35-year-old American relocated to China and lives on $30,000 a year

Alese Lightyear worked in the production of reality TV production and lived in New York, which he thought was a dream.

“I probably won $ 100,000 a year at the summit of my career in New York [and] Working in the eight months of the year is great on paper, but the New York City is one of the most expensive cities in the world, so $ 100,000 went extremely fast. “

He continued: “to be fashionable and ‘sex and city’ New York City ‘as I could feel like I was living in the dream I was taking out all my money and buying clothes.”

30. As Lightyear still worked for 70 to 80 hours a week, but he realized that he had no pension. And there was no benefits or health insurance because he was free workers.

“I had to save for these things. I was checking to check, it was absorbed. It was some of the most stressful years of my life to live and work in New York for the last few years.”

“I found this idea that I wanted to leave New York because I’m tired of working 70 hours a week for a decade. Being in my 20s, I felt like a 50 -year -old woman.”

One day, Lightyear woke up and said, “How can I make money and travel the world?” The first result was to teach English. After talking to a colleague who taught in South Korea, Lightyear began to investigate what the teacher would require without experiencing overseas countries.

Im I put this to pause because I wasn’t sure if it was right for me. It took about two years to make the decision I wanted to be a teacher, or he says. “Google told me that I need a TEFL certificate to teach foreign language students English, so I registered.”

Lightyear completed a 13 -week program to win English teaching as a foreign language (Tefl) certificate and initially identified its landscapes in South America. However, he quickly changed the course and decided that if he left his life in New York, he would go as far as possible.

“If I move all over the world, I certainly go to the farthest country I know and have a complete adventure, and China looked like pure adventure, entertainment, excitement and big money.”

“I’m a lot of traveling, but I’ve never been to Asia before, so what I would expect and to be honest, my first few days was just a big blur because there was too many cultural shock.”

At that time, 31 -year -old Lightyear took his official action in Beijing in 2019 – and did not look back. He lived in the Chinese capital for four years before moving to Chengdu, where he was a teacher at a university. Lightyear works 18 hours a week, four days a week and the annual salary is approximately 30,000 USD.

“30,000 dollars per year in America, but I live great in China,” he says.

Typical Working Week is completely different from New York. He works in China on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and offers two to three lessons a day. Some of the benefits may be free health insurance, travel scholarship, rent scholarship, flight allowance and two -month paid summer and winter holidays.

Lightyear made a payment interruption when he quit his job in Beijing for one in Chengdu. However, his life in Beijing began to resemble his time in NYC, so he has no regret.

“I haven’t moved around the world to work as much as I did in New York, or he says.

“My current work-life balance is a dream. I may have time to make many different hobbies, to really learn the language and to devote everything I want, and I feel great. I feel very lucky and happy to spend a lot of time.”

In Chengdu, Lightyear lives in an apartment with a single -bathroom with three bedrooms with a balcony and laundry room. Due to the rent scholarship, Lightear has to pay only $ 278 per month for accommodation.

Lightyear supports its income as a teacher through an active Youtube channel. Both allow them to save up to $ 1,000 per month. Something that he can never do to live in the USA

Now that he has lived in China for more than five years, Lightyear says he was experiencing reverse culture shock when he visits the USA. Almost always have to explain to friends, family and foreigners why their life is much better than before.

“For the typical American, there is a lot of confusion and false information about how life is actually in China, but as a woman, I feel completely safe, color, independent, doing something. I feel very comfortable in this country.”

Despite feeling comfortable in China, Lightyear, because the country is very homogeneous, as a color person “comes out like a painful thumb” and from time to time disturbs him.

“Probably someone without pointing to me and ‘There is a black person in Chinese, look, there is a stranger,’ I can’t go out for an hour.

Despite this disturbing moments and the time taken to adapt to Chinese culture, Lightear says that self -confidence has increased.

“I’m still encountering many difficulties [and] I still have no idea about it, and it was the most difficult part of it, “he says. Take it to China. If you can do it in China, you can really do it everywhere. I feel fearless and there’s nothing I can’t.”

Conversions from China to USD were made using 1 China Yuan’s Oanda transformation rate. 0.14 On July 3, 2025, USD. All amounts are rolling to the nearest dollars.

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