I'd always wanted to travel and stumbled upon a job advert for teaching abroad when browsing a job site. Having studied some Chinese history at the University of Manchester I already had some interest in the country, and the chance to live there, experiencing the culture and learning the language of the country of the future seemed enticing.

I was vaguely apprehensive and numerous online reports attested to the ubiquity of feelings of homesickness and a huge culture shock upon moving to China. I kept waiting for this mass nostalgia of home to hit me and was pleasantly surprised when it never seemed to come.

Although, there are of course days when you miss some of the food from home, you can find every type of cuisine you may be craving when you visit bigger cities.

I’ve already done a year in Wuyi – a small town in Zhejiang – and wanted to move to a bigger city in my second year in China, narrowing the cities down to Guangzhou, Nanjing and Chengdu, though there are many more I want to visit. I settled on Nanjing primarily due to the pleasant and professional interaction I had with JESIE; there are many companies and schools in China that, though excellent in intention and with extremely pleasant staff, lack the organisation, smoothness of operation and quality of school that JESIE possesses and offers.

They also offer a unique level of training and advice which makes your job much easier as you have a wealth of experience and resources to draw upon, and in return you are able to deliver a higher quality of teaching, which is rewarding in itself.

The teachers are friendly and the kids are great and well behaved, and though you have to work hard you have enough free time to pursue whatever hobby you like and so I currently spend my free time reading, playing football with a few local teams and (incrementally) learning Mandarin.

You also can use this time to travel and so far in China I've been to Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Huangshan, Chengdu and a number of smaller areas which I forget the name of.

This year I’ve prioritised seeing Guilin, Xi’an and Beijing and in Chinese New Year I plan to return to England to spend time with friends and family as in the previous one I visited Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam with some other foreign teachers and spent the summer travelling Africa.

To anyone thinking of doing a year (or two) out in China I would recommend it; the people are incredibly friendly and welcoming, the country is beautiful and varied (google Guilin or Jiuzhaigou), the work is rewarding, and you can spend your free time on travel and self improvement, or however you so wish.

Though early in the year, JESIE have been honest and friendly and help you throughout the whole process, quickly replying to any questions you may have and this is invaluable in a market which, as many internet reviews attest to, is not always the safest when it comes to schools and recruiters.