Got my Z visa and explored more of Hong Kong & Kowloon

So I finally got my Z visa.  Alot of waiting, now I finally have it.

Today I did alot of walking around Hong Kong.  In the morning I walked to the Hong Kong park and visited the aviary.  I saw some very cool birds; Bali Mynah, Black Capped Lory, Crested Pigeon, Common Shelduck, rainbow Lorikeet, Java Sparrow, yellow eyed mynah, and Emerald Dove. Below are a few pictures.  The birds were inside an Aviary in the park.

I then went and got my Visa.  I didn't end up going on the tram to Victoria Peak because it is still very foggy and the view would not have been worth the trip.

After I got my visa, I walked through downtown to Man Mo temple.  Below are some pictures.  I got some incense there.

After visiting Man Mo, I took the ferry across the harbor to Kowloon.  I wandered around a bit and made my way to the nigh market, where I bought some cheap souvenirs and knick knacks.

On my way back to the ferry a man in buddhist monks robes hopped up to me out of no where and gave me a blessing.  At first I avoided him, but ended up giving him a couple of coins.  Who knows, maybe he is indeed a monk.  I kind of doubt it based on his demeanor.

I gave alms to a man with no arms or feet, someone dressed like a buddhist nun and to someone in a wheelchair today.  At east I covered my bases.

Hong Kong is a very very lovely city.  It has alot of style and a very good vibe overall.

Lantau - Big Buddha

On a very misty day. I wandered around the monastery shrouded in deep penetrating fog that obscured everything past maybe 50 feet. The Buddha's face came in and out of view shrouded in mist.  Very cool trip.

I crossed the harbor from Hong Kong in a foggy drizzle.  I kind of thought I would get rained on, but the weather did not conspire against me.

The ferry was from the central pier in Hong Kong to a small village on the island of Lantau called Mui Wo.

On the bus from the ferry there was someone with a red sox hat on.  Oddly, he was not from Boston, and was foreign (i.e. not from the USA).

Walking to the Buddha statute I saw the face of a westerner who is a buddhist nun.  She was in her robes, and her face stuck in my mind for some reason.

From the base of the Buddha, you could only see a misty silhouette of the Buddha.

I paid some extra money and was able to go inside the base of the statute, which is full of sutras and paintings of buddhist holy people.  There is a big picture of a standing Buddha inside and a huge bell.

I had an odd moment while looking at Buddha's face.  I kind of felt like he was looking back, although it might have been the fog and mist.

On the way down, I walked over to the main hall of the Po Lin monastery.  Inside I had a look at some gold buddha statutes, specifically a fat, smiling buddha, as well as a number of other statutes.

It was so eerie. The fog limited visibility to 50 feet, so passersby appeared as shadows.  Kind of like being in the void.

I didn't stay long.  After I walked around, I hopped on a bus to get back to the ferry and went back to downtown.

The harbor is very pretty.  I could only see islands appearing out of grey drizzle, but it made it more mysterious.

Kowloon

I took the ferry across from Hong Kong and had my first boat ride in the Pacific Ocean. The sea air is such a relief from the dusty smog of Wuhan.

I saw some flamingos and other birds at the Kowloon park.

This morning I applied for my visa and had the excruciating embarrassment of having my nosy Chinese handler with me. I should have my visa tomorrow.

On limited wifi so will post more later. I am trying to get to Lantau and the giant Buddha.

Wuhan Airport

Flying to Hong Kong to get my Z visa

So after all the waiting, I am finally going to get my Z visa.  It is a full 3 months since I expected to be traveling to China and a month since I actually arrived.

I have traded my chinese handler with the german accent for a chinese handler who is afraid of dogs.  That is right, she is afraid of animals and does not like them.  Far be it for me to conduct a layman's psycho analysis, but me thinks my handler has some issues.

She is polite, but I glimpse some frustration at being tasked with what amounts to baby sitting an adult and taking care of them.

She technically is my Weibao, which is a sort of specialized form of handler for teachers.  She was supposed to orient me to the lay of the land and make sure I acclimated to the filthy chaos that is big city china.  However, she has pretty much delegated all tasks to her subordinates, who are less experienced and younger foreign language teachers.

Anyway, I am remaining civil and trying to be as nice as possible.

The plane is boarding, here I go.

Working in Wuhan with my Chinese Handler

I have been helping to do some translation with my chinese handler.  He has been working on a proposal to do some translating work for a couple of businesses.  It is kind of hard for me to understand how some of these Chinese translations are created.  The first draft of the translation was like something out of a Sidaris novel.

"When you are engulfed in flames, please do not panic.  You should then to roll on the ground for a bit."

This is basically what the first draft was like.  And my chinese handler is well educated, speaks good english, and certainly can read very well.

There are alot of problems with use of articles, and the first draft was a monstrosity of chinglish.

I think that if I am around here for a while, translation work would be worth doing.

Rainy day in Wuhan

So, I am at work again today in Wuhan.  I have a 30 minute cab ride here.  Today I rode in the cab with two women who work at the same school.

It seems that the school I work at on the weekends is a sort of private school providing extra help and study for students.  The students have a very full schedule already.

Most evenings, there are classes at the school where I am living, and will soon be working.  Students are in classes from about 8:00 am until 9:00 at night.  I am not sure if some of the evening classes are really a sort of study hall.

On the weekends it seems that some of the students come to the school I am at now in order to get some extra study for their school work during the week.  I am tasked with trying to get shy kids to practice their english.

Yesterday, I did some lectures and some brief classes.  It is not easy getting some kids to talk.  Some of their language skills are somewhat basic.  Other kids can understand very well but are reluctant to speak.

I imagine I am going to have plenty of time to figure out how to do my job well.  There certainly is alot of class time to do it with.

At work in Wuhan

I am right now at the office at the other school where I will primarily be teaching.  This school is brand new and provides private teaching of students at pretty good schools.  I believe that alot of the students here are from wealthy families who want their kids to do better at school.

Many of these kids also attend the public school where I work, and the classes they take on the weekend are a supplement to the classes they have during the week.  Several of the Chinese English teachers from the public school also teach here over the weekends.

There seems to be alot of marketing to this school.  They have a traditional chinese tea table in the lounge so parents can meet and talk to teachers.  It is very nice.

Today for breakfast I had a very tasty meal of hot and dry noodles.  I also had something that was sort of like a big french beignet, sort of a deep fried piece of dough that was akin to a not so sugary, but sort of oily piece of fennel cake.

Lost Wallet on Thanksgiving

Well, I did something really dumb.  Yesterday, while taking a 40 minute cab ride back to my lodgings at the school, I managed to leave my wallet in the cab.  Because there was another passenger sitting in the front seat, I did not realize I had left my wallet behind until I had gotten 50 feet down the street.

I tried calling the other passenger, but by the time I reached her, she had already been dropped off.

I lost about 30.00 USD worth of chinese currency, but more significantly, my wallet had my IDs and a number of important business cards I use to get around the city.  I am still holding out hope someone will find the wallet and will call someone on one of the business cards, but I am not wagering on it.

Fortunately, remember my readers it could always be worse, I had a stash of money at home.  I need it to get around via taxi and more importantly to eat with.

I also lost my bank card, which I reported lost.  I have to wait a week before I will get a new bank card, so that stash of money is pretty vital.

In other news, I am going to have an authentic thanksgiving dinner at a local american owned restaurant.  I am bringing my Chinese handler, who at this point is my BFF here in China. The meal is all you can eat, so I am really looking forward to it.

It is a major upheaval to lose one's wallet here in China.  I cannot bank without my bank card.  This experience has taught me to be very careful and ultimately to keep my bank card in a safe place rather than on my person.  I will probably take out larger wads of cash from the bank and will keep my bank card in a safe place in my lodgings from now on.

Lecture about Thanksgiving

I held my first lecture which was well received by the students.  After my 40 minute lecture about the social customs of Thanksgiving and the historical origins of the pilgrims and Thanksgiving, I had 15 minutes of some very insightful questions posed by the students.  I quite honestly did not expect there to be such a high level of english comprehension among the students.

One of my favorite questions was "If Massasoit had known that the Indians would fight with the Europeans, would he still have helped the Pilgrims?"  Obviously, a rather smart kid to not only have listened to my lecture closely, but to also have the english skills and knowledge of American History to be able to pose the question.

It is really an honor to have such good students.  I hope they will enjoy my subsequent lectures.

In other news, I got a stipend to tide me over until I officially start work.  They are being exceptionally gracious to me.

I used my pay to buy a portable DVD player and viewer.  I bought a lenovo for about 85.00 US or 475 rmb. With it, I went and bought some dubiously licensed DVD's for about 4.00.  I got three hollywood movies that must have some special arrangement to allow their movies to appear on DVD here in china while they are still in the theaters. I can't believe they could possibly be pirated products! In China?  Are you kidding me?

Today, I came to the office of the agency that I work for and have been using the Internet here and meeting the other people who work for this company.  They are quite nice.  I had a very tasty lunch of a spicy hot wok fish, with tasty cucumbers and some sort of other vegetable dish.  All eaten by the entire office staff together in a conference room.  Quite nice to eat with everyone and for it to be quite tasty.

I got to work by taking a taxi  for 40 minutes.  It cost about 10.00 US or 60rmb.

Good day so far.  I downloaded the charlie brown Thanksgiving special to use to show kids.  At least I paid for that on iTunes....

Nice Office and Chinese tea ceremony

I was brought over to the "other campus" today, only to find it is a separate, private english language school that I will be working at.  It seems the head of the English department at the public school where I live and work is also affiliated with a private english academy.  The private school is also affiliated with the agency that I work for.

It's all fine with me, it just seems like the private enterprise is piggy backing on the public school.  I will be working at both, so I am not concerned.

My first day at the private school was good.   Because I am waiting on my visa, I was there primarily to meet other teachers and some of the students.  I also had to learn my way there from my lodgings at the school, because it is a somewhat long trek from one to the other.

It is somewhat interesting that the same teachers at the public school also tutor at a private school.

From what I have learned, public schools are the top tier here.  That is mostly because they are cheaper, but have good faculty.  You have to test to get into the better public schools.  If a student fails to get into a good public school it can cost the parents alot if they have to go to a good private school instead.

Everything is exam based, so if you don't get into a good public school, you need to pay to go to a good private school so you can test into a good high school or college.

The exam based nature of a confucian society is at the heart of the educational system.

I met two very shy 7th graders yesterday and some very nice parents.

We had a traditional chinese tea.  Tea is poured not just into cups but over tea pets and the run off tea goes down into a pot under the table.  It is actually a very aesthetic and enjoyable experience to have a good chinese tea.

I enjoyed the experience of having a leisurely tea yesterday.  I know it is still honeymooning for me.  I will soon have too much work to do and will be busy alot more.  My only hope is that I will have good time to travel around the country a bit.

First Class Taught

Well I can now say that I have taught a class in China.  Although I have yet to officially start work, I had a chance to practice today with some junior high students at a local high school.  This is not quite work yet, but for all intents and purposes I had a good first experience.

I taught a rather lengthy and detailed description of american culture by discussing the particulars of Thanksgiving and what it means in American culture.

I almost had a tough time because my Mac Air does not have the correct prongs to support the type of plug used by the overhead projector used commonly in classrooms here. Instead, because it was a small class of only 15, I had the students gather around while I showed them my meticulously drafted power point presentation about Thanksgiving.

Several students were very interested, some were definitely not so enthralled.  At different points I had varying levels of attention.  I need to remind myself to slow down and make sure I do not let distracted students get me distracted.

After about 40 minutes of me talking, we played word games using english for about an hour.

All in all a good test run for when I officially started teaching in the coming weeks.  Plus I can recycle the lecture.

Walking around Wuhan

This morning I woke up very early with a plan to head to Starbucks to work on final details of a talk I a giving later today about Thanksgiving.  I am giving a 40 minute presentation in english about the holiday, it's history and why we celebrate the day.

I have tried to make the holiday an example of a great moment in cross cultural communication.  In that I am kind of not portraying the sad history natives and europeans have had, but this is after all a rather fluffy bit of work designed to highlight the basics of the holiday.  I am trying to make the point that cross cultural exchange is a good thing, hence the aid squanto and massasoit gave to the pilgrims is a shining example of what two very different cultures can do.

So today I woke up early and found that the Starbucks was closed.  I took a walk to my bank to check on whether I have been paid yet.  I haven't. It was a good chance to check out my nifty new bank, which actually has all of their ATM stuff in english.  That is reason alone to bank with them.

I had breakfast of Ra Ga Mian from a street vendor.  Translated it means "hot and dry noodle".  It is a peanutty sort of nooddle dish that is mildly spicy.  It is quite good.

I finally made it to Starbucks, where I am faithfully and diligently updating you the reader with my fascinating exploits.  I am a little hung over after just one bottle of Dynasty wine.  It is quite good.

Well I will try and upload some pictures and more this weekend.  

Giving a Speech about Thanksgiving, on Thanksgiving

One of my first lectures will be to give a speech about the american holiday of Thanksgiving to students.  Because I am far afield from the US, it is assumed that because we won't have alot to do on the holiday, I won't mind giving a 40 minute lecture about Thanksgiving.  I actually am not really adverse to doing it because I have had a rather significant amount of downtime while waiting for the students to get through their mid terms.

I got to China on November 4.  It is now November 16th.  During that time I have done alot of planning to teach, but no actual teaching.  Ergo, I have alot of pent up energy that I would like to burn off actually working for a change.

I also have firmed up plans for an all you can eat turkey feast at a local restaurant here in Wuhan.  For about US 25.00-30.00 I will be able to gorge on Turkey and various thanksgiving delicacies.  I am bringing along my "chinese handler".

My Chinese handler probably deserves his own post.  He is a very nice and mature young man.  He is my appointed helper and overseer.  I joke that he is a handler.  He is fluent in German, and has a very wierd sort of german accent when speaking chinese.  He could do the voice of a perfect bond villain.  He took me out to dinner where I had some great local food.  I think I will work on getting him his own post.

Banking and Thanksgiving Plans

Today I braved the rain and opened up a bank account with the Bank of China.  I opted for an internet account and received some bizarre sort of one time number generator that I somehow use when conducting online transactions on my account.  The problem is that the Bank of China website only interacts with MS Internet Explorer and not my Mac's Safari.

I suppose I will have to borrow a computer in order to conduct online banking, or else download internet explorer, which defeats the purpose of having a Mac.  I will endeavor to figure this out.

I am quite pleased that I was able to go and open up a bank account all on my lonesome.  Granted, the bank staff spoke english, but I did utilize my ipad's translator capabilities by anticipating questions and having the answers pre translated.  Pretty nifty in my opinion.

I also was invited to give a presentation about Thanksgiving to some Chinese people.  I will be presenting using power point.  I plan on giving a good and diligent account of the Pilgrims, the Wampanoag, and the circumstances of the first Thanksgiving.

Anyway, I do have some congestion and slept for half of the day today.  I feel rested at least and hopefully will be back to 100% soon.

Congested

The air pollution is pretty bad here in Wuhan.  There is alot of smoke and dust.  Alot of it is probably from car emissions and local industry.  People also like to burn trash, so there can be think clouds of smoke.  Where I am located is outside the worst of the air.  However, I think I caught a couple of bad gusts and took it relatively easy today.  More will be posted at such time as more interesting stuff occurs.

Cranes from Li Bai Gallery at Yellow Crane Tower

Picture of Me in front of Yellow Crane Tower

From Li Bai Gallery at Yellow Crane Tower

Picture of Me with Yellow Crane Tower in Background

Still waiting to work

I have until next week to start work, which means I have alot of down time.  The internet in my apartment is not going to be repaired until approximately Thanksgiving, so I have to do all my internet work from the office.  That is fine, however the internet connection is less than optimal.  It is probably at the speed of high speed dial up right now.

Supposedly, the CCP has been intentionally slowing internet speeds to help prevent internal disruption of China pending the resolution of the communist party's congress in Beijing.  This event involves transitioning power for another ten years to a new premier.

Supposedly, the internet has been slowed and is being heavily monitored.  So it is more than likely that someone from China is reading my blog.

Of perhaps more import is the fact that I have page hits originating from China, despite this blog being blocked by the "great firewall of China" which blocks blogspot and blogger.  I am able to access and post to my blog by means of a virtual private network that connects me with a server outside of mainland china, hence not subject to the great firewall.

So, I have been whiling my time away, getting organized for my first class, and staying out of trouble.

Unfortunately, I spent 299.00 on Rosettastone software to help learn chinese and another 217.00 on MS Office, so my cash flow is waning.  Hopefully I will get paid soon.

First Weekend - Sunday

I woke up early on Sunday and made a skype call back to the states.  Then I got a text from one of the other american teachers inviting me to a church service held by some expatriates.

I took the bus over with the 4 other english teachers.  The service was attended by around 100 people, all american or canadien, and all living in Wuhan.  Although it was ostensibly non denominational, the preacher for the sermon was a visiting british man who was kind of evangelical.

I really cringe at protestant services.  There is something kind of wierd about doing a prayer huddle and getting all woozy and swaying hands over the place.  I want to just be nice, but it makes me feel weird.

I met some nice people, who don't seem to be moonies After we went to a local restaurant that sells big bacon burgers and ice cream  It is themed as a hawaiian restaurant and is owned by americans.  I had a very non kosher bacon cheese burger.

I walked around a bit with another teacher who showed me where the dvd store is.  You can buy very cheap dvds which are completely pirated.

My weekend closed out with reading my biography of Mao.

Good weekend overall.

First Weekend - Saturday

So despite the fact that my week is structured more or less like my weekend right now because I am waiting to start work, I tried to go out and do some exploration of the mega city.

On friday I had a tasty bottle of great wall wine after I got a new cell phone set up.  I had some tasty skewers sold to me by a Hui street vendor.  They are ubiquitous at any place where people gather, and have a distinctly mongol appearance as opposed to the racial characteristics of the majority Han population.  They also wear prayer skullcaps like all good muslims.  I said Hi to my vendor guy and said "asalaam Maleekum" to which he replied "asalaikam salaam". That made me feel pretty good. The skewers are lamb covered in spices and are very very tasty.

On saturday, I had made plans to meet someone from the agency I work for to visit the yellow crane tower.  So I got up reasonably early, made myself some toast and oatmeal, and with no directions or advice, went forth to the bus station.

It was only the second bus driver I asked who indicated that his bus went to Wu-Chan.  Wu-Chan is the downtown area of the city.  Originally, Wuhan was three separate cities that grew together to form one city.  The locals now refer to the different sections as districts.

I have seldom been on as crowded a bus before.  After about a half hour, the bus started to venture through a large public park.  I hopped out and had a nice walk through some pretty trees and grassy places.  I eventually wandered into another park called turtle mountain, where there is a huge 18 meter high painting depicting the ancient battles that took place in this region.  There also is a TV tower, a gondola that goes out over the city, a giant bronze ceremonial bowl and some statues.  It was a nice walk.

I was now pretty lost and needed to meet up with my friend.  Fortunately, there was a holiday inn that I stumbled upon.  The front desk clerk gave me a handy preprinted card with the names of the local landmarks in Chinese.  A pretty cool god send for taking a taxi with. I hopped into my taxi and went to the Yellow Crane Tower.

I hopped out near the tower at a statute t commemorate the 1911 revolution that ended the 1500 year Qing dynasty.  There was also a chrysanthemum festival so the city square was full of blooming chrysanthemums.  Thousands of them.  Very pretty.

I wandered around and ate some fried rice at a japanese chain restaurant. Then went into the yellow crane tower, which is one attraction of a rather large cultural park.

My friend had not yet arrived, so I went into the first building I found which was a music auditorium with a lone person playing some sort of string instrument.  The music was reminiscent of a psychedelic guitarist!  It was kind of a trip.

In the darkness of the auditorium, I think I saw a mongoose or some strange animal like a cat jumping in the shadows.  Pretty wierd.  I was the only person in the auditorium who was not sleeping.  Me and three sleeping park employees and someone playing this crazy wailing string instrument, with large feline creatures leaping in the shadows.

My friend arrived and he explained to me about how the Yellow Crane Tower was the spot where the famous Li Bai, a Tang dynasty poet, wrote a poem about how sad he was when his friends sailed away on the Yangtse.

Li Bai is also famous for being a heavy wine drinker.  He is said to have exclaimed that a bottle of wine contains 1,000 lines of poetry.  I think me and Li Bai see eye to eye on this.

There was a nice gallery of calligraphy and water colors. The park is rather large and has alot of attractions.

There was a gigantic bronze bell that school children where banging on with a giant pice of timber suspended on ropes.

I went to the top of the tower and had a view of the mists over the yangtse river.

After that was done we went out to eat where I had some great local dishes and beer.  I ate beef lung for the first time and some delicious mushrooms.  All in all a good day and now I know my way around a little better.

I will post another update about Sunday, which was less interesting but still worth reporting.

Cahokia

For my first presentation here in Wuhan, I will be teaching about the native american city of Cahokia.  This was the largest pre columbian settlement north of Mexico.

The settlement is famous for the large earthen mounds that were built for ceremonial and burial purposes. In addition, it is the site of the american woodhendge, consisting of a variety of wooden pillars buried in the ground in line with the summer and winter solstice and equinoxes. A pretty fascinating place, at t's hayday around 1200 AD, Cahokia had a population larger than any city in Europe at the time.  Estimates range from 15,000 to 50,000 in population.

The city had minimal sanitation, and the rulers had to keep up a steady flow of immigrants to make sure the population remained steady in the face of deaths from poor hygiene and disease.

It was the centerpiece of Mississippian culture and traded with other tribes as far away as Pennsylvania, Minnesota and the Gulf Coast.

I am not sure how interested the students will be, but it certainly has me interested.

St. Louis used to be known as “Mound City” due to all of the mounds on both sides of the river. Most of the mounds have been leveled over time. Part of one still exists; it is known as Sugar Loaf Mound. In a bit of poetic justice, the Osage Nation (now of Oklahoma, but originally from Missouri) bought it in order to preserve it.

Humans first arrived at Cahokia around 700 AD, but sometime around 1050 the population exploded for unknown reasons and the city became a regional center of what is known as the Mississippian culture.

At its peak (1050-1250 AD), the city was home to 10-15,000 residents, with the regional population estimated to have been as large as 40,000. That means it may have been the biggest world metropolis of its time, surpassing even London and Paris.

The center of Cahokia, both geographically and spiritually, was the huge Monk's Mound. It was the home of the city's ruling priest, who lived in a wooden temple at the peak. He ruled over a social structure similar to that of the Maya or ancient Egyptians, with a graded aristocracy and a proletariat of slaves and commoners.

Cahokia's downfall was just as sudden as its rise. For some reason, by 1300, the once-magnificent city had been virtually abandoned and its people dispersed. It's possible that the construction of the great mound contributed to Cahokia's demise by overexploiting natural resources. Agricultural degradation, droughts, and overpopulation may also have been factors. In the late 1600s, the Cahokia Indians (of the Illinois confederacy) came to the area and it is from them that the site derives its name.

More to this post later.

Wuhan Foreign Language School

The school is highly ranked nationally and is the number one school in the province of Hubei.  It operated originally as a school to train and develop foreign language speakers for the Chinese foreign service and has as it's operating principles the goal of modernization in accordance with the ideals set forth by Chou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping.

As I have stated in other posts, it is a boarding school.  Students typically go home on the weekends.  Boarding starts at a young age.

Out of 8,000 applications, only 300 students were accepted into the school.

They teach German, Japanese, Spanish and French in addition to English.

Basketball is very popular here and NBA stars Kobe Bryant and others have visited the school.

I will be primarily teaching a club rather than a standard class, although I will also be teaching regular english classes.  The club is voluntary participation and is geared towards teaching english by teaching about American culture and history.

I think I will start out by teaching about the native americans.  A brief history of the Wampanoag peoples, Cahokia in Illinois and generally about pre-columbian america.

I want to be challenging rather than simplistic, so I will try and introduce the historiographical theories of guns, germs and steel to explain how the europeans conquered the natives so readily.  The main thing I must do is avoid getting into sticky political discussions.

Wuhan

Wuhan is a centrally located city in the heartland of China.  It has alot of similarities to Chicago.

The Wuhan Experimental Foreign Language School where I am located is outside of the city center.  It is about a half hour drive to get into the more urban downtown.  There is alot of smog here, although less at my location than downtown.

The school is in an economic and technological development zone, meaning that there is alot of building going on.  There are alot of apartment buildings of more than 15 stories, a large three level shopping mall, and alot of miscellaneous shops.  The mall has a walmart in it, as well as such designer shops as a VANS, Nike, and various other mid to high end clothiers.  There is also a MacDonalds, a pizza hut and a starbucks there.  It is called Wanda Mall and is next door to a huge office building under construction named Wanda Place.  Wanda is the name of a department store in the mall, hence the name.  Wanda anchors the site.

I went to the MacDonalds and had a crispy chicken deluxe sandwich for about 4.00 with fries and a drink.  It made a good brunch fast for me.

While out walking, I came across a kind of interesting sight. Along a water canal there are what look almost like terraced farms.  It seems some locals still farm any arable strip of land.  Looking up the canal I saw small plots planted with a variety of produce.  It was very interesting to see agriculture, and I mean small scale subsistence agriculture, side by side with huge 20 story apartment complexes and shopping malls.  The produce is sold on the sidewalk right in front of the super market.  I will try and get some pictures of this, not because it may be interesting to you my gentle reader, but rather because it is of interest to me, your humble narrator.

I have alot of down time because I am waiting on the documents needed for my visa.  This has given me the chance to walk around a bit and check things out.

I  would dearly like to get a Chinese bird book.  No doubt an english language book of Chinese birds will be difficult to come by.   I have noticed alot of new birds in my perambulations and would like to identify them for my life birding list.

Today I hope to get my canteen card so I can dine with the faculty without mooching off other teachers.  I am desperate to not be more of a burden than I already am.

Election Day

It is odd to be over seas at election time.  Just a few weeks ago it was a rather large part of my somewhat empty life, now I kind of miss not having the deluge of ridiculous over reportage that I typically cringe at.  I guess the only thing I am lacking is the TV news coverage.  I have all the internet stories.  I guess I actually miss television!

In other news, I went to the supermarket yesterday and spent some time talking to one of the other teachers.  He is also named Jonathan. He is very nice and from Ohio.  He, along with the other American english teachers have all been here since August.  It really makes my long period of patient waiting kind of pointless.  I can only assume that the agency I am working for either was totally inept or the folks at this school may have special treatment.

Apparently, the headmistress is highly connected within the state's education ministry, so maybe that is how it works. The politically connected can get you a visa, while those who are not connected can't.  That may be overstating the issue, but I am inclined towards that opinion.  Wish I had come here a couple of months ago and gotten myself started.

At the supermarket I discovered some more odd stuff; specifically cuccumber, italian meat sauce and steak favored potato chips.  I also found a 10 dollar bottle of wine, which unfortunately did not last long, as I enjoyed drinking it.

The food at the supermarket is fine.  Packaging is obviously problematic for someone like me who is functionally illiterate here in china.  I have to act like a toddler and riddle out the contents of all the pretty colored bags and boxes with their shiny, cartoon characters and gloss.

The danger for me is that an enticing cartoon character does little to tell me if the contents of packaging will be what I want.  It is kind of interesting as a study in how the mind works.  It might be worth investigating how merchandizing is orchestrated towards the illiterate.  Obviously, the packaging must be geared towards a literate audience here in china.  The english on the packaging of asian products is kind of baffling to me.  I am very glad for it.  I guess the marketing folks here in china have adduced that putting english on a product will make it alot easier for people to know what it is because mandarin characters might not be as widely read as english.

Anyway, today I am heading to the walmart to check that out.  Going to try a local restaurant and get some supplies.

Crossing the Yangtse for the first time

Today is my first full day here in Wuhan.  This morning I headed downtown to get my medical exam for my work visa.  Basically, it is an onerous formality that requires that I be human, breathing and have money to pay for the exam.

The clinic I went to has a number of stations that visa seekers must go to.  At the ECG station, the doctor politely asked me to take my T Shirt off, when in fact I had no T Shirt on.  Basically, I was too hairy to do the ECG.  Rather than shave me or have me come back when she could do the test, she passed me and noted that the ECG diodes attached poorly to my skin.  I suppose it is easy for Chinese to mistake a western man's body hair for clothing because Chinese have very little body hair.

As I write this post, I am sitting in the office of the school.  I am teaching at the Wuhan Experimental Foreign Languages School, which is a public school.  I am told that the headmistress is a very high ranking party member and that she is involved with the national education committee or governing body that administers to schools. This means that the school has plenty of funding.

The campus is nice.  It is rather large. There are dormitories for both faculty and students.  Most of the students are boarders.

Unlike in the US, students start boarding at a much younger age.  There are primary school age kids who sleep at the school.  Students all go home on weekends.  I cannot imagine being at a boarding school at such a young age, although I recall that there are equivalents in the US and England where very young kids board.

My accommodations are decent.  I have a one bedroom with living room and bathroom.  The kitchen is shared with several other foreign teachers.

The hosts have been quite gracious and accommodating.  One fellow has been particularly nice and we have spoken a bit.  His english is very good.  He suggested I let him know if he can put me in touch with a relative of his who is a businessman because I am a lawyer and he said his friend might be able to help me get a job.  This would be in addition to teaching. You can be sure that you will hear more about this if indeed it comes to pass.

There is a dining hall for students and another seperate one for the faculty.  The food is actually pretty damn good for a cafeteria style place.

I like it and am optimistic.  I am looking forward to teaching once I get my visa processed.

Waking up to being a 40 year old toddler

Well I had my first experience of being illiterate. I got to the airport and, too shy to hazard a foray into a restaurant because of my lack of any appreciate conversational mandarin, went to a news kiosk to buy water, tea and candy. Note my gentle reader that I do not typically breakfast n candy, but I am a ill frazzled.

So I buy my water, tea and two candy bars. I got what I expected with the water, but the tea and candy bars were a surprise, and fortunately not the teeth grinding kind of surprise.

I expected the tea to be unsweetened like in Japan.  The bottle looked the same, but because I cannot read it turned it to be non offensively sweetened.  Still was good.

The dove bars, which I anticipated being milk chocolate were n fact white chocolate. That was a surprise. Fortunately, I am not adverse to white chocolate and hence it was a savory treat.

Anyway, the point is, I have stepped into a world where I cannot read, communicate by pointing, smiling and nodding, and cannot understand what people are saying. A few days ago I was this burned out lawyer living in G-Vegas, not I am a giant baby Huey wandering the Middle Kingdom in search of food.
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Rubber hits the road

Your humble narrator is now in the fabled Middle Kingdom, which was in large part the whole impetus of this blog.  No more will there be tired posts about how bad the food is at the G-Vegas Ale House (Which has made me feel bloated and full of liquid lard on a couple of occasions) or such triflings as sighting a moose in the backyard. No from now on this Blog will be synchronizing itself with the daily circumstances surrounding living and working in China.

I got into Beijing yesterday at about 5 PM local time and was met by a very friendly and well spoken assistant to one of the teachers who works for the agency that got me here.

I should also point out that your narrator has no intentions of offending against China's strict visa requirements. It is very possible that I will be back on a plane very soon to get my work visa because I am technically here only as a tourist.  Please do not let that fact get back to the Chinese authorities, oh my gentle reader.

Initial impressions of China are really not possible.  I took a shuttle to the hotel, ate some KFC, and watched some Chinese TV while dozing.  In a moment of cosmic kismet, the only english program on the TV had a singer named Sarah Connor who was signing Ray Lamontaigne's song "Crazy" (which is more infamously known by it's cover artist version by Gnarls Barclay).  Stumbling around a foreign hotel room in serious jet lag and KFC induced torper, hearing that song made me laugh, as indeed I might be considered by more sedate and reasoned people to be kind of crazy for coming to China in the first place.

I want to be here because my life had hit an impasse and I needed to make it work again.  Depending upon how my career as an ESL teacher goes, I fancy myself doing alot of traveling and teaching over the next years.

It is not that I do not want to go back to practicing law.  I love it.  I know I am pretty good at law.  In many respects, my midlife crisis type foray into being a Chinese english teacher is symptomatic of burnout.  Yes, to place the motivations for this Chinese teaching jaunt into perspective, it is pretty much a period of professional re-evaluation and assessment with an aim of putting my mind and career back on track.

My mind is good right now.  I feel very good and am optimistic that this is going to be a very fun and enlightening experience.  My idea of fun might not align with the ideas of fun held by my readers. Fun is perhaps not the best word.  Intriguing might be better.

In a couple of hours I am flying to Wuhan to meet another teacher who will hopefully get me ensconced at a school where I will soon be working.

My apologies to my readers for the delay in making posts.  The past few weeks have included alot of downtime and not much in the way of happenings.  I will be sure to summarize any posts of interes