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Chuck Barbieri
I have been to Sichuan Province, China 5 times during the last year and a half and now I will live in Chengdu and teach English at a University.Joyful Sichuan Ramblings
Travel Blog Posts
July 28th 2011
The third week traveling with heavy backpack- I hunger for the blind massage who sees all of my bodily pain. Body sore from carrying my American baggage down meandering cobblestone roads. YET, of course, pain and endurance is all relative as I ponder and see high heel ladies walking seemingly effortlessly over uneven crater like surfaces. Beauty pays comfort a user fee at every street corner... Body sore and I seek out blind massage man down unnamed alley next to the unnamed town square. I stumble upon a woman who is carving a Buddha, Manjushri, Buddha of wisdom, from clay. Her name is Lynn and she just moved to Shuhe with a few friends to start a Buddhist temple. We chat and connect and meet up for dinner. An extended family of 5 Buddhist- Lynn and ... read more
July 27th 2011
Love falls from the cells of the underground, from within the mythic stories the bones reveal. It is wine time in Shanghai. I am called to a special meeting at The Cellar Club in the wine tasting lounge. The lounge is an exclusive private membership room decorated in classical European style to provide a wine appreciation atmosphere. The Cellar Club stores wine for 100 members- the private lockers can hold anywhere from 30 to 3,000 bottles of wine stored so perfectly that it delivers "total peace of mind". Imagine rich Shanghai people exchanging business cards as the television shows a happy American family in front of a fireplace baking in the wealth and glow of the American Dream which is now on high speed rail to Shanghai. My former student Rita shows up at the Club ... read more
February 12th 2009
Greeting from Leshan, China. I moved to Leshan a few weeks ago to start a new job. I will teach Oral English to nursing students at Leshan Vocational and Technical College. School starts next Monday and I still do not have my schedule of where and when my classes. This is typical in China. In my last job in Chengdu I was never informed that I will have 7 weeks off from Dec. 26 until Feb. 16th!!! It is rather difficult to plan anything here!!! Some students have to wait in line at train stations for 2 days to get a ticket home!!! I have to give a final examination in my classes and everyone expects a written examination. Chinese students typical had English classes for over 5 years and they are exclusively grammar, reading and ... read more
November 11th 2008
LIFE IS A CARNIVAL! 6,000 children play outside my apartment window- even though I am on the 15th floor there is a constant buzzing of activity outside. There are two foreign language schools right next to my apartment that have k thur high school students - they are boarding schools where parents pick up kids on Friday afternoons and then drop them off on Sunday afternoons. You can imagine what the two lane road looks like during this time. My school, Chengdu Institute Sichuan International Studies University is a 10 minute bike ride. I teach 238 freshman Oral English every week. College students have classes 8 to 9 hours a day. They have no computers and the life for the freshman is very strict and controlling. They all live in dorms and have strict curfews. My ... read more
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