Everywhere in the town these old Asian ladies are selling these headbands with decorative flowers. They’re pretty but I certainly have no interest in purchasing one and one else in the group seemed to either. It’s not like it’s hard to say no, but these women are so hunched over because they’re backs are in such terrible shape that I just feel bad for their situation. In any case we saw many more of them during our bike ride Sunday and like with the vortex shedding incident no one responded in humor to my double situationally aware pun. Today after breakfast we started our scenic bike tour of Yangshuo. Renting bikes in the middle of the town we had an exuberant time biking through Chinese traffic to get to the outskirts of the town before we ... read more

With 18 hours of Mandarin instruction done its time they gave us a quiz. It wasn’t bad at all, but I am retaining little under this compressed schedule. Four hours of class every morning was mentally exhausting when we first started after a week it’s become manageable but still tough to look forward to. Pronunciation is definitely still an issue for me, and given my English pronunciation isn’t so great when encountering new words my Chinese pronunciation must be laughable for my teachers. The setup is two 2 hour courses from 8:20am to 12:30 with a 10 minute break in-between. We have one teacher for the MWF first period a second for the TR first period and a third for the MTWRF second period. They are all incredible nice and helpful in their instruction, but the ... read more

Good thing they cook with gas at CLI because no power in the morning simply translates to no toasted bread at breakfast. For my class it also lead to a short stint outside which was a somewhat half-baked idea because it’s the rainy season and within 15-20 minutes we returned inside when a light rain started. But excitement wasn’t to be missed during our short time out there. First we had our tranquility shattered by the chorus of whining dogs from a nearby dog farm. Pretty terrible to bear auditory witness too, but in the end I’m no different person for it. As with meat farming in America I’m complacent to the maltreatment undertaken by the quantity producers. Second we saw a monkey crawling across a building rooftop, and lastly we located the resident rooster. That ... read more

Let the regiment begin: 07:30 – 08:10 Breakfast 08:20 – 12:30 Class (two 2 hour sessions) 12:40 – 13:40 Lunch ~14:30 – XX:XX afternoon activities. The students that already have some back ground in Chinese are quick to say that it’s an easier language then English. I believe for them they came make that distinction having a decent grasp of it as a second language but for someone with no grasp its hard to imagine any language being easier than the one you already full comprehend. I will believe when it comes to grammar it certainly seems more concrete in its rules over English, but for someone just starting to learn that’s a future hurdle. The immediate difficulty is pronunciation and vocab retention. The latter of which I would say is a particular weakness for me, ... read more

What’s the saying “It’s not the destination it’s the journey”? Well truth be told sometimes the journey doesn’t live up to satisfy such serenity. In this age it’s often marked by long lines, uncomfortable seating, and disruptive wailing. I’m certainly speculating but would venture to guess the originator never encountered the present era of first-world problem complainers. Like myself when I learn my plane is to be delayed two hours ensuring a missed connection to my final destination. Plus when two hours turns to three and three to four “the journey” turned sit and wait starts losing mass appeal. So when I’m left in the dark and forced to tack on an on an extra four hours to my Toronto layover only learning after boarding the plane was in the hanger for emergency maintenance to resolve ... read more