BootsnAll Travel Network



Fall semester

We’re now approaching the half-way mark of this semester. I’m teaching 4 classes of Oral English, Business English, 2 classes of Reading and a class called Communicative English to Vietnamese majors. These are all classes I’ve taught before so the prep work is minimal. After the semester is over in mid-January we’ll have 5 weeks off for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). We’ll spend most of that time here but we plan to spend 9 days in Cambodia which is one of the few Asian countries I haven’t yet visited. We will visit the states next summer.

I have mentioned before that Bonnie is buying an apartment on campus. She first paid the application fee in 2008 and they started construction in 2010. She began making mortgage payments in March of this year. In September they completed the construction on the eight 30 story buildings but it seems that it will be at least April before we can get the key and begin doing the finishing/decorating. A year ago we were hoping that we would be able to move into the apartment by Christmas this year. It now looks like it will be between June and December 2014 before we can move in. The school has a department that manages projects like this and it seems they are completely incompetent. They didn’t plan for parking for cars in the design (most households will have a car) and they apparently still haven’t signed contracts for connecting water and power to the buildings. There are both formal and informal homeowners groups and there are rumors of corruption in both. The informal groups mainly serve as a forum for information sharing and complaints. They also serve as a buying group for negotiating prices with vendors for decorating items such as tile flooring, bathroom fixtures, appliances, paint, etc. There have been accusations that some people involved in negotiating these group prices with vendors have negotiated a kickback for themselves. The formal group is supposed to communicate with the school and with the homeowners about progress and issues but they have communicated almost no information. It is very frustrating and a group of the homeowners sent a letter to the university president’s office expressing their complaints. The letter caused some actions to be taken but they are still waiting to see real progress. Keep in mind that this is all happening on a university campus where many of these people know each other and of course they all work together.

We are currently living in an apartment on campus provided to me as a foreign teacher as part of my compensation so as long as I’m teaching we have a place to live that is comfortable enough. I’m considering retiring from full time teaching at the end of this school year but may not want to do that if we can’t move into the apartment by the middle of July. Oh well, TIC – This Is China and such is life in China. Until next time….



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