December 10th 2009  Asia » China » Jiangsu » Changzhou
I've got other stuff to write about, which I probably won't get to soon because I'm incredibly busy, but this just has to get written right now. This week I was teaching a lesson on rhymes. All nat ... [full story]

November 14th 2009  Asia » China » Jiangsu » Changzhou
There are three cafeterias here, at one of which you don't need to know Chinese and can just point. The food is pretty good as far as my non-Chinese tongue can tell, though the students understandably ... [full story]

November 18th 2009  Asia » China » Jiangsu » Changzhou
Enjoy these linguistic marvels. ... 21 photos [full story]

November 13th 2009  Asia » China » Jiangsu » Changzhou
I took a six-week (if you're looking for , ask for Jonathan; he's superb) and met twice a week with over the summer, learning about 125 words (for maybe 25 of which I knew the character) which I cou ... [full story]

November 13th 2009  Asia » China » Jiangsu » Changzhou
The teaching has been going great. I'm teaching Oral English to the four freshman and four sophomore classes of English majors. Each class meets once a week for 90 minutes, and my Fridays are free. Al ... [full story]

November 15th 2009  Asia » China » Jiangsu » Changzhou
Some demographics. Of the 15,000 students at my university, five are from Finland and studying here in the fall. That's it. Next semester there will be zero international students. There are eight for ... [full story]

November 16th 2009  Asia » China » Jiangsu » Changzhou
I had been warned by many friends who had been to China that I would get stared at all the time, especially being 6'3" (1.91 m). (By the way, because many people have asked: no, I don't constantly fee ... [full story]

November 17th 2009  Asia » China » Jiangsu » Changzhou
A bit about the city. For starters, Changzhou's prefecture-level population is around 3.5 million and [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China_by_urban_popu ... [full story]

November 1st 2009  Asia » China » Jiangsu » Changzhou
At all the big social gatherings I've been to, everyone sings. Everyone. And they ask, if not expect, you to sing. Maybe since Chinese is a tonal language, no one is tone deaf, so no one is afraid of ... [full story]

November 14th 2009  Asia » China » Jiangsu » Changzhou
Some of my most nerve-wracking as well as exhilarating moments have come from ping-pong. I'd been saying from the moment I decided to come to China that I would love to learn some good ping-pong techn ... [full story]