Shanghai or shang-nay?

So, of late, I've been doing my shooting thing, working still at the university conducting research.  However though, in a recent state of affairs, I went overseas for two months to train and compete at a variety of events in the USA and Canada.

Prior to me heading overseas, the same week of my departure, I was contacted by a research group leader from a division of Firmenich, one of the worlds largest fragrance and flavours companies in the world, with the person interested in my for a position in their company, located in Shanghai, China.  Poor timing to be honest, and I told them that they'd have to wait for 2 months essentially since I would be away.  No problems, send us your CV they told me, so I did.

In any case, when I returned, I sent off an email saying I was back, if they were still interested in talking to me after having had my CV for two months, and bam, same day response wishing to arrange a telephone conversation as soon as possible.

I had the phone conversation today with the fellow, lasted nearly an hour and twenty minutes.  Quite an extensive discussion, mostly him with questions regarding my chemical engineering related matters, how I got to the PhD when I didn't have a Chem Eng background, what I did my project on, equipment used, my experiences at Lang Technology, research methodologies and so forth.  It was so long I don't really remember it all.

I don't know what they were exactly after and I'm sure I probably am not realistically 100% what they thought I would be, but, they did have my CV for two months, so if they weren't sure about something, they wouldn't have taken the time to talk to me for so long, though he took extensive notes since he used speakerphone so he could write.

Now comes the waiting.  One to two weeks, if I haven't heard from him, contact him to follow it up.

Though while I wait, I dug around the internet for information.  Their company pays approximately $81k USD for positions of that nature in the US, whether it will be comparable in China (ie, payscale to US rates, or to Chinese rates, or heaven forbid, Swiss rates since they are a Swiss head company) or not is to be seen.  If it is a direct translation across, then that comes to quite a 'well off' rate in China.  My cousin lives and works in Shanghai and earns ~$42k Australian a year but his housing and meals are covered by his employers.  In my situation, it would not be, so the package values would need different considerations.

My parents recently where in China in GuangZhou for my brothers wedding arrangement matters, so they said for that area, meals are cheap, around 5-6 RMB/meal, where you could eat like a rich man at 30 RMB/meal. Well, put that into perspective, the current exchange rates put $1 Australian at 6 RMB....  which, the US is also a 1:6 currently.  However, housing is one big cost issue dependant upon locality, and can cost in the thousands of US/month as they are 'expat' buildings which communities of foreigners live in.  

While I have no problems working overseas, my primary concerns for working in China be health ans safety.  The pollution, quality of food (e.g. fake foods, poisoned foods/pesticides etc), and healthcare (health insurance? pay-through-the-nose medical bills?).  There is also the great firewall of China, but I have been told that a adequately set up VPN will fix that problem fine and dandy.

Of course, all of this is idle speculation if they are not actually interested in making an offer, but if they do make an offer, I ponder what kind of package would I accept to make a very large leap to somewhere I had not really considered working prior to this situation.