Blogs from Zunhua, Tangshan, Hebei, China, Asia

Did you know that the Chinese invented fireworks ? This being said, you can imagine that a lot of fireworks are manufactured here (along with most other things), that the Chinese really like fireworks, and they are pretty easy to purchase. There are very impressive displays of fireworks during holidays and the New Year celebration, and I'm looking forward to being dazzled in October during Golden Week. Fireworks are also used a lot every day, in a surprising number of situations. In Chinese tradition, fireworks are set off to scare away bad spirits. When a new building is being constructed, fireworks are set off periodically throughout the process to keep away the bad spirits. Fireworks are also set off when the buildling is officially opened as one last precaution. Fireworks are used during weddings and family ... read more

These past two weeks I’ve been teaching demo lessons. The entire month of September is just demo lessons, which is both good and bad. The good part is, I’m finally teaching! I was getting pretty antsy to actually get into a classroom, and see what the students were really capable of. The bad part is that I can’t use the assigned curriculum yet (I was just told to make my class “fun”), and I’m trying to sell the students on English. My English class is an elective, as opposed to the required one for the school. All the students must take English, but it’s taught by a Chinese teacher, and mostly in Chinese. Each student is allowed to choose a certain number of electives, and an English class taught by a foreigner all in English is ... read more

Things are really starting to look up, now that I've had a week to adjust to everything. I really like the food here - I like that it's locally grown without pesticides, and it tastes good. The teachers are really nice and I'm starting to make some good friends in my department. The campus is really, really nice. The facilities here are amazing. There is an indoor, olympic-size swimming pool, a sports facility with basketball and pingpong tables, a meditation park, a track, a soccer field, and overall everything is really well maintained. Also, another foreign teacher was sent here today from Beijing, so I have some foreign-teacher company and we get TWO rides to Beijing each month. In honor of the new foreign teachers, we had a lovely dinner in the "private" area of the ... read more

After a total of 22 hours of travel time (15 of which were spent in the air), I made it to China in one piece. I was met at the airport by the Assistant to the Director of the International Department. As the native English teacher, I am apparently a part of the International Department. We arrived at the school's campus just before 11p.m. Because it was so dark, I wasn't able to get much of an impression of the campus or the areas that we drove through. When I walked into my apartment, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it totally exceeded my expectations. After Korea, I was pretty much ready to settle for anything that had atleast two doors and didn't have a kitchen that double as a living room that tripled as ... read more