The sun's out!
Kind of. It's still pretty hazy, but distinct shadows, not to mention
the fiery orb, have been visible almost all day, and the ground is
dry. Rather surprising, as when I woke up this morning the nearby
karst peaks, almost always visible from our window, were nearly
indiscernable, noticed only because I knew they should be there.
Thick grey haze, didn't even seem like fog, just seemed like someone
had dumped a lot of flour into the atmospheric soup. But now the sun
shines orange and mild on this small town of 50 or 60,000. At last!
And more good news! I have a job! Here in Yangshuo!
It may seem strange, but as I've spent more time here, my attitude
towards the place has changed. There is a definite community among
those who stick around here, Chinese and other, and feels like a good
place to live and explore. Also, it doesn't feel like a big city,
which would be the case with almost any other job I might take.
Perhaps most importantly, it seems as though the students I'll be
teaching are almost the precise demographic I want to teach, (mostly
younger, i.e. 20s-ish) adults, interested, curious, engaged, motivated
and fun to work with. And class sizes are small, sounds like the
absolute maximum is 12, which is way better than universities, which
had seemed most attractive before this. The only serious downside is
the pay, which won't allow me to save a whole lot, but some, and the
rest seems like it will more than compensate.
The school itself, Omeida English, um, Institute, I think, I should
probably know that, is a private boarding school for intensive English
study. Most of the students have quit their jobs or are taking some
sort of leave and are living here for several months to improve their
spoken English. Which also means that I'll get to meet people from
all over China, which may be very helpful for travelling later on. Of
course, a lot of them are from Guangdong (Canton), the next province
to the east, which, from what I've picked up, is China's version of
Southern California (beaches, pop fashion/obsession with image,
movies, wealth, and cities known as sprawling, dirty, and
crime-ridden). But that's okay.
Other, immediately obvious, comparisons are Shanghai (Hong Kong could
also work here, but I think I'll stick with mainland comparisons)~New
York (business and financial nexus, high fashion, major port, huge
city with many different parts) and Beijing~Washington D.C. (center of
government and national news, many museums and foundations relating to
national history). It would be fun to come up with a comprehensive
list of comparisons, especially if they have humorous explanations.
Off the cuff, maybe Tibet~Colorado and Wyoming (high elevation,
mountainous, semi-arid to arid, isolated and conservative, yet large
hippie population). I will see if one exists on the web, and if not,
I may do that.
Oh, and it seems like I'll be able to do a lot of rock-climbing here.
A couple of the other teachers, who have been giving me some advice,
are avid rock climbers and have a contact who can get me good gear
very inexpensively, maybe 1/3 the cost of stuff in the US. Because
the market here won't bear very high prices, high quality, US-made
gear is already significantly cheaper here, and the guy they know is a
representative for a climbing company, and so can get it for even
less. And it looks like there's a ton of cool climbing around here.
I actually sort of fell into this job, like most others. I'm not sure
if that's a good thing, but it keeps things interesting. I hadn't
originally planned to find work here, in part because it seemed like
such a tourist town, in part because it's probably some of the lowest
pay in China because it gets such a high volume of Westerners passing
through. Shannon had found this job and almost took it, but decided
yesterday that a) he already knew he could get work that pays way
better back in Suzhou, b) unlike here, he can do that job part-time
and stop in March/April, when he needs to do some work scouting
whitewater (which is actually mostly why he's here, but I don't want
to say too much about that yet), and c) even if Suzhou was cold, it
got more sun. He took a bus north to Guilin this morning, and I knew
Murphy was just waiting to come into play.
At the same time as he was coming to that decision, I've been meeting
more and more cool people who live here, and actually met a couple
people who would be interested in private tutoring, which could earn
me a lot more money, or maybe Chinese lessons or something. That's
the one thing most likely to suffer from having a job here, my will
and ability to learn (Mandarin) Chinese. But I'll still definitely
learn something, although I may end up focussing more on the written
language than on conversation. But that's kind of how I work anyway.
And I might be able to learn using Tin-Tin! For those unaware of the
Tin-Tin comics, they follow the international adventures of a young
man of uncertain profession (possibly a reporter?) and his dog Snowy,
almost always accompanied by a retired merchant ship captain (who
later on in the series also inherits a sizable fortune), with several
other characters who show up in almost every book (e.g. an
absent-minded, mostly deaf professor/inventor and a pair of bumbling
Scotland Yard detectives), a number of characters who show up here and
there throughout the series, and a few characters who only show up in
the individual stories. Although they are sometimes very dated and/or
pre-post-colonialist, they are also very entertaining, interesting,
good reads. Especially for being G-(maybe PG-) rated.
Anyway, there's a restaurant/bar here called "The Blue Lotus", which
is the title of one of the earliest Tin-Tin books and apparently
popular in China. In the book, the Blue Lotus is an opium den, so the
restaurant has a sign explicitly stating "No Opium". But they do have
a large collection of Tin-Tin books in Chinese, which could be a fun
way to learn, if I can progress that far. We'll see.
Okay, that's it for now. Things are good, I move into my apartment
tomorrow, start teaching next week. With luck will be able to post
pictures over weekend.
the fiery orb, have been visible almost all day, and the ground is
dry. Rather surprising, as when I woke up this morning the nearby
karst peaks, almost always visible from our window, were nearly
indiscernable, noticed only because I knew they should be there.
Thick grey haze, didn't even seem like fog, just seemed like someone
had dumped a lot of flour into the atmospheric soup. But now the sun
shines orange and mild on this small town of 50 or 60,000. At last!
And more good news! I have a job! Here in Yangshuo!
It may seem strange, but as I've spent more time here, my attitude
towards the place has changed. There is a definite community among
those who stick around here, Chinese and other, and feels like a good
place to live and explore. Also, it doesn't feel like a big city,
which would be the case with almost any other job I might take.
Perhaps most importantly, it seems as though the students I'll be
teaching are almost the precise demographic I want to teach, (mostly
younger, i.e. 20s-ish) adults, interested, curious, engaged, motivated
and fun to work with. And class sizes are small, sounds like the
absolute maximum is 12, which is way better than universities, which
had seemed most attractive before this. The only serious downside is
the pay, which won't allow me to save a whole lot, but some, and the
rest seems like it will more than compensate.
The school itself, Omeida English, um, Institute, I think, I should
probably know that, is a private boarding school for intensive English
study. Most of the students have quit their jobs or are taking some
sort of leave and are living here for several months to improve their
spoken English. Which also means that I'll get to meet people from
all over China, which may be very helpful for travelling later on. Of
course, a lot of them are from Guangdong (Canton), the next province
to the east, which, from what I've picked up, is China's version of
Southern California (beaches, pop fashion/obsession with image,
movies, wealth, and cities known as sprawling, dirty, and
crime-ridden). But that's okay.
Other, immediately obvious, comparisons are Shanghai (Hong Kong could
also work here, but I think I'll stick with mainland comparisons)~New
York (business and financial nexus, high fashion, major port, huge
city with many different parts) and Beijing~Washington D.C. (center of
government and national news, many museums and foundations relating to
national history). It would be fun to come up with a comprehensive
list of comparisons, especially if they have humorous explanations.
Off the cuff, maybe Tibet~Colorado and Wyoming (high elevation,
mountainous, semi-arid to arid, isolated and conservative, yet large
hippie population). I will see if one exists on the web, and if not,
I may do that.
Oh, and it seems like I'll be able to do a lot of rock-climbing here.
A couple of the other teachers, who have been giving me some advice,
are avid rock climbers and have a contact who can get me good gear
very inexpensively, maybe 1/3 the cost of stuff in the US. Because
the market here won't bear very high prices, high quality, US-made
gear is already significantly cheaper here, and the guy they know is a
representative for a climbing company, and so can get it for even
less. And it looks like there's a ton of cool climbing around here.
I actually sort of fell into this job, like most others. I'm not sure
if that's a good thing, but it keeps things interesting. I hadn't
originally planned to find work here, in part because it seemed like
such a tourist town, in part because it's probably some of the lowest
pay in China because it gets such a high volume of Westerners passing
through. Shannon had found this job and almost took it, but decided
yesterday that a) he already knew he could get work that pays way
better back in Suzhou, b) unlike here, he can do that job part-time
and stop in March/April, when he needs to do some work scouting
whitewater (which is actually mostly why he's here, but I don't want
to say too much about that yet), and c) even if Suzhou was cold, it
got more sun. He took a bus north to Guilin this morning, and I knew
Murphy was just waiting to come into play.
At the same time as he was coming to that decision, I've been meeting
more and more cool people who live here, and actually met a couple
people who would be interested in private tutoring, which could earn
me a lot more money, or maybe Chinese lessons or something. That's
the one thing most likely to suffer from having a job here, my will
and ability to learn (Mandarin) Chinese. But I'll still definitely
learn something, although I may end up focussing more on the written
language than on conversation. But that's kind of how I work anyway.
And I might be able to learn using Tin-Tin! For those unaware of the
Tin-Tin comics, they follow the international adventures of a young
man of uncertain profession (possibly a reporter?) and his dog Snowy,
almost always accompanied by a retired merchant ship captain (who
later on in the series also inherits a sizable fortune), with several
other characters who show up in almost every book (e.g. an
absent-minded, mostly deaf professor/inventor and a pair of bumbling
Scotland Yard detectives), a number of characters who show up here and
there throughout the series, and a few characters who only show up in
the individual stories. Although they are sometimes very dated and/or
pre-post-colonialist, they are also very entertaining, interesting,
good reads. Especially for being G-(maybe PG-) rated.
Anyway, there's a restaurant/bar here called "The Blue Lotus", which
is the title of one of the earliest Tin-Tin books and apparently
popular in China. In the book, the Blue Lotus is an opium den, so the
restaurant has a sign explicitly stating "No Opium". But they do have
a large collection of Tin-Tin books in Chinese, which could be a fun
way to learn, if I can progress that far. We'll see.
Okay, that's it for now. Things are good, I move into my apartment
tomorrow, start teaching next week. With luck will be able to post
pictures over weekend.
posted by Colin at 9:45 AM
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