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35-year-old American moved to Chengdu and lives on $30,000 a year: '[It's] poverty in America, but in China I'm living large'

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Summary
Nutrition label

73% Informative

Aleese Lightyear was tired of working 70 hours a week for ten years in New York City .

She moved to China in 2019 to teach English at a university in Chengdu .

Lightyear has a yearly salary of about $30,000 USD.

In China , she has free health insurance, a travel stipend, a rent stipend and a flight allowance.

As a person of color, Lightyear says she "sticks out like a sore thumb" Lightyear: "I probably cannot go an hour being outside without someone pointing at me and saying, in Chinese , 'there's a black person, look, there's a foreigner' Despite those uncomfortable moments and the time it's taken to adjust to Chinese culture, she says her self-confidence has skyrocketed.

VR Score

70

Informative language

65

Neutral language

61

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

29

Offensive language

not offensive

Hate speech

not hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

medium-lived

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