David's Big Adventure in China

China has been in the news recently for its economy having recovered quickly from the recession. They are expecting 8% growth in the economy this year but there is some skepticism about that number because there is other information that suggests otherwise. Power usage has been reported as being down vs. the previous year. Apparently government spending is what is driving the economic growth these days although car sales are a bright spot. Car sales are up 25 to 30% vs. last year and now china is #1 in the world for new car sales. The government provided some incentives to purchase new cars with engines smaller than 1.6 liters and many people took advantage of the opportunity. Most cars of this size are made in China so the incentives were targeted at cars made here.

After looking at my pictures, some of you may wonder if I only have one or two shirts since you see my orange shirt in many of the pictures. Actually, I have 2 of those oranges shirts and they are special travel shirts made to protect me from the sun and they dry very quickly after being washed. So when traveling I can hand wash one of those shirts in the evening and it will probably be dry the next morning if I want to wear it again; perfect for traveling light.

Classes started a week ago and I have an interesting schedule. I teach Tuesday morning and afternoon, Wednesday morning and afternoon, Thursday morning, and Sunday morning and afternoon. So my weekend begins at 10:15 a.m. on Thursday and ends on Sunday morning. I am teaching 3 sections of International Business, 3 sections of Finance and Accounting, and a class called English Interest Corner. The reason I have classes on Sunday is that is the only time that juniors and seniors are free to take that class. The juniors and seniors are former full time students of SCIC (Sino-Canadian International College, which is the school I work for) but are now studying something other than English at another college within the university. They want to have English as a second major so they come back to SCIC for that. SCIC is only full time for freshmen and sophomores. I guess you could think of it as a junior college with all of the students having English as their major. There are a total of about 1100 full time students and 29 foreign teachers at SCIC which is a money making enterprise. Except for my Sunday classes, all of my students are sophomores. There are two other colleges at this university that employ foreign teachers so in total there are over 50 foreign teachers here with all but a handful of them teaching English. The other languages taught as a major are Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese.

We will have a holiday from October 1 to 9 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of modern day China and also Mid Autumn festival. It’s amazing to me to think that China has only been a country in its modern form for 60 years considering its long history and culture. The government is really making a big deal of the celebration. Anyplace worth traveling to in China will be packed with people during the holiday so I’ve decided to get out of the country. I’ll be going to the Philippines. Until next time….

On August 7, I took the overnight train to Kunming, then went to the airport and met a friend. We took a flight to Shangri-la in western Yunnan Province (not far from Tibet and Myanmar). We stayed there for 3 nights and visited the old town, Pu Dacuo National Park and the local grasslands. This area was primarily inhabited by Tibetans and Naxi minority people before it became a popular tourist area. The weather was nice and cool in the 50’s and 60’s as the elevation there is about 11,000 feet. It was nice and picturesque but I don’t think it deserves the name Shangri-la. (It was renamed Shangri-la to promote tourism.) We left early on the 11th and headed to Tiger Leaping Gorge where we used Tina’s Guest House as a base for a nice hike down to the river. The gorge was definitely worth the visit and would be worth spending a couple days there if you like nature and hiking. The gorge is more than 3000 feet from peak to the river. We hired a local guide to lead us on our hike for the afternoon for about $6. After our hike, we continued on by bus to Lijiang and spent one night there in the old city. From there, my friend flew back to Kunming and I took a bus for 8 hours back to Kunming. After spending a day in Kunming visiting friends there I took the overnight train back home to Nanning arriving on the 14th.

After relaxing and catching up on things at home for a couple weeks I went with a friend to Longsheng in the northern part of this province to see the Longji rice terraces. We spent one night in the small town of Longsheng (about 170,000) before going to the tourist village of Longji nestled in the mountains and surrounded by the rice terraces (also called Dragon Backbone Rice Terraces…see pic’s). The rice terraces were created 600 to 700 years ago and are quite beautiful. We spent two days there hiking through the mountains and enjoying the cooler weather. Then we went to Yangshuo for 2 days where we toured a cave that is only accessible via boat (not too exciting if you’ve seen other caves) and visiting a local park famous for a huge 1500 year old Banyon tree. One evening we went to see the Zhang Yimou production called Impression (Sanjie Liu) which was great. Zhang Yimou is the man who created and produced the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics. This production uses over 600 people dressed in local traditional costumes and takes place mostly on the river using flat rafts and portable bridges. It uses the karsts (small limestone mountains) in the area as a backdrop and lights them to highlight the beautiful scenery. This was my third visit to Yangshuo which is one of the most famous tourist spots in China and where you will see more foreigners as a percentage of the total than anywhere else in China.

I’m now back in Nanning and start back to work on Monday the 7th with a week of meetings and lesson prep before starting classes the following week. It’s been so hot here the last few weeks with the temperature often reaching the mid 90’s with high humidity. Recently I took a cold shower trying to cool off after being outside but the water wasn’t cool enough to cool me down……lol. Even the rats try to stay indoors as I saw a family of them in the nicest restaurant on campus recently. Actually, they live there full time and I often see them there……such is life in China……we all have to get along to have a “harmonious society” as the leaders here like to say!