At his restaurant kitchen inside a lavish shopping mall in a south-western city in China, Australian expat and restaurateur Paul Tait is cooking up a storm.

Unlike many other Australians who opt for well-known cities like Shanghai or Beijing on the east coast, the 49-year-old Queensland chef moved to Chongqing, a sprawling municipality near the Yangtze river, to learn more about Chinese food and culture in 2016.

Known as China's "hot pot capital", it's estimated there are more than 26,000 hot pot restaurants in the city.

"It's hard work in Chongqing to get people to eat anything different than hot pot," Mr Tait said.

"We made like a spicy beef burger … just trying to make it taste like it's coming out of a hot pot, it sort of worked."

The hot pot Aussie burger is an Australian beef burger mixed with deep fried white lotus root, hot pot sauce and a dash of sesame oil. ( Supplied: Paul Tait )

His latest invention of a hot pot burger — an Australian beef burger mixed with deep fried white lotus root, hot pot sauce and a dash of sesame oil — quickly attracted the attention of local foodies and the media.

"You got all the hot pot flavours in it," Mr Tait said. "Once the burger got out, I was doing two or three interviews with different Chinese online media, newspapers and TV.

"They mostly take a video of me eating hot pot, making the burger and going shopping, just my general life in Chongqing. It's insane."

Although Mr Tait had 30 years of experience in cooking and won Clubs Queensland chef of the year in 2013, his career in China had a rocky start amid cultural shock, a language barrier and his strong accent.

"When I first arrived, I had a group of English majored girls from universities donating their time to translate for me," he said.

"They couldn't understand one word I was saying, they basically thought they hadn't learnt anything at school."

Having cooked for western restaurants and expats in Chongqing, Mr Tait met his business partner Maggie, a local businesswoman, and recently opened the Light's Burger shop bringing an Australian flair to the local food scene.

Paul Tait says starting out in China was difficult but now he's loving it. ( Supplied: Paul Tait )

As one of the "rare" western chefs in town, he is often invited to teach at Chinese cooking schools and to cater for private functions and charities.

"The Chinese people really appreciate that a guy is actually cooking [in front of them], so there's always a lot of interest in that, there's a lot of pictures, a lot of people want to know you," Mr Tait said.

"Before I came, everyone thought I was crazy, I only brought myself, at the start it was uncomfortable, but now it's probably the best thing I have ever done."

Melburnian bringing jamming to the Chinese music scene

Melburnian expat Emily Pritchard jams with Chinese musicians on the street of Chongqing. ( Supplied: Emily Pritchard )

Melburnian expat musician Emily Pritchard is another living in the same city. She moved to Chongqing in 2012.

She was one of the first western expats to start jam nights in Chongqing where the local musicians weren't used to the concept of jamming.

"That was kind of a novelty when I first came here, not many people really knew how to jam, there weren't many opportunities for people to do that," Ms Pritchard said.

"In China, things are usually very structured when it comes to performance, usually the production aspect is always very big, they rehearse many times, so things tend to be a little bit rigid.

"There's not so much creativity on stage and a lot of it happens behind the stage … improvisation is not really a huge thing here."

Emily Pritchard says the expat community has had a big impact on the local music scene in Chongqing. ( Supplied: Emily Pritchard )

Ms Pritchard teaches music in early childhood education by day then often plays in different bands by night.

She met Chen Tong, a local tap dancer and percussionist, at an open mic night five years ago and the friendship blossomed.

"We just jammed … they had a cajon and an acoustic guitar, we just picked it up and played blues," Ms Pritchard said.

"Our relationship started like that, but now we're like brother and sister, I call him 'Da Ge', that means big brother."

Despite Chen Tong not speaking English, the two bonded through the world of music and collaborated for many shows and festivals.

Ms Pritchard said the expat community was having a huge impact on the local music scene as big live venues started to host more open mic and jam nights.

"The fact that I can make a difference is pretty special, when you live in a big city that's your home city, like Melbourne, you have to work pretty hard, be pretty special, to bust out the night, to have a significant impact on your community and your environment," she said.

Emily Pritchard plays alongside Chinese percussionist Chen Tong. ( Supplied: Emily Pritchard )

Australian start-up spreading the love of Aussie beers

A 90-minute train ride away, west of Chongqing, is the neighbouring city Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province which has a sister-state relationship with Victoria.

Australian expat and entrepreneur Tyson Murphy moved to China in 2016 on the Victorian Government Hamer Scholarship and subsequently settled in Chengdu seeking business opportunities.

"I didn't want to end up on the east coast … I wanted to be thrown into the deep end and exposed to a really deep cultural China, the grassroots China," Mr Murphy said.

His latest project is promoting Australian beers and soft drinks to the "untapped" south-western region.

"Coming from Victoria, loving a beer, it comes from Australian culture in many ways," Mr Murphy said.

"It's been fantastic going out there and talking about VB, Coopers and Bundaberg, and why they liked them and how it's part of Australian culture."

Tyson Murphy teaches Chinese students AFL in Chengdu. ( Supplied: Tyson Murphy )

But competing with well-established European beer brands in the region isn't an easy task.

After having worked in the Victorian Aboriginal health sector for 10 years, the 41-year-old Melburnian worked with another Australian expat Jesse Glass to co-found The Australian Movement, a start-up which helps Australian companies to "bridge the cultural gap" with Chinese businesses by providing consultation services.

"It's a bit of hard push at times, because Australia, in China, isn't known as a beer producing country," Mr Murphy said.

"I think the Chinese see Australia as beautiful in terms of lifestyle and environment … if there's anything that they see us producing it's very good red wine."

By taking a grassroots approach — hosting beer-tasting events and working directly with bars and restaurants — Mr Murphy said the Australian brands were being "well-received" against the odds.

"We've got an ever-increasing and quickly growing middle class here, they are very interested in new and imported products," he said.

Tyson Murphy brings Australian beers to Chengdu, China. ( Supplied: Tyson Murphy )

Reality check: smog, food quality issues and the Great Firewall

There are downsides, though, for expats living in China — air pollution, food quality issues, a lack of wildlife and the so-called Great Firewall.

"When it's like National Day, when it's like big government holidays, the government actually cracks down on all the VPNs, sometimes you can't get on for two or three weeks," Mr Tait said.

Despite that, China is full of surprises for many.

Mr Murphy said he didn't expect China to be "advanced" from a technological and infrastructure standpoint.

"If you walk into most of the malls in Chengdu, which are relatively new, you would think you were walking in Chadstone mall … alongside that, all the fashion and all the contemporary things we enjoy, they are all over here as well," he said.

In recent years, Australia-China relations have been tense, and for many Australians in China who are watching, it is with mixed emotions.

"In terms of politics, it bothers me a lot to hear any kind of tensions between Australia and China, even America and China … what happens if there's a war and I'm in China, that's terrifying," Ms Pritchard said.

"It's just sad. I know China and I know so many Chinese people who are my friends and family, I love them so much, I would hate if anything escalated into that kind of thing."

Although many Australians return home eventually, the fulfilment, excitement and adventures of expat life keep many in China for a little while longer.

"It's definitely taught me a lot about myself, if you want to do something, you can actually get up and have a go and do it," Mr Tait said.