branch of KFC was opened in Preston in 1965. That predates McDonalds by about a decade.
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