David's Big Adventure in China

School is back in full swing now and I have 17 hours of classes this semester vs. 16 last semester. I have 6 oral English classes and 2 writing classes. One writing class is with freshmen and 1 is with sophomores so I have to prepare different lessons for them. Considering that most of them have been studying English for 6 to 9 years their writing skill levels are pretty low. I have a total of about 315 students this semester vs. about 200 last semester. The evening oral classes are supposed to be limited to 20 to 30 students to give them good practice. Last semester the school limited the enrollment to 20 and I had additional students show up and ask to be added. This time they didn’t limit the enrollment and to my shock I had over 60 kids show up to my Monday night class. The next day I found out that 74 kids had signed up for that class and that on average my evening classes had twice as many students as the other foreign teachers. I haven’t yet determined the reason for my popularity.

This past week was a bit of a struggle for me as I developed a very bad sore throat that made teaching a challenge and took away a lot of my energy. Monday, when my throat was at it worst, I had 6 hours of classroom time. Then on Wednesday my classes were on the 6^th floor (in different buildings of course) so I climbed 6 flights 3 times which really wore me out considering that we are at almost 6000 feet elevation and my congestion due to my sore throat and related symptoms. I didn’t go to the doctor but a friend helped me buy an antibiotic at a local pharmacy (cost was less than $2 for a 6 day supply). I’m now almost back to normal.

Recently on my official government English tv channel they have been talking a lot about the 30^th anniversary of China’s opening up. Reforms began slowly in 1978 shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution but have accelerated rapidly in the past 15 years. Before the reforms began social order was maintained by forced employment, forced permanent residence in the same place and of course media control. Travel outside the city where you were registered was basically forbidden for all except a privileged few. With the opening up reforms and the improving economy there is huge pent up demand for travel. Listed below are some facts that I have gathered from some reading that I have been doing recently that will help put this and the magnitude of recent changes here into perspective:

– # of tourists visiting Lijiang 1991 – 200,000 2001 – 3.3 million

– average annual income of Lijiang residents 1991 – $60 2001 – $650

– # of visitors to Beijing in 2006 132 million people (equal to about 44% of U.S. population)

– Expressways (like U.S. Interstate roads) none in 1988, now 228,000 miles and growing by about 3000 per year for last 4 years. Now 2^nd in the world behind only U.S.

During my travels in rural areas of China I have been surprised to see how much farming is still done by hand in small plots. In 2006 China had one farmhand for every acre compared to one farmhand for every 140 acres in the U.S. As you can see, there is room for tremendous change in this area. As farming productivity improves there will be many people looking to move to the cities to find jobs. There is already a large “migrant worker” population in the cities that have come from the countryside. The old permanent residence system is still in effect in some ways and makes it difficult for these migrant workers to receive some government services and often makes it easy for companies to take advantage of them. They often have difficulty collecting their wages. The government is talking about reforms that will help them.

China is changing rapidly and sometimes in my travels to out of the way places I can get a glimpse of the old China. If you want to see “old China” you will need to come quick and get off the beaten path!

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