David's Big Adventure in China

I’m in the U.S. now and a few folks have asked me about how I get paid in China. The school pays me in cash and there are no withholdings. I make less than the threshold amount for paying taxes. There are no sales taxes in China and no tipping so it’s nice that the price you see listed is the price you pay unless you negotiate a lower price. The day before I left I participated in interviewing students that want to spend their senior year studying in France as part of an exchange program with a university there. They will study French while there but except for their French language class all their classes will be in English. The main focus of the interviews was to assess their English proficiency and I was the only native English speaker on the interview team. There were 5 of us on the interview team and the others’ English skills ranged from poor to not bad. Most of the students didn’t speak very well so they will really be challenged to have their classes taught in English.

It’s interesting coming back to the U.S. after being away for so long. The first surprise I got was the soft bed at my parents’ house. I’ve gotten used to the hard beds in China but it really felt nice to crawl into a soft bed. The other thing I noticed is how annoying the media is. I can’t believe how much the media reports on things like Britney Spears and other stupid things being done by stupid people. I also found that I have enjoyed not having to hear much about the presidential race and all the charges and counter charges being made by the candidates. Sunday, January 13 was Thanksgiving Day at my parents home as my mother granted my request and made a traditional turkey dinner for the entire family to enjoy.

After a little more than a week with my family in Indiana I went to Reno to check on my property there and also went through the things I have in a storage unit there. I selected about 8 boxes of things to keep and one of my tenants helped me move them into his basement for storage. The rest of the things in the storage will be donated. I am now down to about 15 boxes of worldly possessions scattered among 3 locations (Reno, Indiana, and China). I left Reno and went to Atlanta. I landed in Atlanta late Thursday night, stayed at a hotel near the airport and then on Friday morning took a train from the airport to NE Atlanta. A friend from Edy’s picked me up at the train station, we had a nice southern barbeque lunch, then he took me to my hotel near the Chateau Elan winery NE of Atlanta (thanks Rich!). Friday afternoon/evening I met up with my old Coca-Cola friends (old meaning I have known them a long time and also that most of them are old..lol). This was our 18th annual reunion and Nita did her usual fabulous job as host. We enjoyed seeing a rare Atlanta snowfall, temperatures in the teens (Fahrenheit), the usual jokes and insults, a wonderful cooking class, the Atlanta Aquarium and lots of good food.

Before leaving Atlanta on Monday (the 21st) I also got to visit with some other old friends from Edy’s (Bob and Cindy). Then I rode in a car back to Tampa with Dan and Corinne (sorry, if I spelled it wrong) and used their home as a base for visiting many of my good friends and some family in Tampa. It was great to see everyone and I also got a tour of the new Edy’s palace….I mean office. On Thursday I flew back to Indiana to spend a few more days with family. My mother had her gall bladder removed on this day and she was already at home and feeling pretty good by the time I got there. They did the procedure outpatient and she was only at the hospital for 4 or 5 hours. She has almost fully recovered already which is quite amazing and quite a relief for all of us in the family. On Saturday night a friend from China and her husband arrived at my parents’ home and on Sunday morning we had a big breakfast with the whole family. Lilly helped me when I first went to China with things like getting a phone, opening a bank account and storing a couple of my bags for me while I travelled. I met her over 3 years ago when I went to Hong Kong on vacation. She came to America in August to get married after waiting about 9 months for her fiancé visa. She and her husband live in Illinois and were kind enough to drive to Indiana for a visit.

Tomorrow is Tuesday the 29th and I will leave early in the morning to return to China. I will arrive in Kunming late Wednesday if all goes well and then on Friday will go to Saigon, Viet Nam for the start of 2 weeks of travel. I have posted some pics of my time here in the U.S. It may be a while before I post again since I’m not taking my pc with me to Viet Nam.

Well, it has finally happened. I wondered when the day would come. At this point I still refuse to believe it…..I keep telling myself it was just a fluke. I refuse to accept it as truth until I get confirmation by a second occurrence. There I was, minding my own business on the bus when a young lady looked at me from her seat, smiled, stood up and then……………offered me her seat! Maybe she knew I am a teacher and wanted to show respect. At least that’s what I’m assuming until it happens again and until then I’ll still think of myself as young.

I’d like to add some further comments on why the people here like Americans. It’s true that the old people like us because we helped them in the war. There were American aircraft and soldiers here in Yunnan during the war. The young people like us because they like our culture, our freedoms, our technology, and they think all of us are rich. The ones that have had more exposure to our culture really like the idea of the American dream and being able to succeed based on your abilities and efforts rather than your guanxi. (your connections).

I recently went to an old temple just outside the edge of town (that is where the Emperor David pic was taken) that is built on a hill with very pretty natural surroundings in a park like area. There were trees that were blooming already. Spring has arrived! I have mentioned before that they call Kunming the “Spring City” so I guess it’s true that we do have spring almost year round since we had blooms before the winter solstice. At least it was spring like for a while. It has turned cold and the high for December 31 was 41. Incredibly, some of the students still have their windows open. I’m pretty sure they don’t have heat. Even with both heaters on high the warmest I can get my apartment is 65 in the living room and 60 in the kitchen/bathroom area. I went to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant with some friends recently on a Saturday night. That had a little show as we were eating. They had some Chinese ladies dressed in Brazilian costumes dancing to some music and one of the songs they danced to was “Cotton Eyed Joe”. For those of you not familiar with this song is a country dance song very popular in Texas. I had to laugh seeing Chinese ladies in Brazilian costumes dancing to American country music.

Since I have lost weight I had a couple pairs of pants that were too big so I took them to have the waist taken in. It cost me 10 yuan ($1.35) for each pair. The lady uses an old manual foot pump machine and works by the sidewalk just outside the school entrance. Sometimes I eat some of the local street food. I don’t know what it is called but they fry some dough into a size and shape of pita bread and while they are frying it they break an egg on it to fry with it. Then they fry some meat (I was told it was pork but it tastes more like lamb) and then put the meat, some secret sauce, spices and lettuce on top then fold it over and wrap a small plastic bag around it. It can serve as a meal for me and it costs 2.5 yuan ($.35). It’s a big greasy but pretty tasty. I recently tried a new way to enjoy Coca-Cola. Since it has been so cold I didn’t want a cold drink but I really wanted a Coke so I decided to nuke a glass of Coke and try drinking it hot. The microwaves made it taste a bit stale but overall it wasn’t bad. Maybe my Coke friends have a suggestion for me on how best to enjoy Coke hot?

New Year’s Eve here was a non-event. I was on my way home a few minutes after midnight and the streets were quiet and mostly empty except for the occasional firecracker. Chinese New Year is when they really celebrate the new year. Well I have only 2 more classes to finish before turning in the final grades and heading off for 7 weeks of vacation and travel. I will leave here for USA on Sunday the 6th and hopefully after about 30 hours of travel will arrive at my parents home in Indiana.