Holy crap I forgot I had a blog thing going on! My last update was nearly four months ago and it would be pointless to summarize all of the awesome and not-so-awesome things that have happened to me in that time. But since this blog is somewhat pointless it seems appropriate I try to summarize:
My second school job was crap. The Chinese management and ownership was lacking in any business sense and they totally ignored me every time I had a brilliant idea (e.g.: provide a good education and students will actually return!). My everyday life was rather quiet with very little drinking of alcohol and the food wasn't too good, either. On my last day in the province it finally snowed-- something I'd been waiting for since moving there. It was a big FU from Shandong Province to me. Eh, whatever: the girls were ugly; the food was sub-par; the beer was watered-down.
Luckily I had a lot of traveling to do this term so was able to leave about once a month on some kind of adventure. I'll have to write about some incredible unpleasant/eye-opening train trips and some of the nuances in culture and people's changing physical appearance from region to region; what I thought of as "Chinese" is not as homogeneous as even they themselves want me to believe. Looks change; values change; clothes change; food changes; architecture changes.
And finally to the present: I am now in Nanchang, Jianxi Province. Wiki it, there's nothing here except the former World's Biggest Ferris Wheel. Wow, that sounds terribly sad. I am now living in a depressingly sad place. But I digress.
Anyway: I am here for the dumbest reason imaginable but here I am...an illegal immigrant as I type this [Pause for laughter]...[Pause for ironic reflection]. I'm living on floor 15A (14 is to the Chinese what 13 is to Westerners) of a hotel in the middle of the city. It's been a week and I already have two job offers. Things are okay.
People here are quite funny, though: on any given evening the streets are littered with women over 30 showing off their very huashionable* PJs (Ha! So they think!). It's not a bad idea for drunk teens but for (I assume) usually-respectable women? As OMC^ so eloquently put it years ago: How Bizarre, How Bizarre.
Well, that's it. Depending on how I play this hand in two months time I'll be basking under the California heat or sitting in a third-world Chinese jail. Wish me luck...SL
*People in Nanchang cannot make the "f" sound but they still try to pronounce the word "fashionable" in English because it's stylish to do so. The result is a little funny to me but the Chinese from other parts get a huge kick out of it.
^RIP Pauly
My second school job was crap. The Chinese management and ownership was lacking in any business sense and they totally ignored me every time I had a brilliant idea (e.g.: provide a good education and students will actually return!). My everyday life was rather quiet with very little drinking of alcohol and the food wasn't too good, either. On my last day in the province it finally snowed-- something I'd been waiting for since moving there. It was a big FU from Shandong Province to me. Eh, whatever: the girls were ugly; the food was sub-par; the beer was watered-down.
Luckily I had a lot of traveling to do this term so was able to leave about once a month on some kind of adventure. I'll have to write about some incredible unpleasant/eye-opening train trips and some of the nuances in culture and people's changing physical appearance from region to region; what I thought of as "Chinese" is not as homogeneous as even they themselves want me to believe. Looks change; values change; clothes change; food changes; architecture changes.
And finally to the present: I am now in Nanchang, Jianxi Province. Wiki it, there's nothing here except the former World's Biggest Ferris Wheel. Wow, that sounds terribly sad. I am now living in a depressingly sad place. But I digress.
Anyway: I am here for the dumbest reason imaginable but here I am...an illegal immigrant as I type this [Pause for laughter]...[Pause for ironic reflection]. I'm living on floor 15A (14 is to the Chinese what 13 is to Westerners) of a hotel in the middle of the city. It's been a week and I already have two job offers. Things are okay.
People here are quite funny, though: on any given evening the streets are littered with women over 30 showing off their very huashionable* PJs (Ha! So they think!). It's not a bad idea for drunk teens but for (I assume) usually-respectable women? As OMC^ so eloquently put it years ago: How Bizarre, How Bizarre.
Well, that's it. Depending on how I play this hand in two months time I'll be basking under the California heat or sitting in a third-world Chinese jail. Wish me luck...SL
*People in Nanchang cannot make the "f" sound but they still try to pronounce the word "fashionable" in English because it's stylish to do so. The result is a little funny to me but the Chinese from other parts get a huge kick out of it.
^RIP Pauly
