After two years in beautiful Cameroon with the Peace Corps, I decided to extend and do another two years in China. I will be teaching university English in one of four provinces in south west China. Right now I am in a big city doing a ten-week training on Mandarin, teaching techniques, etc. I am living with a Chinese host family.
So far, I am loving it. It sure is a big change from Africa! I didn’t expect malls around every corner. Many things are very familiar to me- I don’t feel too much like I am on the other side of the world. The food is amazing and all I ever want to do is eat. The language is tough but I’m on target with my progress and I think I will be able to learn enough to function. I haven’t started teaching yet and I’m a big worried about the higher standards we are going to be held up to (Cameroon schools were too disorganized to really get too much done.) but I think it will also be refreshing.
Does anyone have any good suggestions about Mandarin learning resources?
Have you found a sexy little Chinese girlfriend yet?
(I’m assuming you’re a heterosexual male here…if not…have you found a hard-bodied Bruce Lee-type stud yet?)
Is it true that there’s a lot of pollution there?
I’ve heard that the traffic in China is a madhouse, with little cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and even people riding on horseback or driving mule-carts, all clamoring down the road at top speed with very little traffic control. Maybe the guy I talked to was just in a really crazy part of China, I don’t know.
Argent Towers, I’m a girl who likes boys. No hard bodied Bruce Lee yet, but it could happen. I feel like I’m much more likely to find my requirements of “Under 30, not already married, speaks English and has stepped foot in a university at some point” in China than in backwoods Cameroon.
There is a lot of air pollution, though I’ve been surprised at how clean the streets are on a superficial level.
The traffic is more orderly than I though it would, though it is freaking people who are a little less used to developing-world traffic patterns than me. I figured it’d be like India, whose traffic is the most insane thing imaginable. But no, it’s more like a
slightly more enthusiastic America. YMMV.
I still haven’t found an answer for “why are you doing for $150 a month what other people are doing for real salaries?”
I think the “US China Friendship Exchange” program is more about the cultural exchange (which can be read as diplomacy on the cheap) aspect than any other Peace Corps program. Personally, it happened to be just the right place and time for me and insh’Allah I think the next two years has a lot of potential to change my life and get me off of the “dead end job” path.
In any case, I think the labor market is safe. There are only 30 of us coming in this year, and we are mostly going to unfashionable schools in some of the less sexy parts of China.
I think just from reading your postings here that your experiences overseas have matured you incredibly. (I mean that in the most sincere way, with no condescension or snark). Good for you for having lots of adventures while you’re young enough to enjoy them. Plenty of time for stable, settled (boring) jobs later.
I think you will find, as I’m sure you did in Cameroon, that China is very different from how they are perceived in the West. We really are subjected to a lot of negative propaganda about China and when you actually live there, you develop a more accurate sense of what the country is like, both the good and bad.
Find a tiny kebob place you like. And eat the fat on the kebobs!
If you are a hiker, Tiger Leaping Gorge, which is a ways north of Lijiang, Yunnan, is a must-do… though I hear they’ve constructed a road which takes some charm away from this incredible two day hike. And Lijiang is just a goddamned awesome place to visit, anyway.
For studying Chinese, I found zhongwen.com fairly interesting. I like its online dictionary.
Oh, and the mapo dofu in Sichuan is just amazing. There’s a restaurant in Chengdu that claims it invented it, and for like 10 yuan you can get a HUGE bowl.
I’m very jealous of you, I really want to head back to Southwest China soon. Hope you can do some travel while you’re there!
Good luck, hope your adventure is all that you want it to be.
Hijack - my nephew the swimmer had an outside chance for the Beijing Olympics but at 17 he is still a bit young (for male swimmers anyway). I wouldn’t have been able to go and watch anyway, since I have a “mental disorder” (bipolar) and the Chinese government will not offer visas to the afflicted. Hello London in 2012!
where are ou now? where will be located? i co-authored SW China Off the Beaten Track published in 1987 so proabably can gove some recomendations for where to go.
www.pleco.com has a chinese-english dictionary for pda’s. it has a good flashcard function. the cheapest version they offer is the best dictionary (concise).
I agree that this experience seems to have matured you with some quickness.
And, as I think I’m mentioned before, I feel I have this tiny connection to you, since we graduated from the same high school and all, so I like to think that I now have a tiny little connection in China.
I look forward to reading your posts about adjusting to, and living in…
