David's Big Adventure in China

Wow, it’s been about 5 weeks since I have written anything. I’ve been so busy grading my students writing I haven’t had time to write in my blog. We had a 3 day weekend about 3 weeks ago due to the school sports meeting and I took the opportunity to get out of town. I went with a friend to Yangshuo, which is a famous tourist area that I visited briefly in May of last year. It takes a 5 hour train ride and a 1 hour bus ride to get there. It is famous for its scenery (see pic’s…click on the link to pic’s on the right side). Many foreigners go there and sometimes the foreigners become the tourist attraction for the Chinese as they stop and take pictures of groups of foreigners. On Friday and Saturday during the day we rented bicycles for about $2 per day and went for long rides in the countryside. In the evenings we relaxed in the restaurants and ate western food. During dinner one evening some foreigners were sitting near us and after overhearing them say something about the U.S., I asked them where they were from. They were from the Midwest and a couple of them had lived and worked in Suzhou where Henny Penny Corp. has a factory. I told them about HP because I used to work for HP in Ohio and one of them said she knew the general manager in Suzhou ……what a small world it is.

After my trip in early October, I’ve been wanting to write about Chinese hospitality. Most Chinese are very kind and hospitable. Some of us westerners think they are sometimes too hospitable. When eating, it is very common for them to put food in your bowl without asking you. When you are with them, they always ask you to sit and sometimes say it in a way that sounds more like a command than an invitation. While I was staying at the home of friends of my friend, the husband was having trouble getting me to understand what he was saying in Chinese so his solution was to move very close to my face thinking that would help me understand. For most Chinese, their spatial comfort zone is much smaller than us westerners (that is, they are accustomed to being very close to others when talking to them). Because there are so many people in China, they are used to being crowded together and it is also common for there to be a lot of touching even among friends of the same sex.

I have been so busy lately because we just finished mid-term exams and I had about 7 extra hours of classes this week. Our school was asked to put together English speaking lessons for a bunch of government officials. I was asked to take the lowest level group and had about 7 hours with them and also spent about 7 hours preparing for their lessons. They are giving me extra pay for it but I didn’t do it for the money. They also asked me to teach some other classes at night that they offer to the general community but I declined. I’m working more than I want already and I haven’t had enough time to study Chinese or do other things I want to do. Today I did have some time for shopping and with my higher pay here I have more spending money so I went to Wal-mart and bought a dvd player (300 yuan, $44). I’ve been without a dvd player except for the one on my pc for 18 months. It will be nice to watch movies and tv shows on a screen bigger than my laptop. Yesterday, I purchased seasons 1-3 of the show “Numbers” and seasons 1-6 of the show “24” and the total cost for the 9 dvd’s was just under $6. Well that’s all for now.