David's Big Adventure in China

I’m writing this while on a bus from Guilin to Guangzhou. No the bus does not have wireless internet: I will copy and paste it later onto the blog site. It’s about a 9 hour bus ride but it’s a sleeper bus so it’s pretty comfortable. The bus cost $20 vs. $100 for a flight so I opted for the bus. I don’t have an income now so I have to save my money when I can! However, I will have an income in a few months.
I accepted a job teaching business classes in English at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics (YUFE) in Kunming. I chose that one out of the 5 offers I had because I will teach business rather than English and the campus is very nice there. The weather in Kunming is very nice and not too hot. In fact, my apartment will not have heat or air conditioning. A space heater will do. YUFE will provide me a small apartment on campus and will pay me 3500 Yuan per month. That is roughly $460 per month; not a lot but enough to live on and have some traveling money. At the end of the school year they will give me a bonus of about 5000 yuan.. I will get about 14 weeks of vacation too – 1 week the first week of October, then 6 weeks for Chinese New Year/spring break, then 1 week the first week of May and 6 weeks in the summer from mid July until September 1. I’m thinking that my first trip back to the states will be during the Chinese new year break. If not, then definitely in the summer.
I had 3 offers in Nanning; a private school, a university, and a special university program to prepare kids for studying abroad. I also had an offer from a university in Guilin which is a very nice area as you can see from the pictures of the Lijiang river posted on shutterfly. The classrooms in Guilin are not air conditioned and it does get very hot there. I was a bit surprised that every school I visited made me an offer. The interview process at most of the universities was not very thorough as I felt I was interviewing them more than they were interviewing me. The salaries in Nanning are higher bye 2000 yuan per month but the weather there is so hot. I have some friends in Nanning so it was difficult to choose another city but hopefully I will quickly make friends in Kunming when I arrive there. The job starts early September.
Starting on Monday I will be in Zhuhai (near Macau) for 4 weeks taking the TESOL class. After that I’m not quite sure where I will go until the job starts. I want to spend some of that time working hard to improve my mandarin language skills.
Now for some odds and ends. In case you haven’t noticed, on the right hand side of the blog site you will see a section called my links. Under that I have a link to a website (shutterfly) where I have posted a bunch of pic’s for your enjoyment. Smoking – people smoke everywhere here, including elevators and there was even some guys smoking on the bus. Grady, if you want to have your own route here I’m sure you can. You could hire a helper but I’m not sure if he would fit on the bike! I saw a guy that had 8 cases of returnable soft drink bottles on a bicycle. They use bikes and motorbikes to deliver all kinds of things here. I got a nice shoeshine yesterday for $.28 and most of the taxi rides are $1 to $3. In fact, I’ve only had one over $5. Gas here is about $2 per gallon. Even though there is a lot of poverty here, many of the cities do a really nice job of landscaping as you can see in some of the pics. It provides jobs. People often just throw their trash on the sidewalks but that also provides jobs.
Well that’s it for now. Next post will be from my school in Zhuhai.
Postscript: The 9 hour bus ride turned out to be a 13 hour bus ride! I think the original bus I was supposed to be on was full so they put me on a second bus which stopped in every little town picking up people along the road. That’s life in China!

I’m back in Nanning now after a few days in Kunming. Kunming is about the same size as Nanning but didn’t seem to have as much personality. The city seemed to shut down earlier in the evening perhaps because the weather there is more moderate and it’s not so hot during the day. I had an interview at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics and it went well. I received an offer to teach there and I would be teaching business classes in English rather than teach English. I think I would really enjoy teaching the business classes. The campus was quite nice and they would provide an apartment for me right on campus. I met a lady from chicago that is there teaching English and she spoke well of the school. She invited me to see her apartment and by western standards it’s quite small and spartan but adequate.
I think my strategy of writing to the schools and telling them that I will be in their city and would like to visit is really paying off rather than just trying to arrange a position via the internet and phone. I now have 3 offers in Nanning and the one in Kunming! I don’t yet know all of the details of the offer from the school in Nanning that I would be most interested in but I will probably choose between that one (Guangxi University in Nanning) and the one in Kunming.
Here are some miscellaneous observations about life here. Hotels – the beds in all the hotels are really hard and every room I’ve had so far has had condoms. In fact, there are condom vending machines in many public places! Paper – seems like they use all the paper for documenting transactions and don’t have enough left over for napkins and toilet paper. Public bathrooms do not provide toilet paper or hand towels. Even restaurants don’t always provide napkins so most people carry a small pack with them to use in bathrooms and restaurants. The bathrooms and plumbing in general is not up to western standards. Many of the bathrooms have the traditional chinese style toilet which is just a hole in the floor in the shape of a toilet seat. So far, I’ve been lucky enough not to have to use one of those for anything that would require sitting or squatting. The hotels I’ve stayed in have western style toilets. I think one way the people here deal with the toilets is by not drinking much so they don’t have to use them often. Plumbing is often leaking and I noticed the other day some kitchen sinks for some apartments that were actually on the outside of the building. The top part of the sink was inside in like a window box and it drained through a hose on the outside.
Enough of the rambling…..tomorrow I’m going to Guilin a scenic tourist area about a 4 hour bus ride from here to the North. I hope to have an interview at a university there and if not, I’ll just enjoy being a tourist.

I am going to Kunming today which is known as the spring city for it's San Francisco like weather. It is in Yunnan province in South Central China. I have been in Nanning for almost a week and ... [Continue reading this entry]

I have been here more than a week now and I have survived without any big difficulties. Whenever I need help someone is there to give it to me. In general, the people here have been ... [Continue reading this entry]

I'm in Indiana now visiting with family and I leave for China on May 9. I moved out of my apartment in Oakland, CA a week ago and I've been busy finalizing everything to prepare for this trip. ... [Continue reading this entry]