David's Big Adventure in China

It’s been quite a while since my last update mostly because I don’t have very much news to share. I had my last classes for the semester this past week so I’m now on semester break until early March except for 1 special class this week. That special class is for teachers at the university who need to improve their oral English before going abroad for study or research.

It’s been very cold here recently (high 30’s to low 50’s F) and the classrooms don’t have heat so it’s been as cold as high 40’s F in the rooms. None of the dormitories have heat and many of the students leave their windows open. I don’t know how they can take it but I acknowledge that I’m a spoiled American and I’m happy that I have heat in my apartment. I wear my long underwear, multiple layers of shirts, a heavy coat, and a hat in class and drink hot water to stay warm. Some of the student dormitories for men don’t have hot showers and they have to use hot water from a thermos to wash. For the hot water the students use for showering or for filling their thermos bottles they have to pay for it each time using a debit card.

The big news in China over the past few months was the transition to new party leaders. There is a lot of anticipation and hope about potential changes that will be made by the new leadership including things like eliminating the Re-education Through Labor camps where people can be kept for up to 4 years without any due process, more press freedom, improved rule of law, loosening of the 1 child policy, and more rights for migrant workers. During the transition meetings in Beijing the security was incredibly tight; taxis were ordered to remove window handles so objects could not be thrown out (such as ping pong balls with politically incorrect messages), knives were ordered removed from store shelves (yes, ordinary kitchen knives included), and other seemingly bizarre restrictions such as a ban on pigeons (because they might be used to send messages). Here is an article with some of the details: http://news.yahoo.com/no-pigeons-planes-pingpong-balls-china-meet-140336602.html

We will be heading to the U.S. in about 10 days and will be there for just over 2 weeks. We’ll head to Jacksonville, Florida first and then to Savannah, Georgia for a few days for my annual Coca-Cola group reunion. Then we’ll go to central Florida to be tourists and visit friends for about a week, then on to Indiana to see family for a few days before heading back to China. We’ll be back here for about a week celebrating the Chinese New Year before heading out to Thailand for about 10 days. After that it will be time for the spring semester which starts the first week in March. Yes, it’s a rough life…….lol. Until next time…