Blogs from Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, Asia - page 5

Yes, you read the blog title correctly and no I didn't spell it wrong according to Student A. I really have enjoyed teaching this term and the following email conversations make me laugh, yet said for the education system in China for teaching English. This is a freshman at our school who has studied English for a minimum of seven years. Student: Dear Elyse, I want to make sure our English topic to do in the next week 2 ? Or Under the next week?Thank you Student A My response: Next week you can tell me your English topic if you already know what you want to talk about. I will not require the topic due until June 5th as many students were gone last night from class and I have no way to notify all ... read more

Today was pretty much business as usual, except for the fact that we had a birthday today! A few people went out to one of the cake shops near the school and bought a really nice birthday cake and we had a nice birthday celebration for him. In Chinese culture, birthdays are celebrated by eating noodles so for dinner we went to a place that served noodles (which I was very happy with). You get the long noodles to symbolize longevity of life. After dinner, we all came back and ate cake to celebrate his birthday and watched a movie. Since we are studying in China (and we all have a secret love of Disney movies), we decided that Mulan was quite an appropriate movie. We all hung out and had fun while trying not to ... read more

While Pete was in Beijing, I had a nice relaxing weekend to wind down from the busy week of working after we returned from Bali. It was cloudy and rainy most of the weekend so it forced me to stay inside and start to sort through things in our apartment. I made 3 piles: going to the US, staying in the apartment and donate to friends in China. On Saturday afternoon, I went to the nearby Xixi Wetlands with 2 of my trainees from FESCO and their friends/family. We spent 4 hours at a little cafe just talking about life, cultural differences and anything that came to mind. I was able to give Leo's friend an English name as he didn't have one. I gave him three options: Kevin, Connor and Cooper since they sound similar ... read more

Well we finally got internet here at Zhejiang University. The problem is that many of the websites are blocked. After many proxy tries and fails, I was told that this website works in China, and so far it seems to work so thats good. Friday – We got to China around 2:30 in the afternoon on Friday and then took the 3 hour bus ride from Shanghai into Hangzhou. We arrived here after a long traffic filled ride and went to eat dinner pretty soon after getting our luggage into our dorms. After dinner that night, w were all exhausted because we hasn’t really slept much on the plane ride and went to bed around 8 or 9 Saturday – Professor Hong grew up in Hangzhou and his family still lives in this area, so he ... read more

There are many reasons why I LOATHE Chinese Banks and this weekend's events put me over the edge. So I had to share with all of you the many reasons why they make me cringe. All ICBC banks say English Services on the outside of each location but I haven't been in a SINGLE location that actually speaks English If you make one single mistake on a form you must start over Must do a check mark on the forms, X's not allowed (start over) Some forms have Chinese & English but others have Chinese Only...makes it difficult for those who can't read along with no English speaking employees to assist I couldn't take the money exchange form home to have a teacher translate for me so when I returned the form was complete....that would just ... read more