David's Big Adventure in China

Hangzhou is a suburb city of Shanghai and is a nice city of 4.2 million people. It is modern and prosperous and is famous for the scenic lake (West Lake) that adjoins the downtown area. There are many western companies and restaurants located here. In a 20 minute walk I saw 3 KFC’s, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, Pappa John’s and probably one or two more I’m forgetting about. I didn’t see it but I later learned that there is a Hooters in Hangzhou. The first evening there my blog buddy Carol came to meet us and took us to dinner at one of her favorite Chinese restaurants. Carol is Canadian, lives in Hangzhou and has been teaching in China for 3 years. I ran across her blog about 6 months ago and sent her a comment. She responded to my comment and we became e-mail friends. She answered my many questions about teaching in China, blogging and etc. It was great to meet her in person and she brought us a local travel booklet, a map and some handwritten tips on what to see and do locally. I will try to remember to add a link on the right under “my links” to Carol’s blog so if you’re interested you can read hers as well.

The second day in Hangzhou we followed Carol’s advice and visited Lingyin Temple but it was so hot I never made it inside the Temple. It was in the upper 90’s and humid so I was dripping wet with sweat. The pictures you see labeled Lingyin Temple are from the hills next to the temple and are considered part of the temple grounds. The temple was built in the year 326 and the carvings were made at various times after that up until the 1300’s. We visited some of the scenic areas around West Lake and sampled some local cuisine. After lunch we went to see the former residence of Hu Xueyan (a wealthy businessman) which was built around 1870 (see pics). Apparently he created a monopoly on the silk manufacturing in China and raised the prices very high. All the foreign buyers got together and refused to buy any of his products and his business failed very shortly after that. He lost everything including 3 of his 4 wives! We also visited some shopping areas which included some silk shops as this area is famous for silk. There were many other places that would have been worth seeing but we didn’t have enough time for them.

We are now in Xi Tang which is about an hour away from Hangzhou by bus. It is an old and small town and is famous for the old part of town and it’s canals. It was made more famous recently as they filmed a scene for Mission Impossible 3 here. The scene was the one where Tom went to save his wife. In the movie the scene is set in Shanghai but it was filmed in Xi Tang. We’re staying in a very old house that has been converted into a Chinese style B&B. From the bus station we took a bicycle taxi to near the hotel then we had to walk the rest of way. Check out the pic’s of the walkway to the hotel and the bed in my room. The room did not come with towels, toilet paper or sheets. Fortunately I had my silk sleep sack with me although that didn’t make the bed any softer. There was only a thin piece of foam on top of wood. The room did have hot water and a/c which made it tolerable and the room cost about $13. Xi Tang was interesting but I think it would have been better to stay in Hangzhou and see more things there. We left Xi Tang and took a 2 hour bus ride to Suzhou which is very similar to Hangzhou. Along the way part of the time we rode alongside the Grand Canal which dwarves the Panama Canal. It runs from Beijing to Hangzhou and I’ll try to remember to add some facts about it later to put it in perspective.

Suzhou is both an old town and a new town. It has a long history and has an old section of town but is mostly very modern and prosperous. Early this morning we went to see “The Humble Administrator’s Garden” which is on the World Cultural Heritage list. We went early because of the heat and were there waiting for the doors to open at 7:30. We were finished seeing the garden by 8:30 and I was already dripping wet. Even though it was only 8:30 it was really later than that by U.S. standards since China only has 1 time zone and in the East the sun comes up now by 5:00 and sets by 7:30. In Kunming where I will be living I’m guessing that the sun came up today about 6:30 and set about 9:00. The garden was nice (see pics) but not worth the price of 70 yuan per person (almost $10). Now that I’m living in China I have to think about the cost of things in terms of how much I’ll be earning. Then we went to see the Suzhou Museum just down the street and it was well worth the price of 20 yuan. It is a new facility that just opened last October and was designed by I.M. Pei who’s family happens to be from Suzhou. I’m not a big history buff or knowledgeable about crafts but I’m learning about Chinese history and the incredible talent of their craftsman. The museum showed many fine examples of this some dating back as far as about 6000 years. As part of the museum complex they have included the former residence of Zhong Wang Fu which is a very impressive complex. As an added bonus and almost worth the price of admission was the great air conditioning that keep the museum nice and cool. After a quick lunch of cold rice porridge with watermelon tossed in we went see the Silk Museum. Suzhou has a long history with the silk manufacturing and trade. The Silk Museum was worth a quick visit and I found the most interesting parts to be the machinery that was used in the past. Quite ingenious it was. We also visited a silk factory (see pic) which was pretty interesting. As part of the process they stretch the silk to about 100 times it’s original size. Well that’s it for my visit in Suzhou, next stop is Beijing!

Now for some odds and ends. I don’t if I have mentioned it before or not but I have not seen a fortune cookie since I arrived in China. It’s now been about 3 months since I moved out of my apartment in Oakland. In some respects I have kind of gotten into a groove of living out of a suitcase but on the other hand, I’m getting tired of not having a place to call home. As time goes by I’ve reduced the amount of things that I’m carrying around with me. I have 2 bags that I left with one of my teachers in Zhuhai and I have 1 bag that I left in Guangzhou. Some of those things are things that I’ll want when I get into my apartment. I’m kind of anxious to get into my apartment in Kunming and have a place to call home. I don’t really expect to do much cooking there as food is so convenient and cheap here to get out. There are 2 or 3 cafeterias/restaurants on campus very near where my apartment will be.

On July 20 we took a 3.5 hour bus ride west of Xiamen to Yongding County. It is a rural mountainous area famous for the earthen buildings there. Some of the oldest ones were built over 600 years ago and are still lived in today (see the pics). The construction is quite unique. They do now have electricity and some have running water and some still use the wells that were originally built. If you notice some crooked posts on the upper levels of one of the buildings apparently that was a result of a misunderstanding of the conditions of employment of the workers. They expected meals to be provided and when they were not they responded by installing the posts at angles. In one of the earthen building pics you see a couple ladies on the inside of the building, the leaves laying next to them are tobacco leaves as tobacco is one of the crops grown in this area. The first day there we hired a guide/taxi and he drove us around in his car to many places for almost 3 hours at a cost of $20. He then dropped us off at a local hotel in a small village. It was actually more like a B&B Chinese style. It was owned by a family with the wife serving as front desk clerk, maid, waitress, cook and travel coordinator. I assume the husband had some other job. The family lived there and the hotel had 8 to 10 rooms. The cost was less than $11 per night for the nicest room which was very spartan. No toilet paper or towels were provided but it did have cable tv, a/c and hot water. The toilet was a hole in the floor Chinese style but at least the room came with a private bathroom. It wasn’t really a B&B because we had to pay for breakfast separate which cost $.66 for two of us. We had dinner there which was much more expensive and cost almost $6 for two. Fresh meat is delivered daily by the local “butcher on a bike” (see pic). The meat is fresh as the chickens and pig were killed that morning. I took a look in the kitchen before we left and it certainly wouldn’t meet American health standards. If you get freaked out about food safety then you probably don’t want to travel much in China. I have taken the approach that if it doesn’t kill the locals then it probably won’t kill me either. I got a haircut and shampoo at the village salon and it cost me $1.06. My hair is shorter now than it’s been since I was a kid as I got my money’s worth on the haircut. Some of the earthen buildings we visited on are the world heritage cultural sites list. For the big round buildings it is typical for about 17 to 20 families to live there. The second day there we hired a motorcycle tour guide (arranged by the lady at the hotel) for about $11 and he drove us to many of the buildings for about 2.5 hours. There were 3 of us on a 125cc bike going up and down mountains on some pretty rough roads some of which were under construction (see pic). The roads and the homes in rural China seem to be in a perennial state of construction. The construction methods seem to be still pretty rudimentary. I didn’t see any power tools in use where they were building the bridge. The driver told us that two of the small villages we passed through which were only a couple miles apart spoke different dialects. China is still very regionalized and there can be difficulties communicating because of language differences. The people in this rural area were all very nice and friendly. They are accustomed to having tourists but don’t get a lot of western tourists. In the small village where we stayed it seemed that many people left their doors and windows open even if they weren’t home….like small town America used to be. To properly complete this luxurious tour of the hinterland we had a 4 hour bus ride back to Xiamen to catch our flight to Shanghai. It was not a very nice bus and the roads for the first 2.5 hours were very rough, curvy and with lots of elevation changes. There was at least one person with serious motion sickness. We stopped one time by the side of the road for a couple children to relieve themselves and later on the trip some parents sitting behind us but across the aisle allowed their roughly 3 year old son to pee on the floor. The only thing missing to make it a complete experience was livestock……lol. Once we made it back to Xiamen we found a restaurant for dinner and included in our dish was bamboo which looked and tasted a bit like potato. I’m writing this part from the airport in Xiamen waiting for our flight which has been delayed by over 3 hours. It’s now almost midnight and I really need a hot shower and a comfy bed!
We arrived at the hotel in Shanghai at about 2:00 a.m. It would be considered a 2 star hotel in the U.S. but it seemed like luxury to me. It cost about $25 per night and had all the essentials. Shanghai is not part of any province. It is an administrative region that reports directly to the federal government sort of like Washington D.C. There are 4 such regions including Beijing, Chongqing and Tianjin. On Sunday we toured some of the sites of Shanghai – Yu Yuan Garden, Chang Huang Miao Temple, the Bund area, Oriental Pearl Tower and the Shanghai Museum (see pics). I’m not really very impressed with Shanghai other than it’s size. It doesn’t seem like there’s that much here worth seeing. There are too many people and the people are not nearly as nice as the country people. It does have easy access to western food though and after 4 days of nothing but Chinese food I was ready for some. We went in a big mall and ate at Burger King. The mall also had KFC, Starbucks, and McDonalds that I saw without really touring much of the mall. I’m writing this at a train station while waiting for a train to take us to Hangzhou which is about 1 hour away.

First a correction: one of my astute readers pointed out that it probably wasn’t bamboo juice that I had to drink and you were right. It was sugar cane that was squeezed into a juice not bamboo. Other miscellaneous ramblings………I finished my online business English class a few days ago and submitted it to be graded. I have been to KTV (Karoake TV) a few times in China and the Philippines and it is quite popular here. They have different sized rooms that have sofa’s and chairs, a large tv screen with a good sound system connected to it and a couple microphones. The rooms accommodate from 4 to 20 people and many of them have a private bathroom. You can order food and drinks and it is really pretty affordable. Most of them have a pretty good selection of English songs as well as local songs. I’m surprised that this concept has not caught on in the U.S. It’s a great place for friends or colleagues to gather, eat, drink and have fun. KTV is one of the main sources of entertainment here in China. The entertainment industry is very underdeveloped here and it seems there are great opportunities for growth in this area. They do not have well developed professional sports or cultural entertainment options. My guess is that with the growing affluence here there are opportunities in this area. There has been quite a bit of news coverage here about food safety issues. The coverage has highlighted what the government is doing to assure food safety and that the recent issues were just rare exceptions. They said that they have a 99% safety rating for exports which is similar to the rating for imports from the U.S. That’s the party official news perspective anyway.
I spent a week in the Philippines visiting a friend there and returned to Guangzhou on the 15th. Most of the time in the Phils we spent in Baguio, which is a medium sized city in the mountains in the northern part of the country. I heard that Baguio was nice and that the weather there is more moderate and that quite a few westerners chose to retire there. I have posted some pic’s from there. Baguio reminds me of Sausalito near San Francisco although Baguio is not as upscale. The weather was nice and comfortable and it was great to have a break from the heat. We visited some nice parks, the Philippine Military Academy and a hot springs resort. There was poverty and pollution in Baguio but nothing like Manila or Angeles City. I spent 2 nights in Manila only because I flew in and out of there. There is so much poverty and homelessness in Manila and it is very crowded with lots of air pollution from all the vehicles. Many of the vehicles are the Phil version of buses which are called Jeepneys. They look like old Jeeps that have had an extended cab put on the back with a long bench seat on each side. They accommodate about 14 passengers and are normally decorated on the front to look like a gawdy pimpmobile. One of the pictures is of a sign I saw from outside Baguio. I’m not really sure what it means…..are they saying that senior citizens are pigs or maybe that the seniors are breeding with pigs??? Let me know if you have any ideas on that.
On Monday the 16th I left GZ on an overnight train to Xiamen. I will be traveling around China for about 25 days and have a travel partner who will serve as a tour guide and Chinese language tutor. We were in a sleeper cabin on the train (the best accommodation offered) that sleeps 4 and it cost about $50 per person. There were 2 lowers bunks and 2 upper bunks and our cabin mates were an older gentleman that is a professor and a young lady that is an accountant and both were traveling for business. The trip took about 13 hours and I slept quite well (thanks Buckie for the sleeping pills!). The train route was not directly up the coastline due to the many mountains. I read in my tour book that China’s topography is 33% mountainous. We arrived in Xiamen at about 8:30 in the morning and when I exited the train station the first thing I saw was Wal-mart, McDonalds and KFC. Xiamen is a coastal city and is the nearest city to Taiwan. There is a small island between Xiamen and Taiwan that Taiwan claimed as it’s property after the Nationalists moved to Taiwan and set up their own government there in 1949. Chairman Mao shelled the island from Xiamen every day for many years even though there was nothing on the island just because Taiwan claimed it. Xiamen is a fairly small city by Chinese standards with about 1.4 million people. It is a modern and prosperous city and was one of the first cities to benefit from the opening of the China economy. The first day here we visited Xiamen Botanical Garden, Resident Abroad Museum, South Putuo Temple (a Buddhist temple), Xiamen University, the beach and Zongshan Road shopping area. In the pics you will see some great examples of stone carving. In the picture of the beach you will notice that you don’t really see people in bathing suits. The Chinese are very modest at the beach……..sorry men, no hot Chinese babes in bikinis.
On the second day in Xiamen we visited an area called Jimei which was the home of Chen Jiajeng. Mr. Chen left China when we has young and went to Malaysia and was very successful in business. He came back to Xiamen in the late 1940’s and donated lots of money to build schools including Jimei University, Xiamen University and other local schools. He also donated the money for the Resident Abroad Museum. We also visited the Stone Carving Museum (not too much to see there) and Gulangyu. Gulangyu is a small island very near Xiamen where about 20,000 people live and the only access is via ferry . There are no vehicles there except electric carts and there are many shops, restaurants and hotels there. It also has a nice beach. If you look at the pic’s one at a time you can see that the file name provides some description of the pic. I have not seen too many western people here in Xiamen and I have been asked a couple times to pose for pictures with the locals. They get a kick out of seeing a foreigner and are often quite curious and I get quite a few stares.

I’m in Guangzhou now. It’s a very large city a 2 hour bus ride from Zhuhai and not far from Hong Kong so I can get some HK tv stations so there are more tv options and even a few U.S. tv shows. I’m in a nice hotel with a comfortable room, nice bathroom and good internet connection. It feels like luxury compared to the apartment in Zhuhai and all for only $26 per night. I have been working on doing an online course to get a certificate for teaching business English and doing a little sightseeing. I have also been preparing for some traveling that I will be doing over the next few weeks. Here in GZ I have visited Chen’s Ancestral Lineage Hall and The Museum of the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King. I have posted some pic’s from Chen’s which show some of the features of the building and also show some impressive examples of Chinese craftsmanship. These pic’s are posted in a new folder called China travel. I also posted a couple new pic’s in the teacher training folder labeled graduation of me getting my TESOL certificate.
Chen’s Hall was built in 1636 during the Ming dynasty by the extended Chen family and served many purposes. The Museum of the Mausoleum was discovered during construction in 1983 and is the tomb of a king from the Han dynasty that died around 130 BC. The tomb contained thousands of artifacts and included the remains of the king and 11 others including 4 concubines, some cooks and other servants/guards. Sorry, my pic’s of the tomb since I forgot my camera that day.
I know I have commented a few times about some of the foods here but I thought I’d take the time to list some of the “unique” foods I have eaten since I’ve been here. Some of them I enjoyed and some of them I prefer to never try again…..lol. The Chinese do not waste any part of an animal; they seem to find a make a meal out of every part. The question I have is what happens to the good parts such as the chicken breasts and the ham from pigs as I don’t ever seem to get the good parts in a restaurant. So here’s the list…..I’m sure I have forgotten a few things but this is most of them. Eel, fish head, cow stomach (too chewy and not all that tasty), chicken feet, fresh squeezed bamboo juice (very sweet) and pigeon. The whole time I was in Zhuhai I didn’t have any hamburgers so my first day here in GZ I went to McDonalds for a Big Mac (cost was $1.70). There are a few western restaurants in a big mall not too far away so I can easily get my fix of western food. I also sometimes go to a nearby street café for dim sum for breakfast which costs less than a dollar and more than half the price is for the bottle of orange juice. Well, that’s it for now!

Well I’m pretty much finished with the class now. We did more teaching in local schools this week. The classrooms at the local schools do not all have air conditioning so it gets incredibly hot. I taught two lessons back to back and it had to be at least 95 F in there and very humid. My shirt was so wet with sweat that it could not have been more wet if I had just pulled it out of the washing machine. The students are used to it so they handle it okay.
Jenny, our Chinese teacher was telling us that the public schools here are very good and have plenty of money. The public schools are better than the private schools and the teachers are paid much more at the public schools. The private schools are for the children of people who are not originally from the local area. The local governments issue resident permits to people whose families have lived in an area for a long time. Having a resident permit entitles you to send your children to the public schools and other benefits. Since Jenny and her family are from another province they do not have a resident permit for this area and have to pay to send their child to private school. Since Jenny does not have a resident permit for this area she could not get a job teaching at a local public school although she is well educated and well qualified. Apparently you also have to have GuanXi (pronounced Guanji and means connections) to get a job at the public schools. The Chinese government has some of these policies to discourage people from moving from the countryside to the cities to find jobs.
I was watching the news (we get 1 English news channel and it is a government run channel thus the news is filtered and slanted) and they were talking about car license plates in Shanghai. They are trying to discourage people from driving in Shanghai so they are limiting the number of new license plates they issue and they are auctioning off the ones that they do issue. The going price for a new license plate is about $6000 U.S.!
Since my job does not start until September I plan to some traveling but I have not finalized my plans yet. There is an online Business English class that will take several days to complete that I want to do and will plan to do it soon.
I added some new photos in a new album called teacher training. Several of the pictures are from Macao when I went there a couple weeks ago. We saw the dragon boat races when we were there.

When I loaded the pic’s that I referred to in my last post I missed a step and didn’t get them posted properly so if you looked for them right after I posted the blog update and they weren’t there you should be able to find them now. The pic’s labeled morning exercises show a group of people doing dancing or Tai Chi as their morning exercises. This is very common in China to find groups of people (normally mostly ladies) doing these forms of exercise together in the morning in any public places with room to accommodate them.
I have now moved into the bedroom in the apartment that was occupied by the Australian couple since they moved to another place. This room is much bigger, has an attached bathroom with a western style toilet and has a bigger bed (almost a big as a U.S. size double). The other benefit to the bathroom is that since it is attached to the bedroom which has air conditioning it is also therefore air conditioned and I can take hot showers. It’s one of those simple luxuries we take for granted in the U.S. There is not a hot water heater like we have in the west though. There is a small heater mounted on the shower wall about eye level that heats the water and it has a small reservoir. There is a 10 gallon propane gas tank in the bathroom that provides the fuel for the heater and when the heater is running the flames are about 6 inches from my head when I’m under the shower head rinsing. Doing laundry here is fun. We have a very small washing machine and no dryer so we have to hang the clothes to dry. I couldn’t find fabric softener in the store because I would have to use liquid softener in the washer and they were not labeled in English. I had someone at the school write it for me in Chinese so I could buy some so the clothes would not be so stiff.
Saturday night the school organized a party for the English students and us at a tea plantation. As I mentioned before, most of the students are in their 20’s and 30’s and are learning English to improve their career opportunities. About 150 students attended the party. It is a bit surprising the amount of respect and admiration they show towards the teachers. They treat us like teachers since they assume we are teachers. I was walking around the plantation with a group of about 8 students when we saw a reservoir in the distance. They asked me what the English word for it was and all listened intently while I told them what it was and pronounced it for them slowly. They asked me to spell it and several of them took out small notepads and wrote it down. I felt like a guru imparting wisdom.
The class is going pretty well and we’re now doing some teaching practice at a local school. We are teaching junior high and high school students that have basic English skills. Nathan (one of my fellows students from America) and I co-taught two classes to 10th graders. Our lesson topic was “taking a bus” and the kids seemed to enjoy the lesson. It seems the teaching here in the local schools focuses more on reading and writing than speaking since that is what they get tested on. When we said “good morning class” to start they class they all stood and said “good morning teacher”. I also did a lesson with the students here at the school where we are studying. Even though they are adults their skill level is pretty low. The lesson was about things to do on a holiday weekend. On Monday I will be teaching a 4th grade class at a local school on the topic of “Where is it?”. We’re half way through the class now and it’s supposed to get easier the rest of the way.
I have been in China more than 5 weeks now and I have not driven a car since I’ve been here. I’m sure it will feel a bit strange the next time I drive but who knows when that will be ….maybe not until I’m back in the states. I’m guessing that I will probably be back in the states during the Chinese New Year holiday in February. If not then, it won’t be until July next year.

Today is Saturday and we don’t have class today. Some of us are going to a barbeque at a tea plantation with the students from the school. The school has arranged this outing for the students. Most of the students here were working and quit their jobs to attend this school. It is pretty expensive for them to come here as they spend about $3000 U.S. to come here for 12 weeks besides what they lose from not working but they believe they will be able to find a better job after they leave here.
The food that they provide here is pretty good and it’s very convenient to just walk down the hall and have it provided. The only thing we pay for is if we want a coke or juice to drink. The only drink they provide is water except for hot soy milk in the mornings. Chinese people never seem to drink cold drinks no matter how hot it is. I’ve gotten pretty good with the chopsticks as I rarely use a fork anymore but I met my match yesterday trying to eat corn niblets with them.
I posted a few new pic’s today in the 1st 3 weeks in china album. The are the last page in that album and are labeled bathroom, morning exercises, my room and sleeper bus.

I’m in Zhuhai now (near Macau and Honk Kong) learning to teach English. I can’t believe I’m diagramming sentences. I didn’t enjoy it when I did it 38 years ago and I’m not enjoying it now! Overall, the class is good but the grammar and diagramming stuff is difficult for me. I know how to write and speak properly but I can’t enunciate the rules very well. There are only 5 students in our class; 2 younger guys from America, a guy about my age from Malaysia and a lady about my age from Siberia. The lady’s heritage is Chinese but she was born and raised in Russia. We have 2 teachers; a guy about my age from Australia and a 34 year old Chinese lady. The facilities at the school are quite good and they feed us there 3 times a day. The school is primarily an English total immersion program for Chinese students so we will use them to practice our teaching as well as some local primary schools.
The accommodations that they have provided for us are not up to western standards. A Holiday Inn would seem like a 4 star hotel compared to where I’m staying. I’m in a 3 bedroom apartment with a married couple (teachers from Australia) and one of the young guys from my class. The bedrooms have a/c but the living room, kitchen and bathroom does not. The weather here now is like Florida in July so it’s quite hot and muggy. I’m sharing a bathroom with the young guy (Patrick) and it’s traditional Chinese style with the toilet being a hole in the floor. The shower is just a section of the bathroom so when you shower water goes everywhere in the room. I’ve been taking cold showers because it’s too hot to have a hot one. I don’t use the mirror in the bathroom except for shaving since it’s not comfortable in there. I open up my laptop and use the screen for a mirror when combing my hair and putting on my sunscreen. My bedroom is about 8’ x 10’ with small bunkbeds, a small clothes cabinet and a small desk.
I haven’t gone venturing much in the city yet as we’ve been quite busy with school. This weekend I should have time for some exploring. I’ll try to post some new pictures soon.
I enjoy getting updates from anyone reading this about what’s going on with you personally and what’s going on in the U.S. as I don’t really get much news here and what I do get is sometimes filtered. Let me know if there are any questions that you have that I’m not answering in my blog or just general feedback about the blog content.

I’m writing this while on a bus from Guilin to Guangzhou. No the bus does not have wireless internet: I will copy and paste it later onto the blog site. It’s about a 9 hour bus ride but it’s a sleeper bus so it’s pretty comfortable. The bus cost $20 vs. $100 for a flight so I opted for the bus. I don’t have an income now so I have to save my money when I can! However, I will have an income in a few months.
I accepted a job teaching business classes in English at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics (YUFE) in Kunming. I chose that one out of the 5 offers I had because I will teach business rather than English and the campus is very nice there. The weather in Kunming is very nice and not too hot. In fact, my apartment will not have heat or air conditioning. A space heater will do. YUFE will provide me a small apartment on campus and will pay me 3500 Yuan per month. That is roughly $460 per month; not a lot but enough to live on and have some traveling money. At the end of the school year they will give me a bonus of about 5000 yuan.. I will get about 14 weeks of vacation too – 1 week the first week of October, then 6 weeks for Chinese New Year/spring break, then 1 week the first week of May and 6 weeks in the summer from mid July until September 1. I’m thinking that my first trip back to the states will be during the Chinese new year break. If not, then definitely in the summer.
I had 3 offers in Nanning; a private school, a university, and a special university program to prepare kids for studying abroad. I also had an offer from a university in Guilin which is a very nice area as you can see from the pictures of the Lijiang river posted on shutterfly. The classrooms in Guilin are not air conditioned and it does get very hot there. I was a bit surprised that every school I visited made me an offer. The interview process at most of the universities was not very thorough as I felt I was interviewing them more than they were interviewing me. The salaries in Nanning are higher bye 2000 yuan per month but the weather there is so hot. I have some friends in Nanning so it was difficult to choose another city but hopefully I will quickly make friends in Kunming when I arrive there. The job starts early September.
Starting on Monday I will be in Zhuhai (near Macau) for 4 weeks taking the TESOL class. After that I’m not quite sure where I will go until the job starts. I want to spend some of that time working hard to improve my mandarin language skills.
Now for some odds and ends. In case you haven’t noticed, on the right hand side of the blog site you will see a section called my links. Under that I have a link to a website (shutterfly) where I have posted a bunch of pic’s for your enjoyment. Smoking – people smoke everywhere here, including elevators and there was even some guys smoking on the bus. Grady, if you want to have your own route here I’m sure you can. You could hire a helper but I’m not sure if he would fit on the bike! I saw a guy that had 8 cases of returnable soft drink bottles on a bicycle. They use bikes and motorbikes to deliver all kinds of things here. I got a nice shoeshine yesterday for $.28 and most of the taxi rides are $1 to $3. In fact, I’ve only had one over $5. Gas here is about $2 per gallon. Even though there is a lot of poverty here, many of the cities do a really nice job of landscaping as you can see in some of the pics. It provides jobs. People often just throw their trash on the sidewalks but that also provides jobs.
Well that’s it for now. Next post will be from my school in Zhuhai.
Postscript: The 9 hour bus ride turned out to be a 13 hour bus ride! I think the original bus I was supposed to be on was full so they put me on a second bus which stopped in every little town picking up people along the road. That’s life in China!

I’m back in Nanning now after a few days in Kunming. Kunming is about the same size as Nanning but didn’t seem to have as much personality. The city seemed to shut down earlier in the evening perhaps because the weather there is more moderate and it’s not so hot during the day. I had an interview at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics and it went well. I received an offer to teach there and I would be teaching business classes in English rather than teach English. I think I would really enjoy teaching the business classes. The campus was quite nice and they would provide an apartment for me right on campus. I met a lady from chicago that is there teaching English and she spoke well of the school. She invited me to see her apartment and by western standards it’s quite small and spartan but adequate.
I think my strategy of writing to the schools and telling them that I will be in their city and would like to visit is really paying off rather than just trying to arrange a position via the internet and phone. I now have 3 offers in Nanning and the one in Kunming! I don’t yet know all of the details of the offer from the school in Nanning that I would be most interested in but I will probably choose between that one (Guangxi University in Nanning) and the one in Kunming.
Here are some miscellaneous observations about life here. Hotels – the beds in all the hotels are really hard and every room I’ve had so far has had condoms. In fact, there are condom vending machines in many public places! Paper – seems like they use all the paper for documenting transactions and don’t have enough left over for napkins and toilet paper. Public bathrooms do not provide toilet paper or hand towels. Even restaurants don’t always provide napkins so most people carry a small pack with them to use in bathrooms and restaurants. The bathrooms and plumbing in general is not up to western standards. Many of the bathrooms have the traditional chinese style toilet which is just a hole in the floor in the shape of a toilet seat. So far, I’ve been lucky enough not to have to use one of those for anything that would require sitting or squatting. The hotels I’ve stayed in have western style toilets. I think one way the people here deal with the toilets is by not drinking much so they don’t have to use them often. Plumbing is often leaking and I noticed the other day some kitchen sinks for some apartments that were actually on the outside of the building. The top part of the sink was inside in like a window box and it drained through a hose on the outside.
Enough of the rambling…..tomorrow I’m going to Guilin a scenic tourist area about a 4 hour bus ride from here to the North. I hope to have an interview at a university there and if not, I’ll just enjoy being a tourist.