IN ANOTHER 10 DAYS I WILL CELEBRATE MY 2nd CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS IN CHINA, AND IT IS A MOMENT TO REFLECT ON THE BLESSINGS OF MY LIFE. MY 18 MONTHS IN CHINA HAVE BEEN EVERY BIT THE ADVENTURE I HAD HOPED FOR, AND HAVE BROUGHT ME MORE JOY THAN I COULD HAVE ASKED FOR. TO MY WONDERFUL FAMILY, TO MY OLD FRIENDS AT HOME AND IN FOREIGN LANDS, TO MY NEW AND SPECIAL FRIENDS IN CHINA, TO MY CURRENT STUDENTS AND COLLEGUES AT TAIZHOU TEACHERS COLLEGE, AND TO MY FORMER STUDENTS AND FRIENDS AT CORAL GABLES SR. HIGH SCHOOL, I SEND YOU [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone. I have been trying to post blogs for a month without success, and hope that perhaps this short note will reach you. Sorry that the captions do not show on the photos from a visit to Guilin in the South of China. I will re-do them once the problems of the Blog are resolved. I was trying to use this blog to send you Thanksgiving greetings for over 2 weeks now but everytime I log on, I can only log on partially, and usually the photos don't show. So I will click the publish icon before my screen leaves [View Full Entry]

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The National Holiday for China is October 1st. On this day in 1949, Chairman Mao declared the P.R.C. from the rostrum of Tian'anmen Gate in Beijing to throngs of proud and cheering Chinese citizens. Each year this National Holiday celebration continues in importance and significance, and the festivities now include the first seven days of every October. These 7 days in October are now known by the Chinese as the "Golden Week" for travel. Increasingly, China's ever-more affluent 1.4 billion people enjoy this vacation as national tourists, traveling to China's grand sights, sharing prid [View Full Entry]

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One of my great joys as a "Foreign Friend" at Taizhou Teachers College is when I am invited to rural schools in neighboring towns for a day-long visit, and I have the opportunity to interact with excited youngsters of all ages, who make their home on the campus. Such visits are usually made possible on weekends, and they provide me with unique opportunities to understand more clearly the system of education in China, and the expectations of students and teachers. The visits also become a unique resource and reference for my class-room instructions at TTC, since almost all of my college [View Full Entry]

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The Campus of Taizhou Teachers College is once again busy with the hustle and bustle of academia and college life. Our upper-classmen have returned, each one year closer to their goal as future English-teachers in China, hoping to make the most of their remaining years, and salvage a satisfying career. (In China, teaching is not considered the most prestigious job by students or even society, and the enthusiam to become a teacher has serious limitations.) A thousand new Freshmen from all over the Eastern-Province of Jiangsu have also been registered at our small college. This new crop [View Full Entry]

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The emperors of China were called "The Sons of Heaven" and their journey into the beyond was of special concern from the moment of their coronation. It had been so for thousands of years, as imperial tombs can be visited around China's former imperial cities, most still to be unearthed and opened. Traditions make the Chinese reluctant to speak about death, and their culture has survived many other superstitions. In spite of these, or because of them, a newly-enthroned emperor pursued the search for an immediate site-location for his tomb, preparing him, a "Son of Heaven" not immorta [View Full Entry]

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The "After-Life" of China's Imperial Dynasties was of great concern for the ruling emperors. They too could not escape the icy- and bony-fingers of the "Grim Reaper", and so they prepared for their inevitable demise and death from the moment of their coronation. They did so with profound and focused enthusiasm. Tens of thousands of laborers were conscripted by the emperor and the ruling elite of eunichs, as were brilliant architects and throusands of skilled artisans, to initiate construction of their final resting-place quickly, to offer "comfort" on their journey to the beyond, at a [View Full Entry]

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The largest inner-city-square in the world, Tian'anmen Square (2,450ft long and 1,650ft wide), in the very heart of China's grand Capitol of Beijing, displays itself on the grandest scale. It is a Square created in recent history, but its foundations are in the heart of every Chinese citizen. With pride for their nation, each Chinese hopes, and makes it a mission, to stand on Tian'anmen's millions of stones, listening to ghosts and their whispers of history's past "grand" events. National and world history continue to polish the square's foundation of granit, as millions of feet crow [View Full Entry]

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The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing are less than one year away. Whenever I speak to a Chinese person about it, they smile proudly. Touching their belly they tell me, the anticipation gives them "stomach-butterflies". The Summer Olympic Games are more a topic and of greater consequence in the Capitol of China itself, which will host most venues. In other cities "the Games" are perceived more abstractly, where the average Chinese are pre-occupied with improving their living standards. In Shanghai, the games are almost scoffed at, as they prepare for "their" more important World Expo [View Full Entry]

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"Thank You" everyone for your kind response to the TravelBlog's technical difficulties. I am especially grateful to Jonathan Daniels, my former student at Coral Gables Sr. High School, who is completing his advanced studies at the University of Miami. He stayed up one night until 4 a.m. to recover all but two of the journal entries. Only entries #69 and #70 have not been found. Their photos are recovered, and I will add their text from my hard-copy. I can't thank Jonothan enough and I am envious of his computer skills. Jonothan, Thank You! for your assistance, and a Thank You [View Full Entry]

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