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…

If you haven’t heard the news already, I got married on 11-11-11. We went to the government office that handles marriages involving foreigners and spent about an hour there filling out the forms and getting our marriage certificate. There was no ceremony and once they hand you the certificate you are married. It took us a moment after we got the certificates to realize that we were married. We finished there just before noon and then went to a local fast food place for a quick lunch. The cost of the marriage certificate was about $1.50….so expensive…lol! Then we went to my…..errr, I mean OUR place to grab a few things. We stopped by my office and handed out candy (a Chinese tradition) then went and checked in at the Marriott. A bit later we headed off to Bonnie’s mom’s place for dinner with Mom, Bonnie’s cousin and the cousin’s husband. Then back to the Marriott where we spent the rest of the evening discussing the pro’s and con’s of nuclear energy. Our honeymoon ended Saturday afternoon as we both had work to do. We spent part of the day Sunday working before I headed off to the airport for the first of my 4 flights to Grand Junction, Colorado where I went for 3 days of planning meetings.

I had a tough time with jet lag while in the states normally going to sleep by 11 and waking up at around 2 a.m. I finally got a full night’s sleep the night I spent in San Francisco during a layover on my way back to China. I took an empty suitcase with me and bought a bunch of food products to take back. I got back home just before 1:00 a.m. Sunday night the 20th and went back to work on Monday the 21st.

I posted some pictures from our marriage day (I won’t call it our wedding day since we didn’t have a ceremony).

The big news for this post if you haven’t already heard is that I recently became engaged. I proposed to Bonnie on August 28 on the top floor of the tallest building in Nanning (59th floor) with a view ... [Continue reading this entry]

I’m continuing to work long hours and expect to do so until February or March. At least now I feel like I’m making progress in some areas. I have two good accountants working for ... [Continue reading this entry]

In my last post I said I didn’t want to go back to a traditional job. Well it looks like I will be doing just that. Although, maybe it’s not entirely a traditional job. ... [Continue reading this entry]

It has now been 3 years since I “retired” from Dreyer’s. It’s been an interesting 3 years and I’m glad I did it. I’m still taking it one year at a time and I’ll probably stay here at ... [Continue reading this entry]

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. ... [Continue reading this entry]

The first semester ended and I went to Egypt for two weeks of site seeing. It was quite amazing to see what the Egyptians did so long ago considering the technology and tools available at the ... [Continue reading this entry]

It’s interesting how different the personalities of different cities can be. Kunming, where I lived my first year in China was a “morning” city and Nanning is a “night” city. I think it has ... [Continue reading this entry]

It turned cold here again a few days ago and I was reminded of the strange Chinese habit of leaving the windows open even if it’s only 45 degrees outside with no heat inside. They have to ... [Continue reading this entry]