Blogs from Jianghua, Yongzhou, Hunan, China, Asia

I arrived here early evening Friday, having left Yangshuo at 08:10am. I was told the bus ride would take around 4-5 hours from Gulin, so after 6 hours and continuous rural landscapes I had convinced myself I had either taken the wrong bus or had missed the point I was supposed to get off at. I was sure that I was supposed to get off at the end at a bus station, but as I sat there looking more and more pregnant from my swelling bladder, I went over and over in my mind what Desta from the Buckland office had said. It was vague to say the least, it had not actually been said to get off at the end and that it was a bus station, however I had somehow gotten this impression and ... read more

Life in Jianghua Winding down the semester in Jiang hua. A quick post of pictures. With the frog of the wall, the bearded acupuncturist friend we found. Some students and the life of the silk worm. Many students have families that raise silk worms for their silk and so many bring a few into class for pets. They eat mulberry leaves spin a cocoon of silk and hatch out to be moths. Then they lay eggs hatch and start over. A pretty fun project but it leaves the one mulberry tree on campus a little worn when all those babies hatch hungry. ... read more

It began with a bit of a hiccup. National or rumored international Mayday was the previous weekend. However, Senior 3 would need the entire school for exams the following weekend, so rather than giving the first and second year student's two 3 day weekends in a row they delayed the holiday to this weekend. Throw out the plans of students seeing their families when they were let out of the factory hundreds of miles away, teachers who had rented cars and made reservations with friends in other provinces, national edict and rumored international sanction. After a week of hearing plans dashed, ours were delayed with little interruption. Students from the town of Jianghua itself wanted to give us the tour de culture past and present. As the students usually get up at 6am they decided to ... read more

Steve and I have been teaching for 3 weeks now in Jiang Hua. It's not the original town we thought we were going to, but it's not too far away from Jiang Yong. Jiang Hua is a small city located in southern Hunan province and it's a short walk to the outer edge of the city where there are green rocky hills, lowland farms growing rice, vegetables, greens, and mushrooms, and a large silty river. The weather seems to change very quickly at least at this time of year. In our first three weeks here it's changed from warm and humid to very chilly, to rainy, to chilly, to warm, to cold, to rainy, to cold and sunny and then it was a nice warm sunny day today. I think these very quick changes in weather ... read more