I worked in Huadu for a bit one year. I worked in Guangzhou for about two years.

Indeed they are two very different places. Guangzhou is mostly very first-world. Huadu is mostly second-world but not at all bad. For me, it was Guangzhou 20 years ago, or so.

I actually liked Huadu. It can be decent value for money so to speak. Re all of these hordes of Hunnanites running all over, I actually did not run into that many.

I even managed to learn Cantonese, or a fraction of it in Huada while in Guangzhou I would say that the mix was 40% Cantonese, 60% Mandarin.

There is a great night market in Huada, and no, I don't mean a sex market at all, but an entire part of the downtown core that converts to outside stalls in the evening, all of them run by shopkeepers anxious to get of their goods that don't sell well. I redid my entire wardrobe for a pittance, bought great electronic stuff, mobile phones, etc., etc., bicycles, you name it, even an air-conditioner that was not selling well, way below market or store prices.

Like someone wrote, all of the major department store chains are in Huadu, most of them quite nice, and all of them offer free bus service to and from from various neighborhoods from about 10h00 until about 20h30. Taxis are plentiful and cheap.

People in Huada are generally innurred to foreigners and they tend not to stare, not to gawk and not to make blatantly rude comments. I could sit in the KFC at RT Mart and not be subject to endless laowai remarks. I miss it.

Greater Huadu is also one of the automobile manufacturing centers of China so while there is industry, it tends to be more green friendly.

Now, Almayca. One of my best friends worked for years at Almacya. He was always paid on time and he was provided with a proper visa (meaning a Z visa). He had his own private apartment, although some teachers did share (I don't know whether by choice or not). Yes, he did go to different schools but he was ferried around in the company van, most of the time, at not charg and he did have two days off every week. After about 3 years at Almayca (and I think that the co-owner is Canadian, not Taiwanese), he went to work for one of the major employers of foreign teachers in Huadu (Peizheng College) and once at that College, he regretted it every day. Eventually he left that College, returned to Almayca, worked another year-and-several months...and God bless his soul, then he went to Thailand for winter vacation, took a stroke and passed. My friend, who could be as difficult as the day can be long, had nothing but moderately good things to say about the place.

As I am getting old, I cannot for the life of me remember the other LTC in Huadu that is indeed Taiwanese-owned (not Almayca for sure). It is that LTC that is the job from hell in Huadi. The co-owner, a lady who name is ??????, a Taiwanese, is the bitch from hell. She cheats her staff regularly; they are made to attend meaningless, endless and unpaid staff meetings; they live together in slum apartments, and yes, they are raided all the time by the PSB because she only provides F visas, and the teachers are caught and deported. It is that school that is infamous, truly infamous, in Huada, for its wacko foreign teachers. She actually hires people on the dole from Canada with no experience, cooks up false papers, etc., etc. During my time in Huadu, we all knew that the DOS for that school, a Canadian guy with no education at all but a nice body and handsome (if you get the picture) had been a Day Shift Manager at Harvey's Hamburgers in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and thus he was qualified by Lidia, yes, that's her name, to be the DOS.

If I wanted Guangdong, but not Guangzhou or Huizhou or Meizhou, then I might choose Huadu. And I wouldn't turn my nose up at Almacya. My poor departed friend was making more at Almacya than he did when he went to Peizheng.

Cheers and beers to all of you.