Blogs from Jinhua, Zhejiang, China, Asia - page 2

As most of you know for the past 10 months i have been working at Happy Goal English. On this day i knew it was going to be a long day. Not only did i hav to show up to the office at 8:30 in the morning after going to bed at 3 in the morning. Well, honestly forgetting about the trip the previous day and being woken up by a phone call asking me where i was. Then being reminded about this trip. Not only does the people have to go on this trip we also have classes later in the day. So, yippie. So after being woken up and speed dressing and driving like a crazy person to get to work in a reasonable amount of time, only just as i am getting off ... read more

Well…home again… It seems like a no time at all that four months has flown by…as I mentioned in a previous post, time is very elastic… My flights and transit to Nanaimo were more or less flawless, including a trip on the third generation high-speed train from Jinhua to Shanghai: around 320kms at a top speed of 320km/h in first-class for $42—amazing! I stayed at the Oriental Riverside Bund View Hotel in Pudong, Shanghai overnight, which was a welcome break before I headed home—very nice hotel in the ultra-modern Pudong area. Shanghai is high-speed hustle and bustle and money is clearly evident. On the way to the hotel from the train station the taxi went by the Shanghai Four Seasons Hotel, which has Maserati and Ferrari dealerships on the main floor… My worries about getting my ... read more

In November, Happy Goal English, an off shoot of Web International English celebrated its 3 year anniversary. The school in Jinhua is only two years old, but this anniversary is from the headquarters in Shanghai. Its been three years since Happy Goal English opened its doors for the first time. This school decided to hold a celebration for the anniversary. The weeks leading up to the anniversary the teachers and yours truly started preparing for it. Yours truly had been selected to write the speech and was also given the duty of host along with 3 toher people. One of the Chinese teachers, Sissel and two students Charles and Gina were also given the hosting duties. The day of reckoning came to us all. The day of the anniversary party and we went the hotel and ... read more

Man-cheese Runner-up for the best tee-shirt slogan spotted this week…the winner can be found at the end of this post… Almost two-months in wacky Jinhua (New Tourism Brand: “Jinhua—it’ll be great when it’s finished…”) and thankfully the weather has moderated to ‘just about comfortable’. Observant readers will recall that the big department stores had puffy jackets and down vests on sale during 40C+ heat—well, they’re all gone (pretty much) and the Spring 2015 fashions are all on-sale… The construction noise (or ‘the dragon’ as Mary calls it—because that what it sounded like to her when she Skyped in) has also moderated to an intermittent concrete drill and jackhammer cacophony, with a smattering of sledgehammer… As I was enduring the sixth (or was it the tenth—all a jangly blur…) straight day of jackhammers as they ripped up ... read more

Fuck-Off No, not you, dear reader…that’s what it announced on the tee-shirt of one of my more demure, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth students, (Maggie, I think). Uh-oh…do I have a closet rebel in the class making a ‘statement’ or…? Better nip ‘it’ in the bud, whatever ‘it’ might be. I wandered over to Belinda, my lovely and indispensable translator, and quietly pointed out the naughty word, indicating that we should really have a chat with Maggie. Belinda flushed with embarrassment: apparently walking around with naughty words is not the done thing in China…not at all the done thing... “Hi, Maggie” (me being all semi-stern, but not really…) “Hello, Mr. Jefferies?” looking quizzical, with that ‘what have I done?’ look. “Maggie, er…do you know what ... read more