David's Big Adventure in China

I just got back from spending a few days in Zhaoqing which is in Guangdong province not too far from Hong Kong and Wuzhou which is in Guangxi province near the border of Guangdong province. October 1 is the national day here like our 4th of July and they make it into a full week holiday by having us work the weekend before the holiday week so we can have 7 days off. We worked Saturday and Sunday instead of Monday and Tuesday and then the official holiday is 3 days (Wednesday through Friday). Thus, we had Monday through Sunday off. They don’t confirm the schedule until just a few days before so you’re taking a bit of a chance if you book travel before the last minute.

Zhaoqing is a medium sized city of about 3 million people and Wuzhou is a small city of about 300,000. I thought both were pretty nice cities and Wuzhou had a very nice look and feel to it….not too big and not too small. You can buy a nice 1600 square foot apartment there for less than $60,000. I traveled with a friend and we visited some of her friends in Wuzhou while there. One day we went to a local park with a bunch of other people and had a bbq of large chicken wings, corn on the cob, etc. We had some trouble finding a hotel when we first arrived in Wuzhou because it was a holiday but we found a place that quoted a rate of 110 yuan per room (about $18). After they saw that I was a foreigner they said they were not qualified to accept foreigners (not all hotels are allowed to accept us). Then the lady said we could stay but it would cost us 300 yuan per room. My friend argued with her then told her to shove it and we ended up staying at a friend’s home. Zhaoqing has a PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) beer factory and some fountains in the city center park are made to look like very large PBR cans (see pics….I also posted some pics of Nanning, the school and one of my classes). While in Zhaoqing we visited Dinghu Mountain which was a scenic place with a nice lake.

Classes are in full swing now and I’ve got a total of about 100 students (almost all freshmen). I see 40 of the students for 2 hours each week, 40 of them for 4 hours and 40 minutes, and the other 20 for 1 hour. It’s much better than the 300 students I had last semester at the other school that I only saw once a week for 90 minutes. I’m teaching 4 Writing classes with about 20 students in each, 1 Listening and Speaking class with 40 students (same kids as 2 of my Writing classes), and one English Culture class. I have a total of eighteen 40 minute periods with 2 periods being a babysitter during listening lab. The students seem to be quite a bit better than the students I had last year. Almost all of them are from this province and many of them are from right here in Nanning. I also have one Italian student who is here studying something about veterinary medicine. Most of the students come from fairly prosperous families as the tuition here is almost $3000 per year (very expensive for China). There are 6 of us teaching Freshman Writing so we have to coordinate material to be covered and on the Mid-Term and Final Exam tests as all the students will take the same test at the same time. We had to turn in a written course plan and also have to turn in our lesson plans. This school is much more professional than the one in Kunming. This school is a special school under the Guangxi University umbrella. The students study primarily English in this school for 2 years then go on to the regular university or abroad to study the subject of their choice. If they choose a major other than English, it will take them 5 years to get their B.S. degree. There are about 900 students in total at this school. Most of their classes are with native English speakers.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.