Have an apartment in Hanyang.
Montenegro apparently announced a new digital nomad visa good for 2 years, renewable for 2 more. Most are only 1 and done, so thatās a welcome change.
Montenegro is probably too small to interest me although I hear itās extremely beautiful. The entire country only has 700k people and the capital 250k.
Why?
China put out new Covid regulations last month for airlines operating in China that resulted in a bunch of airlines having to cancel flights. US cancelled a bunch of Chinese airline flights as retaliation.
Oh, I meant why are you moving to China
Havenāt seen my wife since before Covid.
She wasnāt able to renew her passport until last month (same time they opened up for family visas). She has no urgent business abroad that wouldnāt risk having her passport snipped at the airport if she attempted to leave.
Meanwhile I have fuck all going on in the US anyway.
Damn. I had no idea. That must have been rough on the relationship. Good luck getting over there.
What passport does your wife have?
Sheās a PRC national.
Lived on the opposite side of the river from Hanyang many years back.
Hope you enjoy China.
I lived in Wuhan from 2013-2015 and then Kunshan (between Shanghai and Suzhou) until 2019. Wouldāve never guessed how much I miss it, although thatās inevitably through the white expat lens.
Ah, I left Wuhan before you moved there.
There is a feeling of curiosity related to seeing what Chinaās like now because Wuhan was developing so rapidly when I was there. There was just one metro line built when I was there but now I think there are 7-8 lines or something. There were dozens of active construction sites a stoneās throw away from me. As a matter of fact, the excessive construction was fucking up the air quality near me something fierce and I actually got a respiratory illness from it.
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Parts were unrecognizable when Iād go back when I was still living in China. Still full of half-finished apartment buildings though.
Podgorica is a hole. There are some nice little towns but yeah. Not sure Iād want to live there.
A day in Podgorica was enough for me. I honestly donāt remember anything worth seeing from there. Was happy to get back to Kotor.
Yah, tons of picturesque little towns: Kotor, Budva, Bar, Herceg Novi, but I donāt think itās enough to justify a 1-4 year stay.
Culturally Eastern European as well, like I remember when I was there (in Budva) some guys from the hostel were going to get on the floor and dance and they were told that this was culturally verboten, basically, that it was effeminate. Not the sort of culture that is my idea of a good time.
People dance quite a bit in Eastern Europe. Itās a pretty big part of their culture. Some of my students are beginning to take dance classes to prepare for their maturita party this month.
Hell, I was at a party that was mostly comprised of Georgian students not too long ago and singing/dancing was a pretty significant part of it.
Not sure what was up with your hostel. Maybe the owners didnāt want their place to turn into a massive house party.
Yah, my girlfriend has brown skin, so itās always something Iām wary of.
She experienced some pretty blatant racism in the airport getting into Georgia, but once inside, the people havenāt been rude to her. But yah, Georgia does have that annoying gruff macho culture.
In the next year weāre gonna country hop a couple months at a time between Poland, Romania, Serbia, and a couple others.
Poland is like 99.9999% white, but Iād imagine itās not bad in Warsaw or Krakow.
So far, weāve spent at least a month in Brazil, France, Spain, Turkey, and Georgia and besides the airport incident in Georgia I think sheād say itās been positive experiences in all.
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Havenāt been to Poland in five years (my family are from there) but culture has gone further into racist shitholism from what Iāve heard so I wouldnāt hold your/your partnerās hopes up and last time I was there with friends (two of South Asian descent) they copped fairly regular racist comments, intimidating eye contact etc, especially on nights out/at night. Also more than once I got asked in Polish why I was with people like them. I think itās harder on men of colour because itās so patriarchal (so women are given no agency and not perceived as anything to bother about) there but yeah it sucks. Wouldnāt be high on my list of places to visit and all my relatives live there (itās also boring and ugly and I hate the food lol). Also if you want to stay in major cities I actually think Wroclaw is cooler than Warsaw or Krakow (Krakow especially is pretty conservative).
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Thanks for the input.
Weāre kinda forced into at least a short stay there b/c Tbilisi to Warsaw is about the only direct flight to E. Europe/Balkans. In any case, my surname is Polish and Iāve been learning a bit of Polish so am kinda interested to check it out. Sucks to hear itās trending in the wrong direction. Iāve heard good things about Wroclaw, so might have to work it in.
I was kinda surprised to see this graphic. I had assumed the Balkans would be among the most racist, but they actually fare quite well, at least in the western Balkans. Iām skeptical though. I had heard Croatia is kinda racist and find it hard to believe that Portugal would be worse than Poland.
