Macau City of Dreams and Shenzhen Shopping Heaven

We flew back to  Hong Kong and from there took a ferry straight from Hong Kong airport to Macau.This was as easy and straightforward as other travelers on the Internet described as you bypass customs and immigration in Hong Kong and your bags are transferred directly to the ferry boat. It is only one hour by ferry and then there was a special line in Macau for oldies of over 65 and they let me go through with D so all was well.

On arrival at Macau ferry terminal we wanted to take a free shuttle but were too tired and the bags were too heavy so we just cheated and got a cab to our hotel the Metropole, in the Old Town, not on the Cotai strip where all the casinos are.The hotel was lovely except for one thing-it was being renovated and it was rather bizarre to look out of the bedroom window and see a workman with a yellow hard hat standing on bamboo scaffolding! The noise was not so bad but we couldn’t open the window or really relax in the room.So that was a bit of a bummer. Nevertheless we went out into Macau Old town to sample the strange mix of Portuguese and Chinese cultures. Next thing we notice-cars drive on the left? Why is that ? We have been to Portugal and it was not the case there. Macau old town was delightful- clean and lively with the streets still decorated from the Chinese New Year.

We saw the ruins of St Paul’s which was beautiful and just strolled around town and had a great Portuguese style meal.Then we took a bus to the Cotai area where all the huge casinos are and looked around the kitschy Venetian like the one in Las Vegas. It is a mockup of Venice complete with fake gondolas and fake painted sky, lots of casinos of course and also very luxury shops.

Ruins of St Paul’s

THe next day we had intended to do a bit more sightseeing before moving on to Shenzhen but as it turned out the shuttle to the port was at 11.30 so we decided to go with that and take the 12.15 sailing to Shenzhen. It was a quick trip but the sea was a bit bumpier than on our arrival.ON reaching Shenzhen we took the subway straight to our hotel,the Sunon Villa which was great,slap bang on the pedestrian mall of Shenzhen where you can buy anything and everything. We walked around a bit,bought a few things and went back to rest in the room. Then went out to eat and had a great day.Next morning we got up and took the subway to OCT (Overseas Chinese Town) to visit Splendid China,which is a sort of Mini China-all the famous sites of the country in miniature.

Fake Mosque for Xinjiang Province

Minority group show-Va people

IT was also kitschy but endearing especially the people-watching and waving and taking photos with mums,dad,grandparents etc. We especially enjoyed the mockups of the ethnic Chinese villages,with their folklore shows. We saw three of these demonstrations of minority group customs and the highlight was the Mongol battlefield show complete with costumed riders with lances and other weapons reenacting various battles and horses jumping over flames and other obstacles.I found it thrilling and almost felt I was 6 years old again watching it.

Splendid China Kitsch

Next day we flew back to Xiamen and got here early in the morning ready for our new semester which will begin on Monday.

A week left and counting..

We came back home to Jerusalem for a month over the semester break and it has been rather weird. Firstly of course it was great to see all our friends and family again,to eat our faviourite Israeli foods that are not available in China, and to sleep in our own (extremely soft) bed. It was great to go to Pilates classes again and tell people we are just here for a break and are living in China.But it was also odd that we very quickly found ourselves missing China, Xiamen and our life there. I miss the students, I miss getting up every day in Xiamen and not knowing who we are going to meet or what is going to happen.I miss the challenge of trying to make myself understood in Chinese.And I miss the surprises every time we order in a restaurant and have no clue what is going to appear on the table.

It was great to be met at the airport by our younger son,to hear what he has been up to,and to spend time with my Dad,and my brothers and see all the family together for my brother’s birthday.But now we feel that we are in the way.The boys have their own lives to lead,and really don’t need us around.My dad is doing fine and is okay with us going back.

Today is Chinese New Year, and although we planned not to be there during that festival I am a little disappointed now I see it all on the TV that we will be missing the festivities.So maybe we will stay put next year and see them for ourselves,wherever we are.

We did have some fun here.We went to see a couple of movies and we are gong to a concert this week. But we kept checking the prices in the restaurants and shops and comparing to Chinese prices. We spent some time with friends of ours from Xiamen who came to visit, Steve and Viny, who are of the Bahai faith and came to Israel to go on a pilgimage to their temple in Haifa. We showed them around Jerusalem a bit,went with them to Yad Vashem,to Ein Karem,Abu Gosh and the Tayelet to see the views of the Old City.

We also had a coffee with Aliza and Shimon who will be joining us at XMUT next semester.So that was fun too.So roll on next Monday when we get on the plane and go back to Xiamen via Hong Kong,Macau and Shenzhen.

Steve and Viny visit Abu Gosh

Gulangyu Island Part 2

We had visited Gulangyu Island when we came to Xiamen last December but it had been a rather rushed visit and had wanted to go back so this weekend when the mercury shot up to 24 C in the daytime we decided the time was right.So we popped onto the BRT right to the end of the route and from then walked to the Pier for the 5 minute crossing to the wonderful island.IT is car-less and bicycle-less,has a mountain in the middle called Sunlight Rock,and 2 museums,one a Piano Museum and one Organ Museum. The island is home to about 25,000 people and has lots of old colonial buildings and some beaches and is a relaxing getaway but to be avoided over national holidays.The best thing to do however is just meander aimlessly around the streets,look at the twee little shops selling knicknacks and relax. IT is a very relaxing place. This time we thought we would climb up Sunlight Rock which we didn’t do last time,but again the visibility was poor despite the sun,so we passed on paying 60RMB each for that and made do with the Piano Museum which was most rewarding.WE then went to the Park surrounding it,and another small museum of Chinese artifacts,and just hung out generally.

Piano Museum

 

colonial buildings

The beach is lovely,maybe not world quality but a pleasant place especially because it is not crowded and sweaty.WE will return to Gulangyu again and make it up to Sunlight Rock next time. In the evening we had intended to hear a rock band in the village of Zen cuoAn near to Xiamen University but were a bit tired and since the last BRT home is at 10pm we didn’t fancy returning by taxi so we had dinner at Pizza Hut and caught the bus home.Today we have the long awaited Xmas dinner at the five star Royal Victoria Hotel Xiamen as guests of the University so I guess that will deserve another blog entry. On a side note,Danny’s collection of Chinese sleeping in weird places is coming along nicely!

In another 3 weeks we will be back in Israel so I am not sure how much I will be blogging then,but time will tell.Today,on the teachers’ bus to Metro supermarket we met a couple from Ireland ,Stephen and Lavinia,who are Bahai,and they will be in Israel end of January so of course we will invite them over to have dinner with us in Jerusalem.

Xiamen from the ferry

Some reflections on Chinese students and EFL (for teachers,probably)

We are nearing the end of the first semester here in Xiamen and our 3rd semester in China so time for a bit of reflection.I have spent the last 2 weeks testing my students orally for their Final Exam,and I have a few observations. It seems that there is a great deal of difference between teaching English majors and Non English majors,but there are some things which seem to jump out at me as “weird” or “different” when I compare the Chinese universities to the Western ones. Firstly,the students here seem to have a lot less choice in their lives than our children do,and than we did as students. Most students here,when asked why they chose this university or why they chose their major reply that “My parents picked it” or “My Gao Kao (high school university entrance exam) score was too low to go to another place. They don’t seem to express any opinion about what to study or where to spend four years. Another thing that sticks out is that they mostly plan to return home to their “hometown” when they graduate to help their parents,or because getting a job there is easier than in another city.They often plan to follow a career choice chosen by their parents,again in many cases not something they are crazy about. I find this rather sad,looking back on my University l ife and how much I loved it.

Students,by and large, try to answer our questions with what they think we want to hear,and not their “real opinion” as far as we can fathom,and it is impossible to get them to be honest and really tell us what they think.And by the way there are some other rather confusing things. Frequently a student will refer to his “hometown” which is his ancestral family home,but not necessarily where his family now live,which can be thousands of miles away. And they will also refer to “my sister” or “my brother” when referring to a cousin,but it can also mean a true sibling. Many of them ,despite what we know about China,do have a sister or a brother,sometimes two!

 

Students here seem to be perpetually busy doing pointless tasks for the university,and when they are free they just watch movies online,or sleep,or play computer games.They rarely go into the city which is only 30 minutes away as they seem to think it is too far or too crowded.They are lacking in ambition and independence,and on weekends go home to their families if they live near to Xiamen.There is very little of the typical University life we know in the UK- certainly no pubs,no parties,very little mingling of the sexes at all.In class the boys and girls sit separately as we did when we were very young in elementary school.They are pretty immature,look much younger than British or American students and have very little social life.Classes have a class monitor much as we did in high school,who has to do various things for the teachers. I asked some students about hobbies,or what they do in their free time and the predictable answers were “play computer games”,”sleep” “go to the library” and for some girls “go shopping”.

Of course the students are delightful people on the whole,very polite and respectful,curious about us and where we come from,why we are in China and what we think about it.They find it hard to imagine why we would have left a place which they consider to be alluring,magical,and highly desirable to come to China and they mostly have very little idea of travelling even as far as Shanghai,let alone abroad.IT all seems very unreal to them. I can’t help wondering,however what the future holds for them,and what China will look like when they reach adulthood…

More anon…

 

The Speaking Competition in Fuzhou

We have just returned from a really interesting weekend accompanying the team of three girls that we coached to participate in the Regional English Speaking Contest in Fuzhou. Altogether 75 candidates from different Universities in the province competed to go to the National Contest in Beijing. Our team consisted of Mavis,Witty and Shirley three lovely girls who have somehow become our “Xiamen Daughters” or possibly the 3 Musketeers.

WE coached them on pronunciation, presentation,body language and suchlike over the course of the last 6 weeks and became very close. They frequently came over to work at our house and were regaled with tea and biscuits. Anyway the culmination of this process was the contest. For this we had to take a fast train for 2 hours to neighbouring Fuzhou where we were met by a volunteer from the Fuzhou College of Foreign Languages and Trade,this year’s venue for the Contest. The organization of this contest was terrible even for China, but despite all the hitches we had a great time. This was partly because of the girls, but also because of the people we met.Out of all the hundreds of people attending,the only non  Chinese were me,Danny, a coach for the Xiamen University team called Michael Oviedo (A Jewish guy from California) and Michael Garnett, a judge from Hatfield,(more of him later) and another lady judge whom we didn’t talk to.The girls were really nervous but did a great job. We got 6th place out of 74 and they performed really well.On arrival at the venue there was a draw to determine the contestants’ running order. WE got 1,23 and 37 which meant first contestant and then one in the middle and one almost last,as there were two separate rooms of speakers. The girls had to give a 3 minute prepared speech and then an impromptu unprepared speech followed by questions. Then we were taken by bus to the hotel (not so great but ok) and then dinner. Chaos was the main theme of the checkin at the hotel and then the subsequent running of the contest. What was really enjoyable was meeting all the young people participating and seeing their seriousness and fervour in preparing for their speeches. Some were really excellent too,although a few were weak. During the long afternoon in which the girls got all dolled up in their best and put on makeup and practised, we were suddenly approached by a Chinese lady who addressed us in fluent Hebrew! She turned out to be the wife of Michael Garnett,and had spent 10 years living in Israel,on Kibbutz Hazorea and then in Haifa. She embraced us like long lost family and said that now she and Michael live in Fuzhou and teach at Fujian College! Talk about a small world!. We of course exchanged phone numbers and emails and will stay in touch.

Mavis doing her thing

At one point Shirley was in the lead,but at the end of the day the 3 winning contestants were from Xiamen University and Fujian University. The contest finished at 6pm when we were returned by bus to the Fuznou train station,together with Kevin the Chinese teacher from our school who had been a judge in one of the rooms. On arrival back in Xiamen,Kevin ran us home in his car which he had parked at the station,and thanked us for all of our hard work. Today is Sunday,so we have a well earned day of rest!.

Mavis,Witty,Me,Danny,Kevin and Shirley

Trip to Yongding- the Hakka Tulou villages

Trip to Yongding Hakka Earth houses (TULOU)

 

This was a trip I had been wanting to do for ages,but which got postponed because of the hospital trip(see previous post). We decided to go with two student friends of ours Sue and Echo who don’t study at our university but are English majors from nearby Jimei University.

We met up with them at the BRT station to go downtown to the Hubin Nan Lu bus station where we got a bus to the village of Hukeng,a trip of 3 and a half hours through progressively more picturesque scenery hillsides dotted with villages, persimmon trees,and tea terraces. On arrival in Hukeng we were met by Stephen,the guest house owner who was holding a sign with “DAN” written on it!

inside the guest house

Stephen explained that we had to buy entrance tickets to the village,which is a preserved Unesco heritage site,and then took us on two motorbikes (3 people on each) to the village and his Fuyulou Changdi Inn where we had booked two rooms. The guest house building is 130 years old,and built in traditional Hakka style. There is a central courtyard surrounded by rooms on three levels.This would have been shared by several different families. There are apparently thousands of these houses in the area,but nowwadays many of the Tulou houses (made of earth) are empty,or inhabited by only one or two families who maintain them as the children have moved to the city. The whole of the surrounding area is used for cultivating tea,rice,persimmons,and other different fruits and vegetables.

Tulous from above

After checking in,Stephen gave us a map of the village. The plan was to walk around the village for the rest of the day and the following morning we would have a car and driver to take us to visit the surrounding villages and see different styles of Tulou houses. Some are round and some square,but the basic idea is the same,an earthen house with several floors and shared by several families,who use the communal area in the middle to cook,sell stuff and generally hang out.

The village was serene and relaxing,with the houses dotted along the length of a river. There were many tea houses, and huge fat chickens running around everywhere. After eating a great lunch of local Hakka food at the guest house,We walked around the village,and found a temple area where the girls explained the important families had tombs. We also went to a tea house where we sat for a long time with the tea grower who filled and refilled our cups. His great grandfather had originally built the house,and had been a fighter in the Kuomintang. We also bought something which Sue described as a “tea pet”.I thought she meant “teapot” but she was insistent. Itis a small animal made of artificial jade (mine is a frog) used to check if the tea water is hot. When you pour water onto it,it changes colour.

Hukang village and countryside

In the evening we saw dancing outside in a square,returned to to the guest house where we met a group of Russians from the far eastern part of Russia. One said his grandfather was Jewish,and another said he was Jewish himself ,from Birobidjan,and that his brother was a teacher of Yiddish in New York.

We went to bed as we had an early start in the morning.

The next day we set off at 7.30 in a minivan with 3other people and the driver Mr. Wu, to tour the area.

The other people were Mike,a young guy from Hong Kong and a retired couple from Beijing whose names we don’t know as they didn’t speak any English. We drove to a number of different tulou villages and admired the scenery. It was very peaceful and pleasant. We stopped to pick persimmons on one hillside. The whole day was highly relaxing and enjoyable.Some tulous were huge,and some smaller. All had the same basic design of tiered floors made of wood,walls of earth and a central area. We had lunch in a village restaurant, in the traditional Chinese way of sharing all the dishes,and we shared the bill to treat Mr Wu the driver. We saw the last “King of Tulous” which I found disappointing and overcrowded,full of tourists and too many people selling trinkets. It had cost an extra 25RMB each,and I would recommend skipping it. Its supposed attraction is that it has over 200 rooms .But I found other tulous more atmospheric and interesting. At 3pm we got the bus station to return to Xiamen which dropped us at a different bus station but fortunately Sue figured out how to get to the BRT station to go home.

Old lady inside Tulou

 

 

Return to China -Chapter Two

(warning : Long Catching-Up POST)

So after a break of a couple of months,in which we returned to Jerusalem to be with family and to attend to various bureaucratic things we are back in China.

The situation is a bit weird and I am not going into all the details but suffice it to say that we are now in a lovely seaside location, on the 17^th floor of an 18 storey block,with a view of the mountains from the living room and the mountains and the sea from the bedroom. The apartment has all mod cons,except that the aircon is only in the bedrooms for the time being but Sunny,the lady in charge of our accommodations has said that there will be a unit in the living room “some time”.

View from living room

The journey back here was amazing. We were booked on KLM via Amsterdam with a 6 hour layover in that splendid city. WE had intended to go sightseeing but after leaving Ben Gurion at 4am and Jerusalem at 1am we were just too tired to do anything but sleep and eat at Schipol. So then we boarded the continuing flight and suddenly the air hostess asked to see our passports and when we looked alarmed said”Don’t worry I just want to move you to better seats”- imagine our surprise and delight when she led us to Business class comfy seats that lie flat and asked us if we would like champagne and Belgian chocolates! We were also presented with a huge menu on which we were to indicate our choice of meals for dinner and breakfast! They then proceeded to shower us with little extras and gifts! The only explanation for this I can come up with is that I had mentioned on Twitter that Swissair were crap and had not responded to our complaints on our previous trip back home and we had therefore chosen KLM who also had the added advantage of being cheaper and flying directly to our destination.I think maybe KLM are hoping to enroll me as a spokesman for them on Twitter and were rewarding us for my positive tweets,but that’s just a guess.

Of course we arrived in China delighted and well fed and rested.

The massive Living room

We were met at the airport by Sandra of the International Office who drove us straight to our aforementioned apartment.

It transpires that our neighbours are nearly all teachers at our university or a neighbouring one,both foreigners and Chinese. Next door we have Shannon from Texas and his wife Amber from Arkansas and their 3 small children, upstairs Jonathan from Texas and his wife Allie a Chinese American and their 2 kids,Jonathan S and Jessica also Americans and Alex from Montreal and the UK and his Chinese wife whom we have not met yet. On our floor is a guy called Bob from Scotland don’t know much about him yet. Shannon has now become known as “Wikishannon” because he is a mine of information and incredibly helpful .The first thing he did was present me with a list of bus numbers and where to take them around the area, useful bus stops down town and how to get set up with a water cooler. He then with the help of Jonathan J helped set up our broadband and wifi,since the Chinese guy from the company didn’t manage to do it.

WE were taken the next day together with a lot of other teachers,to the International hospital for our medical,and then to the bank to get set up there. They gave us sim cards for our phones and an ecard for travelling the buses,meals on campus and to use the library.

On Thursday we had our first faculty meeting which was pretty weird. WE were collected by minibus from the apartment and amazed to see about 40 foreign teachers in a huge boardroom. The first item was a long and boring talk by Kevin Lin about the structure of the university and 2 talks by veteran teachers here about their teaching styles. We then divided into two groups,those teaching EFL and those teaching other subjects. We went to a different building and met Dr. Narcisco Hayashi Domingo,the Philipinno head of the EFL department who told us to call him Matthew and who signs his emails Dr D -go figure. Most of his talk was flaunting his Phd and telling us that we have to use the books he distributed to teach. About 10 teachers will be teaching Sophomores so they started teaching on Monday, and the rest of us are all teaching Freshmen ,who only begin classes after the National Holiday,that is to say after October 7^th! We are therefore on holiday now,which leaves us time to explore the city,find our way around the neighbourhood and buy stuff for the apartment.

Our neighbourhood is kind of a suburb, the city being about 3 million people and a BRT ride of 35 minutes away. The BRT is a wonder to behold. IT is a bus that runs on a raised roadway,running from 6am till 10pm and is easy and comfortable to use. Yesterday we took it to downtown and enjoyed looking out of the window and seeing the view.WE went to a shopping mall with Carrefour supermarket, a French chain and then from there we took another bus to a second huge but fancy mall where we found a shop selling imported goodies such as whole wheat pasta,curry sauce,cocoa powder,feta cheese and other rare things. The university also runs a “Shopping Bus” every Saturday morning which picks up the teachers and takes them to the Metro Supermarket downtown.

So far we are happy with our neighbourhood- one colleague described it as being in Brooklyn and the city is Manhattan.Anyway that’s really enough for this incredibly long post so I shall continue later.

Yundang Park

Back in the Holyland- and the Laura Linkup

Well we are back in Israel for the summer after a rather weird journey back but first I want to pay my dues by writing up the wonderful linkup we did at the end of June between Danny’s Middle school kids and my friend Laura Shashua’s class of Middle school kids in Holon,Israel.It was Laura’s idea to do a joint lesson between the Chinese and Israeli students using Skype.So having discussed the content of such a class and preparing the kids for the meeting,the day arrived.It was logistically tricky due to the time difference and the original date was postponed because Laura’s class suddenly had their lesson cancelled,it finally took place in Danny’s last lesson ,before our trip to Chengdu.

Henry answers a question from Israel

We checked all the connections on the computer,had a dry run with no students and checked whether we could hear each other on the skype. The screens were not so clear,and the sound not so great but it was passable. WE had two Chinese English teachers with us, and there were twice as many Chinese students as Israelis. Never mind. When the bell rang we had two classes facing each other from across the globe. Laura had worked hard to prepare her kids,and they had a huge Israeli flag at the back of the room ,and the kids all had their names written on cards, in Hebrew and English.We quickly scrambled in Lin’an to find a Chinese flag and only found a small one,and made the kids name signs too.The plan was to have the kids ask each other questions about their lives,for the kids do demonstrate how to eat with chopsticks/knives and forks, and at the end to sing “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean” together.

Danny and the students

The main thing that was clear was how shy the Chinese were compared to the Israelis.The Chinese kids were very reticent but we finally got a kid who was happy to ask and answer questions. We had the Israeli kids greet their friends with “Ni Hao!” and the Chinese respond with “Shalom!” there was plenty of waving and smiling, the food eating demonstration was partially marred by technical problems but the final rendition of “My Bonnie ” was a roaring success,and all in all we think it went pretty well.

Hopefully we can try this again in future.

Lin’an students show how to eat with chopsticks

From Chengdu to Qingdao-hotpot to seaside

Warning- this may be a bit wordy since a lot has happened and I didn’t have a chance to write for a while,and the laundry has been piling up! Well we got back safely from Chengdu all chuffed at the new contract etc. and immediately started to plan the rest of the time we have here in China before we leave for Israel. THis may sound a bit weird but we felt that we needed a bit of a holiday and since I had wanted to see Qingdao,the seaside place made famous by beer, beaches,Germans and the 2008 Olympics we decided to head off there for a bit of relaxation. WE were originally going to take a boat from there over to South Korea across the Yellow Sea but decided it was too much, added to which the weather forecast there gave rain and more rain, and then the University here said that we were not supposed to leave before July or we would not be paid for June and July. So we thought we would take it easy, spend a few days in Qingdao walking along the beach and so on and then come back to Lin’an to pack up and hopefully spend a few days shopping in Shanghai before we get to Eretz Israel.

WE took a bus to Shanghai from Lin’an,spent the night at our old friend the Asset Hotel, and then bought train tickets from Shanghai to Qingdao. The train is the fast one which does the huge distance in only 6.5 hours and can reach a speed of 320 kilometres per hour. Actually it only went up to 307 but believe me that was FAST. This journey was really comfortable,but it was also more expensive than the plane we discovered AFTER we had already bought our tickets. Due to our crappy Chinese the lady sold us first class tickets.but we weren’t sorry as the trip was so incredibly smooth and comfortable.

lovely promenade full of statues in Qingdao

We were offered three different places to stay in Qingdao,one with a couple called Pia and Gareth from Couchsurfing,one with Andrea also couchsurfing and a third Chinese guy. We didn’t want to impose on anyone and had never slept at a couchsurfers’ place before so we fixed only 2 nights with Pia and Gareth and then took a cheapo hotel for another 4 nights. We had a lovely time with Pia and Gareth,who are a young couple-she is from the US and he is from Ireland. We found much to talk about with them and they kindly hosted us and showed us round some places in the city, the night market and the old part of the city with its German buildings. We also went on our own to the Qingdao Brewery built by the Germans in 1903 and we took a sailing boat on the sea with a Chinese couple and their kid.

Olympic Marina

In the evening we went twice to Beer Street which is a street full of bars and restaurants selling typically Qingdao beer (which some people carry away in plastic bags!) and lots of seafood. There are also people singing and playing guitars and it is generally a lot of fun there.

We also had dinner one evening with Andrea, a teacher from Texas who I met from Couchsurfing and exchanged teaching experiences.It was very pleasant,and she said she might come visit us here in Lin’an to look around ZAFU.

On the Saturday morning as we were leaving Pia and Gareth’s place we chanced upon a Chinese wedding which was just beginning outside their apartment so we stayed to watch and take photos. It was great to see the dancing and the dragon and lion costumes, the drummers and canons shooting confetti over the bride and groom.There were also people breathing fire! It was great.

Wedding Drummers

We also took a ride up the top of the TV tower to see a view of the city but unfortunately it was very cloudy so we didn’t see much. All in all we enjoyed the trip immensely and had a good rest and some sea breeze and flew back to Lin’an to pack up and get our heads round the idea of returning to Israel in a couple of weeks.

Hotpot with Professor Deng

So we have just arrived back in Lin’an after a great 6 days in Chengdu,Sichuan Province (bottom left hand corner of China for those geographically challenged),and all at the expense of Sichuan University Intensive Language Centre, our future employers.

We arrived about 2 hours late,and there was a poor little student waiting frantically to pick us up with a school car. They took us at 11pm straight to the teachers’ accommodation only to discover that we were to be put up in the University Hotel, so we finally got there around 11.30pm.

The hotel was not luxurious but quite nice and clean. WE were then instructed that Professor Deng was out of town but would meet us on Sunday (this was Friday night). The next day I arranged to meet up with two foreign teachers, Roger an American and Elisa from Liverpool. These two met us and took us for lunch at an Israeli owned restaurant called The Spot,which serves hamburgers and other western delights exactly 5 minutes walk from the campus. It was rather funny to be speaking Hebrew after so long and the owner Amir told us there are about 30 Israelis living in Chengdu, and about 3,000 foreigners – a bit more than in Lin’an!

Anyway it was very pleasant and not too expensive. Amir, who is from Jerusalem, the Yerushalmi family, is married to a Chinese girl and also owns the nightclub next door called the Jellyfish. We enjoyed walking around the University area and finding lots of bars,restaurants and shops.On Sunday we met Professor Deng who came over to the hotel and took us for lunch. The department had planned to take us for the required medical and to register at the police on Monday but we asked the secretary of the office to put it off till Tuesday as we had some questions to ask Professor Deng about the job etc. She said no problem. So over lunch we asked Professor Deng all about the job and what each of us would be doing. It all sounded great and the more time we spent with him the more we felt that Chengdu would be a great move. The campus is not as beautiful as here in Lin’an but it is very green with lots of trees, a(small) lake etc. and it is slap bang in the centre of town. The city is much bigger even than Hangzhou,apparently the population is around 11 million. It has one metro line and more being built. The train station and airport are only about 30 minutes from campus.There is a ton of things to do there, music, theatre, Sichuan Opera, museums and so on. But it doesn’t feel noisy like some big cities. There are loads of tea houses as well and a river.But we didn’t see so much really just the area near to the University. The others told us that there are Metro and Carrefour foreign supermarkets where you can buy whatever you need. The buildings look much older than here and rather tatty,but the classrooms of the language centre have air conditioning unlike here. There are computers and screens but no internet so you need to use your USB if you want to show movies etc in class- no big deal.

Lily Pond on campus

So the next day we went with one of the office helpers Xiao Wu to do the medical- no problems (and they told us no point in going to the police station because we don’t have all the paperwork yet) and to open a bank account to get refunded for the flights and to get paid next semester! Wow, it was all happening. We met some other foreign teachers- Ryan from the US, already fluent in Chinese,Oz (Oswald ) from Oxford and Nottingham University who took us for a curry after the medical, and apparently there are many more teachers some part time. We also met a nice Spanish architect called Pedro who is temporarily in Chengdu with his company.

Sichuan Hotpot

I told Professor Deng who is such a charming and pleasant chap, that I wanted to observe a lesson and so it was arranged that we would go to his office on Thursday morning and watch Roger teaching the course of students preparing the exam to go to study abroad. This was fine, and the students seemed to be more mature and self confident than my students here (they are postgrads and teachers already) but their level of English was not so great.

So the journey back here to Lin’an was a bit insane. Professor Deng took us for traditional Sichuan Hotpot lunch with Elisa,and we went back to our room to pack up. He took us to the airport in his own car and the flight was supposed to be at 16.30 arriving Hangzhou 18.50.Of course it was delayed and we arrived at 19.45 and the last bus to Lin’an is at 21.00. We had to run out of the airport and jump into a cab across town in Hangzhou to reach the Huanglong bus station in time to get the bus,or alternatively get a private taxi from Hangzhou to Lin’an. Of course we made it and arrived at the bus station at 10 minutes to nine! It was a riot, got on the bus and back to our little room in Lin’an by 11pm.

Next stop -trip to Qingdao to visit Andrea another foreign teacher from Couchsurfing.org and then Shanghai and Tel Aviv! Weird life,right?