Blogs from Jiangsu, China, Asia - page 5

Not many of my readers both foreign and Chinese will know this place, aside from the ones that are from here. Defeng is a city level prefecture that belongs to Yancheng here in Jinagsu province. The last time I was here was at least 5 years ago visiting a friend of mine John. Now time as again presented an opportunity to visit him once more. Things have changed somewhat for him; he has been married and has a daughter now. His lovely and talented wife is also expecting their second child. Day 1 My journey starts off of course in Jinhua, leaving my already packed bags behind for this trip to return there to fetch them and go to Wuhan. I had booked a train ticket to Nanjing since there is no direct train service to ... read more

Been 5 days of teaching plus out to eat with a gang of 5 every night. I'm tired. But there's another trip planned. This one to Yixing. No word on what we'll see. Just hop on a bus with other teachers and a bunch of students and go where it takes us. Come to find there are two key things to see in Yixing: Nature and purple teapots. We saw the former, were supposed to see the latter, but there were no purple teapots to be found, it seems. Yixing is known for caves and a bamboo forest that became known primarily because it was the set for a popular Chinese movie. We visited one cave, Linggu. It is set in a larger complex. Our tour paused long enough for a "native" performance. People in grass ... read more

After Nanjing, it was a quick 1h high speed rail ride eastwards for what should be my penultimate stop in my stay here in China - Suzhou. My plan of course is to eventually end up in Shanghai, but this historical city was en route, and I felt it warranted at least a bit of a look. Apparently there's an old Chinese saying, "In Heaven, there's Paradise; on Earth, there's Suzhou and Hangzhou". Held in such high regard is the beauty of this historic city, whose importance in the Jiangsu provincial region far predates even that of mighty Shanghai. I have to say though, that my first knowledge of the city is really from its industrial park lying in the outskirts, because it originated from a joint venture with the government of my home country Singapore, ... read more

Two classes, 15 students each; 6 hours daily of teaching. There are a total of 240 undergraduates; 14 teachers. The students are the top performers in each major at the university. Their Honor’s program involves many multi-disciplinary programs including this required 3-week conversational English program. My class is made up of Food Science, Polymer, Modeling (yes, strangely, Modeling is a major), Industrial Design, Industrial Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Secondary Education and a number of other majors. Their English level is mixed, but generally good since every student had to get a minimum score on the English portion of their university entrance exam. Most universities look only at the overall score. I’ve repurposed many lessons from previous summers, with some classes added and others dropped. Just as in past summers, these students are highly motivated but need... read more

I have accepted that I am the minority here. I mean come on, I'm the 14th Caucasian student enrolled at a university with 700 other international students and over 41,000 Chinese students. And I know that it should no longer come as a surprise to me that when I lift my eyes at any given moment - whether I am walking down the street, on the bus, or eating lunch - there will be at least 5 sets of eyes staring back. Still, this incessant feeling like I am under surveillance 24/7 is an odd one. I have never enjoyed being the centre of attention, but here it is inevitable. One of the first realizations that popped into my head when I first came to China was that nobody here knows me...and I will make it ... read more