http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , China , Jiangsu en-us Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:40:17 +0000 Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:40:17 +0000 Christmas in China 2230735806245552004865281 After a wickedly devastating Cultural Revolution that lasted from 1966 through 1976 the people were left with little more than a culture purged of anything ldquooffensiverdquo to the State aka. halffilled rice bowls and a lot of very hungry people. The intellectuals the religious the creative thinkers the thoughtful folks http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Yangzhou/blog-462948.html Why are all the cool buildings to photograph at night surrounded by hookers Is this rule standard around the world or just places i visit couple of shots taken many hookers dodged http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Suzhou/blog-461530.html Hi PeepsJust a quick one today a cold day spent wandering the old side of Suzhou dodging the manic motorcyclists They have E bikes electric so you can't even hear the buggers coming They just appear Looneysmuch love all http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Suzhou/blog-461350.html Great first day in China meet up with friends settled in to flat we are staying in for next few days. Eaten first meal in China and it was Japenise was fantastic thought of you while sat on the floor eating dinner SamGoing to crash out now long day traveling 6010 mies covered so faroff to Shanghai city tomorrow so should have some nice photos to uploadmuch love peepspmc http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Suzhou/blog-461208.html MERRY CHRISTMAS 2009 AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010 In China the Spring Festival will honor it as The Year of the TIGER 2009 IS MY 4TH CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY SEASON IN CHINA AND THE TIME AT TAIZHOU TEACHERS COLLEGE IS JUST AS EXCITING AS DURING MY FIRST YEAR. I WISH ALL OF MY FAMILY MY FRIENDS MY STUDENTS AND COLLEAGUES past and present AND THE HUNDREDS OF READERS OF MY TRAVELBLOG FROM SO MA http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Taizhou/Taizhou-Teachers-College/blog-459843.html 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 native English speakers do rhymes endlessly as children but my students despite being English majors haven't spent much time on them. Every Mandarin syllable each character is one syllable ends in eithe http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Changzhou/blog-459557.html Chinese in the verbal form has a little over 400 monosyllabic sounds says John Pomfret author of Chinese Lessons a fantastic read. The problem for foreigners and the untrained ear is to hear the amazingly subtle and highly intricate art of Chinese tonal speaking. Each phonetic sound has four or five tones and then from there the definition of the word relies entirely on context. I can http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Yangzhou/blog-459550.html With some trial software I put together this panorama view from right outside of our fifth story apartment that's 80 stairs up and 80 stairs down here at the school campus. Not much of a view but many days and nights have been spent just looking out over our school campus listening to the dull roar of the students as they take their ten minute breaks the rattling and pounding of the cafeteria http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Danyang/blog-458783.html Strawberry Point Iowa is home to the worldrsquos largest and probably only strawberry statue. New Salem North Dakota and Arlington Texas arguably both have the worldrsquos largest fiberglass cow. The largest ball of twine belongs to Darwin Minnesota and when passing through Rugby North Dakota make sure to note the geographical center of North America. Of all the things Montana can http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Suzhou/blog-455799.html So I received another gift on Friday from a student's parents. We met at 1pm and boarded buses and went to the middle of nowhere and had dinner. There was also grape picking fishing and karaoke. I took Jasper with and he definitely made it better for me. Mitch suggested it and he generally gives good advice so I went with it. He was a big hit with the teachers and kept my arms and thoughts occ http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Kunshan/blog-455688.html On Wednesday a photographer came on campus and photographed the teachers of the school. I've gotten in contact with Shannon and we're hanging out this weekend. Today Jane is taking Zach and me somewhere to do something with our work visas. It's during our lunch break so I hope I get back in time for classes. It's been raining a lot here. It started on Tuesday night and only lets up periodically. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Kunshan/blog-455686.html Friday morning Irsquom buzzing with excitement and anticipation. I wake up before my alarm goes off and Irsquom off finishing my lastminute things. Irsquom waiting at the local bus stop before 7am. At 715 a whole bunch of people arrive and at 720 the city bus arrives to take us to the bus station. I get off the bus and find my gateterminal in the station. The bus leaves at 800 and by http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Kunshan/blog-455685.html There are three cafeterias at my university at one of which you don't need to know Chinese and can just point. The food is pretty good as far as my nonChinese tongue can tell though the students understandably have higher standards than I do and complain that it's bland. The one where you can point has the same stuff everyday but the other two have a huge selection and I've slowly learned eno http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Changzhou/blog-454177.html I took a sixweek class if you're looking for Mandarin ask for Jonathan he's superb and met twice a week with an excellent tutor over the summer learning about 125 words for maybe 25 of which I knew the character which I could say very very slowly and could understand if said to me even slower than that. Much to my chagrin I've not yet been able to set aside regular study time but simply http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Changzhou/blog-454149.html 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. All of my classes have around 30 students except for one which has 41. English majors take courses with Chinese teachers and professors on grammar vocab phonetics writing reading and even listenin http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Changzhou/blog-454144.html First some demographics. Of the 15000 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 foreign teachers including me two other Americans one of whom is ChineseAmerican and both of whom have a Chinese wife and child two from the Philippines and one each from England Canada a http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Changzhou/blog-454143.html 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 feel like a giant here rather I did much more in Mexico partly because doors and street vendors' awnings are all much lower there. Anyway given the warnings I was actually surprised how little I go http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Changzhou/blog-454142.html I returned to Changzhou from Shanghai on Sunday because of the wedding on Monday. The wedding was nice and the food was great though it was quite a bit calmer and more understated than what I'm told is the traditional Chinese wedding. Most of the international department was there and I finally got to meet Neal's thensixmonthold daughter Olivia.That evening I embarked on my trip to nearby Su http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/blog-454074.html RightListening to Oi Oi Oi by The Exploited or it could be an album title... not sure... it has some attitude... a time back in Oz when playing for a nasty little punk band called UnemplOiable... these guys were each punks in their own right but the lead singer actually really lived it. Oh course there is a bad ass in us all. If you were just all fluff and sunshine then you'd get eaten... o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Yangzhou/blog-453900.html A bit about the city. For starters Changzhou's prefecturelevel population is around 3.5 million and its urban population is about 825000 making it a pretty small city by Chinese standards. Changzhou is conveniently located for transportation to other places but is no tourist destination itself. The first three times I went to the downtown area I did not see a single foreigner. Since then th http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Changzhou/blog-453848.html