Not that I really believe anyone’s vested in following my movemens around the globe, but here’s an update. I arrived in Maoming this past Sunday evening. The job in Korea went south rapidly (long story, might post what happened) and after six years in Busan, I had to bail. This is my first weekend here and, of course, it’s raining cats and dogs. I’m just a couple of blocks from a big park, big library, and a Wal-Mart. The job is teaching English and I will start that on Monday, 3 September 2012.
Excitement level so far is slightly above minimal. Had to put out a fire in the apartment about half an hour ago. Nothing serious, just an old extension cord biting the dust.
I know this thread has languished a bit, but I for one am interested.
Keep us (me) posted on how things go!
I love hearing about people moving off to places I most likely will never visit, and hearing about their experiences and thoughts.
I know you said you were not exactly on the brim of excitement, but it has to be kind of cool to be in such a new location and environment. Housing, food, entertainment, lifestyle, attitude of people, reason they want to learn English - any info would be great.
[ul]
[li]Don’t drink the tapwater[/li][li]Don’t buy bottled water from roadside sellers, it is often just tapwater in discarded bottles.[/li][li]Learn how to use Chinese-style squat toilets, as you don’t want to work them out during a diarrhea emergency[/li][li] Chinese “kimchi” is more likely to give you diarrhea than Korean kimchi.[/li][/ul]
Really? Why? Something in the fermenting isn’t killing the microbes?
Do you mean pao cai? [my roomie loves and makes kinchi, and would probably be interested in trying to make a chinese version]
I lived in China for two years and loved every moment. It’s great and the food is even better than Korean food(been there, too).
Make sure you travel around the country on any vacations you get. It’s cheap to travel in China I recommend Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Beijing(of course), and Xian.
Beijing is actually the best city I’ve traveled to in the world.
Would you like to share your first impressions and thoughts of China with us ?
What about China is how you expected it to be ?
What about China did you not expect ?
If you can get out of SW Guangdong head to Yunnan and Guangxi for some traveling. Yangshuo, Dali and Lijiang are all surrounded by great scenery. I think I saw your general area a couple of months ago from a train ride between Guangzhou and Kunming. Pretty scenic outside of the cities.
How unbearably hot and humid is it there now? Beijing just cooled down a lot and the sky was actually blue today.
Is there a shao kao place near your apartment? Yang rou chuar and beers make a great late night snack. Any other foreigners in your neighborhood?
I’m really having fun now. The job is great, it’s the way being a “Guest English Teacher” in South Korea is touted by the Korean government as being, but really isn’t that way in Korea. There are about fifty Chinese teachers at my school–a privately-run English, Math, and Chinese education academy–only four of whom are male. The English ability of the English-teaching staff is very high and, to my pleasant surprise, they are eager to improve their conversation skills. There is none of the stupidity of Korea’s English learning business. The boss and the Chinese staff work together on skills maintenance/improvement. I had to run back to the main office one day to pick up some official documents and those teachers who did not have classes at the moment were in a seminar, completely conducted in English. That really impressed me: it wasn’t silly English phrases, but actual English as one would expect in an English teachers’ seminar in the US.
The school provides a furnished apartment, free cable television and Internet, and a cell phone. The cell phone is free up to something like 90 RMB per month usage, the overage being paid by me. For all calls on our school network, there is no cost and no minutes deducted.
The reason people want to learn English is pretty simple: globalization and job opportunities.
I’m about a block away from one of the bigger parks in the city, Culture Square. That park has a big library in it and next to the park is a Wal-Mart. (An aside: my sister asked me, “Is everything in the Chinese Wal-Mart made in America?” She’s a card.)
The first day was outsanding. I met a lot of people. One thing that cracks me up is that everyone who meets me, at work or just on the street, feels the need to tell me their “English name.” Dollars to donuts very few of those names have ever seen print in any English publication or diary since Adam was a lad. But, hey, to each their own. Mostly, the first day of work was getting settled into the office, getting a tour of the downtown area, and other administrivia stuff. The first day of teaching was a Saturday as the school has most of its classes on Saturday and Sunday, with the “school weekend” being Monday and Tuesday. The kids and the teachers were all happy with me. Afterwards, one of the Chinese teachers told me that I’m much better than their last native English teacher. She said, “He was always dour.” I sure hope I’m better than that! “Dour” just doesn’t sound like the way to live one’s life, in my opinion.
My responses. Let’s just pretend you’ve numbered your comments so I don’t look silly by numbering mine.
[ol][li]That was the very first thing my “foreigner handler” said. Basically, China seems like Korea was in the late 1970s. Nobody would buy bottled water then either (yes, it was available). What the Koreans did then and the Chinese do now is boil the tap water. So far, so good. I’m buying nothing from a roadside vendor unless it’s at one of those street markets. Just the casual vendor on some random piece of sidewalk is out of luck if he’s expecting me to buy something from him.[/li][li]I learned quite some time ago how to use the squattters and know that the biggest mistake you can make is dropping your drawers all the way to your ankles. Do that and your pants will be catching what falls. Really, I don’t have any problems with squatters.[/li][li]Isn’t almost all the kimchi sold in Korea from China anyway? As it is, I don’t buy the prepapred stuff because (at least in Korea) it has shrimp sauce–sauce made from shrimp, not sauce to be put on shrimp–as one of the ingredients. I’ve a bit of an allergy to shrimp.[/ol][/li]
Just last night, I bought a soda can labeled “Apple Vinegar.” Yes, it really was apple vinegar. I wasn’t surprised as I was introduced to drinking vinegar way back in 2006 in Busan. I love the stuff. At a restaurant in the same building as Wal-Mart, they offer one Korean dish: Bibimbap. The odd thing is that they put some corn kernels and a very short cob of corn in it. I’ve never seen bibimbap prepared that way. Also, it’s not so hard being vegetarian, as I am, here. Kind of hard to determine what’s strange since I’ve lived in Asia for a total of fourteen years now.
I really want to visit Beijing. One of my university classmates is from there and I’d love to meet her again. The main thing on my mind for long vacations, though, is meeting the gal I’ve been chasing for some time now. She lives in Busan and although Korea celebrates some of the same holidays as China, Korea celebrates them for a shorter time. I accidentally got to see another city yesterday when I ended up on the wrong bus. I’m peeved at the illiterate (you know, illiterate like I am basically in Chinese) working the ticket counter, but what the hey, it was an adventure. Plus, on the wrong bus, I saw one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a long time. Too bad I missed the title. Lesson learned: don’t buy a ticket when there’s a bum rush on the ticket counter.
Well, I’ve been to the mainland one time before and I’ve visited Hong Kong quite often. One thing that sticks out to me is that, yes, there are plenty of bad drivers here, disregarding most of the traffic rules. The funny thing about that is that they do it slowly. I haven’t seen anyone at all speeding here. Another thing about traffice that struck me is that so many of the women and girls who are riding as passengers on bicycles, scooter, and motorcycles are riding sidesaddle. And that’s with them wearing hot pants or miniskirts. Hey, I’m not complaining. I just don’t understand riding that way.
The housing here looks like a fortress. There are bars on almost all windows, regardless of the height of the building. Apparently thieves here need some serious dissuasion. What I did not expect was for the apartment to be as big as it is. In Korea, I lived in a succession of “One Rooms” but this place here is a 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom, 1-kitchen, 1-living room joint. Of course it’s on the 4th floor as every apartment I’ve lived in the last seven years has been, and there’s no elevator in this building. The “foreigner handler” told me that in China, only buildings taller than ten stories are required to have elevators. Also surprising to me was the method of flushing the toilet (squatter) in my apartment. Evidently, the water tank was removed a long time ago to put in a water heater. Let me tell you, there is absolutely no need for a water heat in this town! It’s hot here. For today, tomorrow, and Thursday, the high will be 91 degrees Farenheit. Anyway, to flush the squatter, I have to fill up a bucket and pour the bucket myself into the squatter. The squatter also functions as the drain for the bathroom, the washing machine in the living room, and the kitchen sink.
What I really did not expect is the feeling that I’m the only White boy in the city. Really, I have not seen another foreigner since I arrived here. Well, I have seen some on television but that doesn’t really count.
Wow! The scenery is great. On the ride from the airport in Zhanjiang to Maoming, I saw so much beautiful landscape. There were different kinds of farms, not just rice farms, and some really pretty forests. I saw about a dozen water buffalo too. I thought they were kind of cute. One was sitting down like a dog sits. And it was just staring at the traffic going by on the highway.
You can check www.myforecast.com for the weather here. According to that site, the high humidity level for today will be 87%.
I’m LDS so I don’t drink or smoke. I learned quickly here that smoking is pretty prevalent in a lot of the night spots so I’m avoiding those. I really can’t stand to be around tobacco smoke.
Oh, another thing that I didn’t expect was how popular the Korean Wave is. One night on my way home, I walked through Culture Square and there were about a hundred teenage girls and young women dancing to The Girls Generation song, The Boys. The funny thing was the song was the English version. On the inter-city bus yesterday, I saw a singing contest with one contestant singing the Chinese version of The Wonder Girls song, Nobody. The contestant was awful. She had absolutely no clue how to sing the song or even how to dance to it.
My hobbies are pretty tame compared to a lot of other people. I learned to play Chinese Chess when I was in the Eighth Grade. My algebra teacher was our school’s Chess club faculty advisor and he thought it would be a good idea for us to be exposed to more than just one kind of Chess. AFAIK, he’d never been outside the US. I’ve already had a chance to play a local. Also, for Teachers Day, the boss treated the whole staff to a dinner at a big hotel near the bus station. I got there early as did the other male teachers. The dining room had a couple of those automated Mahjong tables. I’ve never played using one of those before. So, while I was admiring the table, two of the guys came over and said, “We’ll teach you how to play!” I won the first hand. Then we had to start the dinner. After dinner, we started playing again and my ride said it was time to go. The guys were happy for me to leave because I don’t gamble and they were hepped up with the idea of playing late to the night for cash.
Speaking of gambling, Sunday during lunch–the school lunch breaks range from two to three hours–I went exploring. I saw a pretty intense game of Chinese Chess going on, so I figured I had enough time to watch. Those guys were deadly serious about it. Maybe there were a dozen of us spectators. When one guy finally lost, I found out why they were playing tooth and nail. The loser paid about 500 RMB (about a hundred dollars) to the winner. Yeah, that’s not chicken feed in these parts.
I haven’t made it to the cinemas yet. That’s mainly because my US bank card won’t work in this town. I’m waiting on my sister to wire some money to my Bank of China account. I guess that’s going to tame my spendthrift ways if I can’t have easy access to my money in America.
I am having fun with learning yet another set of Simplified Chinese characters. When I first lived in South Korea back in the 1970s, one had to know the old-style Chinese Characters to read or write Korean. Then, when I lived in Japan in the early 1990s, I had to learn Kanji to read and write Japanese. Those, of course, were the simplified characters the Japanese government promulgated. In Hong Kong, they use the traditional characters and now I’m in the PRC where they use their own set of simplified characters.
If you don’t mind, I’d be interested to hear more about travelling as a vegetarian. I’d love to do more international travel (and it may become a real possibility in the next couple of years) but having been a vegetarian for 17 years, I definitely worry about what I would eat when I’m in another country. Asia in particular I’ve always assumed would be difficult.
It’s not that hard maintaining a vegetarian diet if you prepare yourself in advance. One thing is to have a card written in the local lingo stating that you are vegetarian–and this is key–and what that means to you. For example, while I was in Korea, I had to be explicit in ordering my food at a restaurant. In Korea, no meat does not mean no ham or no fish. Added to that, no fish does not mean no shrimp. I really had no problem whatsoever in Hong Kong as there are vegetarian restaurant chains, and I don’t mean just the Indian restaurants. There is even a fast food vegetarian outfit that’s at a number of the subway stations.
ETA: Oh, I left off one other thing that surprised me about the apartment. The duct for the water heater exhaust goes out through the kitchen wall. There is about an inch gap all around the duct. That allows a few other living things to come in. One of said living things is a lizard (might be a salamander or a gecko; can’t tell because the thing’s quick). I leave it alone so it’ll eat the local cockroaches. I’ve seen a couple of the roaches flying at night outside on the balcony, flying into the balcony door. I figure a working lizard’s better than the roach as a pet!
Having travelled lots and sometimes with vegetarians, I’d say this: it depends on how strict you are. In many parts of Asia, for example, you may be able to get a noodle bowl or rice bowl that doesn’t have meat in or on it. However, the sauce or broth is another story. This notion of not eating meat or fish, or sauces made with meat or fish stocks, or a broth that animal parts were once floating in, etc., is not necessarily well understood throughout the world.
Hint on the vegetarian thing. Apologies in advance if this goes against personal religious beliefs. That said, have your card say that you are a vegetarian because of Buddhist beliefs. 我姓佛教所以吃素（什么肉都不吃）。 Buddhist vegetarianismis a concept that is understood in China, while simply Vegetarianism may *not *be a concept that is understood.
Is there a Buddhist temple nearby? If they have a restaurant, it should be veggie.
Guangdong province isn’t generally the nicest place and I haven’t been to Maoming in 25 years, so I can’t really comment. You’re not too far away from Yangshuo and there are tons of pretty interesting places in Guangxi if you get off the beaten track.
Keep us updated on the adventure. Sounds like things have gotten off on the right foot, and best wishes they continue that way.
Nobody’s said a thing about it, they’ve simply accepted the fact that I’m vegetarian. And they don’t pretend that ham isn’t meat or that all the seafood has to be in the meal for it to be a “real meal.” I’ve even been asked a few times, “Is chicken egg okay or dairy okay?” Plus, there’s a restaurant in the same building as the Wal-Mart near my apartment that has a vegetarian section on the menu and they’re nice enough to take out the meat when I ordered their one Korean meal: stone pot bibimbap.
The big issue here for me isn’t food. It’s access to my money in the US. Looks like I’ll have to find a US bank that is part of UnionPay network. That’s the one and only ATM network every bank in this city and points near and far is on. Not even a Visa credit card will work. My sister transferred some money to me this morning (China time)/yesterday afternoon (Georgia, US time).
Tomorrow at 08:00 a.m., I go to the Public Security Department for my residence permit. Hopefully that goes off without a hitch. I applied–and paid–for a mulitiple entry visa from the PRC Embassy in DC. I’m hoping to meet someone in Hong Kong during the week-long vacation we get the first week of October. If the residence permit is fouled up, I’m screwed for that.
Other than those two issues, I’m really enjoying this city. I even like walking the half hour or so to the kindergarten on Fridays and to the main school on weekends.
Probably a stupid suggestion, but often ATM’s will not work with cards, but you can go into a bank and they will give you a “cash advance” on the card.
Did you try going into the bank to see if they can manually take out some funds for you? It just seems odd they couldn’t call a branch in, say, Hong Kong, and ask them to complete the transaction and then charge you a fee and hand you some cash
Cool news: the BoC down the road finished repairing their ATM section. What do you know, it now has a Visa card-friendly ATM. Methinks I shall stock up on some cash though. As a preventative measure, I did call my bank back in the US to ensure their card fraud prevention team is aware that I am in this part of the world and, yes, that 'tis I using the card. I took out 500 Yuan, which is now US$79.00 this evening. Then I moseyed over to Wal-Mart and got some comfort food and some necessities.
This morning at the PSB, the copper handling my application told me that my residency card will show multiple entries. Let’s continue hoping that’s the case!
The boss has arranged a trip for the school staff to go to Guanxi; however, my plan is to meet the chasee mentioned above.
I cannot imagine what’s for sale in a Chinese Wal-Mart. Like your sister, I find it hugely ironic that there’s even one there. What’s it like in there?
From my experience: A Chinese Wal-Mart is similar to a Canadian Wal-Mart, but usually smaller. They sell the same kind of stuff (clothing, small appliances, household products).
