David's Big Adventure in China

The Chinese New Year holiday period finally ended on February 28 and with it came the end of all the fireworks. Anyone here can buy commercial grade fireworks and it seems almost everyone does. They shoot them off every day during the two week holiday period at all times during the day and night. The last night was the worst and it seemed like a war zone with the fireworks going off non-stop making it almost impossible to watch tv or talk on the phone. They shoot them off anywhere and everywhere with portions of the fireworks landing on balconies, roofs, etc. Many people are injured and many fires are started. There was one incident in the neighboring province where 19 people were killed.

Here are the headlines in the “China Daily” newspaper for the 3 front page stories for February 20: “Military not linked to attacks on Google”, “Angry man flies into US tax office”, and “Concrete actions for healthy ties urged”. The last article is basically about how Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama hurts relations with China. Do you see the theme here? Then on page 4, “Play and buy virtually for less with Facebook credits”. It seems strange that they would publish a big article about Facebook considering that it’s blocked here. Oh well, TIC (this is China) as the foreigners here say. More recently the first story on CCTV English news channel was about Google and most of the time was spent talking about all the bad things Google has done here and in other parts of the world. I sometimes download articles from the CCTV website to use in class and the last time I was on the site I noticed a link to Facebook where you can become a fan of CCTV. Why would they want you to become a fan on something they think is so bad that it’s banned??

Classes are back in full swing although my classes started a few days later than planned because their registration system crashed. I’m teaching 3 sections of International Business and 3 sections of Accounting again this semester which is nice in that I can re-use a good part of the lesson plans. Classes will end the first week of July, then grading of final exams and reports will take another week before summer vacation begins. I’ll be visiting the states this summer (Indiana, California and probably Florida) and I’ve already booked my flights to/from China and have begun planning all the details of my time there. It will be great to see family and friends again after being away for about 18 months. That’s all for now folks!