Blogs from Yongzhou, Hunan, China, Asia

some pics of my day out on Sunday with some students of mine... read more

Songs I had never heard them sing. As we stepped back from our daily routines the light shone more brightly in the student's eyes. Mine had experienced their first foreign teacher. For many the first foreigner they had ever seen. Keren's had had many before but upon leaving shared with her that she had been their favorite. Through their teenage facade she had put her heart out there and gave them all she had and in the end I think they knew that. Mine had not learned that the foreign teachers will come and go like the tide that we are there only for a short while in their long school days. The respite we gave them from their otherwise wrote memorization was not always as welcomed as the known sit and stare blankly method of ... read more

Life in Jianghua Winding down the semester in Jiang hua. A quick post of pictures. With the frog of the wall, the bearded acupuncturist friend we found. Some students and the life of the silk worm. Many students have families that raise silk worms for their silk and so many bring a few into class for pets. They eat mulberry leaves spin a cocoon of silk and hatch out to be moths. Then they lay eggs hatch and start over. A pretty fun project but it leaves the one mulberry tree on campus a little worn when all those babies hatch hungry. ... read more

It began with a bit of a hiccup. National or rumored international Mayday was the previous weekend. However, Senior 3 would need the entire school for exams the following weekend, so rather than giving the first and second year student's two 3 day weekends in a row they delayed the holiday to this weekend. Throw out the plans of students seeing their families when they were let out of the factory hundreds of miles away, teachers who had rented cars and made reservations with friends in other provinces, national edict and rumored international sanction. After a week of hearing plans dashed, ours were delayed with little interruption. Students from the town of Jianghua itself wanted to give us the tour de culture past and present. As the students usually get up at 6am they decided to ... read more

Steve and I have been teaching for 3 weeks now in Jiang Hua. It's not the original town we thought we were going to, but it's not too far away from Jiang Yong. Jiang Hua is a small city located in southern Hunan province and it's a short walk to the outer edge of the city where there are green rocky hills, lowland farms growing rice, vegetables, greens, and mushrooms, and a large silty river. The weather seems to change very quickly at least at this time of year. In our first three weeks here it's changed from warm and humid to very chilly, to rainy, to chilly, to warm, to cold, to rainy, to cold and sunny and then it was a nice warm sunny day today. I think these very quick changes in weather ... read more