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SaintsinChina

New Member
Oct 16, 2011
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Hi Everyone,

I have just signed up but have been reading the forum daily from China! I just wanted to assure everyone I have been promoting our great club to all my students and people I meet including teaching 200 kids Oh When the Saints Go Marching In!, showing videos of Adam Lallana and the JP Final win and wearing my Saints shirt around cities of 6,10 or 20 million people!

My question is do we have any foreign fans on here? Also I want to thank everyone for match discussions it really helps me feel part of the action and find out how the lads got on! Anyway looking forward to coming home and watching Southampton at St Mary's during my Christmas break!
 
Brilliant stuff! No better time to get other people into this club with a future looking so bright.

By foreign lads do you mean actual foreign fans, or fans living abroad? We have another chinasaint who is born English (I believe), AdamBanana20 lives in Portugal, DanW is from Cleveland now in New York, and there's definitely more I'm forgetting.
 
Greetings mate, your post reminded me of when I worked in Hong Kong for 3 years in the 80's....heard Steve Moran's cup winner against P**pey on live commentary at midnight local time.....Happy days !! COYS
 
Hi SaintsinChina, whereabouts in this rather large country are you teaching?

I am in Sichuan province and have been here nearly two years. In my second spell of teaching over here.

In answer to Dan's point, yes I am very much English, Hampshire born and bred. Just chose to go and work elsewhere and see as much of the world as I can.
 
I am just south of Kunming in Yunnan Provience! Yea I was wondering about Saints fans abroad, I was amazed at the knowledge of some people out here, Southampton FC is heard of but mainly for our past seasons in the Premiership - who knows what the future holds - Blackburn came to Asia this Summer and are strangely popular, now we play more attractive football than them surely...
 
Too many fans over here have only heard of a few of the biggest clubs in Europe and that is mostly through the Champions league being televised here. I am surprised how many watch these games as they are obviously midweek matches and played in the early hours of the morning here.

I did have a good conversation this summer with a Chinese football fan who was knowledgeable about English football and not just the few teams most know here. Sadly most sports fans over here are very knowledgeable about basketball and have little knowledge about football. The standard of football played in this country is poor so that may have something to do with that.
 
Very interesting China always slightly envy people like yourself who broaden their horizons with travel work and life experience sadly i am a stuck in the mud hampshire boy and a week or two on the med every year is the limit of my own personal horizon. But i am very pleased that while you are there you are indeed spreading the gospel regarding the saints as we all try to do whilst on the road. Will keep a keen eye out now on your views from the east
 
I realise not everyone is able or willing to combine work and travel, after many years of struggling to make ends meet I sold everything and converted to a somewhat nomadic lifestyle in 2006. I earn far less than I was doing back in the UK but here I can live on less than 100 pounds each month and have a good lifestyle trying to convert some new saints fans.
 
chinasaint said:
I realise not everyone is able or willing to combine work and travel, after many years of struggling to make ends meet I sold everything and converted to a somewhat nomadic lifestyle in 2006. I earn far less than I was doing back in the UK but here I can live on less than 100 pounds each month and have a good lifestyle trying to convert some new saints fans.
Click to expand...
How is it like living in china?
 
AdamBanana20 said:
How is it like living in china?
Click to expand...

Well the most difficult part to trying to be understood, the language is so hard to try and learn. Luckily I have a Chinese lady that speaks far better English than I do Chinese so that simplifies that problem.

I like being over here as the lifestyle suits me, virtually no stress to contend with. My working day is complete by 11.15 am and i only have to work about 8 months a year. The downside is I see virtually no decent football. Champions league is shown live but there is no way i can watch it at 2.45am during the week and be fit to work the next day.
 
chinasaint said:
Well the most difficult part to trying to be understood, the language is so hard to try and learn. Luckily I have a Chinese lady that speaks far better English than I do Chinese so that simplifies that problem.

I like being over here as the lifestyle suits me, virtually no stress to contend with. My working day is complete by 11.15 am and i only have to work about 8 months a year. The downside is I see virtually no decent football. Champions league is shown live but there is no way i can watch it at 2.45am during the week and be fit to work the next day.
Click to expand...

Interesting to read about your lifestyle. I'd certainly read more of that with interest, as I'm sort of going in that direction myself. Not China, but a more fluid lifestyle, and I'm not sure whether to make the jump entirely.

BTW, the get yourself noticed post was in total jest. :D

Plenty of little strongholds of Saints support around the world, for various reasons. I know there are several Saints fans in NZ, even from when I was living there in the early 1990s. Aussie support is reasonable, as is Singapore. Closer to home, there's several in France, Spain, and of course Portugal. Knowing [of] these supporters means there are more where they came from. There's also plenty of support from the USA and Canada. Surprisingly little from South America, where a SFC representative introduced the professional game. My old other country, Italy, has the Matt Le Tissier fan club, and it's quite big. By default, they also support Saints. It takes all sorts. We could them all on here.
 
Yes language is a problem here no one speaks any English so it can be difficult - I also have good Chinese friends who can help me though and I can speak enough Chinese to get by! Football is a nightmare to keep tabs on - mid week games start around 4am, lucky I have Saints Player, and not606 to keep up to date!
 
I used to live in Shanghai for 3 years, 3 years ago. Great experience! There were a couple of Saints fans there but obviously it was all about Liverpool and Man United with the Chinese. There were quite a few French, Italians, Spanish, Aussies, Kiwis etc at my international school so there was some good international rivalry there! Learnt a bit of Mandarin and got an A in my GCSE. I don't miss having to watch ESPN and Star Sports, feeding it from Singapore using my illegal satellite! Also that awful BBC World channel that used to cut off if they ever said anything about China! <laugh> Thank goodness for those fake 5 RMB DVDs! Too many yanks there though and I think it's a shame how their culture is creeping in there. I was also shocked by the attitudes of the 'expat brats' there! They were so rude and disrespectful!
 
I have found that cities like Shanghai and Beijing do not give the experience of the 'real' China. There are simply too many tourists and foreigners in those places and English is everywhere, it is just like being in another western city.

I am out in the sticks 3 or 4 hours on a bus to the nearest big city of Chongqing. I have a smaller city about one hour away but little English is spoken amongst its one million inhabitants. I never see any other westerners here and the last time I saw or spoke to a non Chinese person directly was August.

Over here you see Manure shirts everywhere but mostly they are worn as a fashion item and not because they know anything about the team. Here most shirts I see are Milan and Barcelona (both have played friendlies in Beijing in recent years). I can get fake dvds here before they are shown on your multi screen cinema, a lottery as to whether or not they work or are in English.
 
Living in sydney, moved over in the summer! have managed to convince a few of my colleagues that we are the team to follow, being top obviously helps!
Big day tommorrow, were in a lunch league footy comp and have managed to secure red and white shirts for us all to play in, so they'll definately feel a part of us then! Cant wait.
Sent them all a few Nigel's quotes today to get them motivated!!
 
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