Summer ends badly, but Fall begins well

Okay, it's been a while since I posted, so let me get you up to date. The internet here is too slow to check where I left off with the last post, so I'll just run through everything that has happened since I left Chenzhou:

The job in Shenzhen fell through. The company that Rebecca and I signed on with was very large and had about 30 different foreigners in an orientation class. When I arrived, I was supposed to get picked up at the train station and taken to the hotel that the company had arranged. Instead, I was told to get a cab from the station to the hotel. I didn't have the money for that, so I took the metro instead, lugging 50+ lbs through the subway for an hour before I got to the nearest station, where I then had to make the 20 minute walk to the hotel from there, whereupon I discovered that the hotel that they had arranged was a shared room and I wasn't going to be given a key, meaning I basically had to stay in the room or travel with my roommate wherever we went.

That soured me on the position to start with, but the following days were wrought with incompetence on the part of the company, the first day them being incapable of even giving me directions to their building. They sent me instructions to go to the subway station closest to the hotel and look for a build of a particular name. They even sent me the location on WeChat, which is the social networking/messaging app here. After searching for more than half an hour, I discovered that they were trying to instruct me on how to get to the metro station, but had neglected to tell me where their building was. Further, the meeting that I was supposed to have with the school where I'd be working was cancelled at the last minute.

In some ways, it was a standard corporation. The right hand seldom seemed to know what the left was doing and going through the checklist of having me attend seminars about working and living in China seemed more important than actually showing me the school where I was going to be working. You see, this company is a recruitment agency. They find native English speakers abroad and arrange for them to come to China to teach. Being a corporation, they are always looking to cut costs where possible. One way in which they do that is to put the expenses of moving to China on the worker and let you do most of the work yourself. That would have been fine, but after the first day I wanted to know exactly where it was that I would be working. I found it suspicious that, even though school would be starting the following week and it was Friday, they were unable to arrange a trip for me to go out to see the school. Furthermore, I was told that they'd get back to me about when I'd go to meet the people at the school.

So I decided to take matters in to my own hands. I asked for the location of the school and quickly discovered that it was located two and a half hours by train from the city center. I later learned that they had placed other teachers four hours away. That alone was unacceptable to me, but I wanted to see the school itself so I took some time the next day and went out to see the school. Even after living in inland China for a year, I was surprised at how destitute the area was.

Though there were some businesses nearby, there was very little that one would need to survive. No grocery store, for example. And only a few restaurants. The area was dominated by auto parts and hardware stores. The school was not in an area that was livable,but I quickly discovered that the question was largely academic because the only housing available was on campus. Dormitories right alongside the students.

I told the company that all of this was unacceptable and they offered up a couple of different schools, but they were largely the same. Rebecca had not yet left England (she was visiting for the summer) so I contacted her on WeChat and we arranged to meet with a guy who would get us a job in Zhuhai. I went to where he was in Shenzhen and we agreed to go pick Rebecca up in two days time at the airport in Guangzhou, then on to the new school in Zhuhai. I asked to see a contract right away, but Vic, our new agent, said not to worry. Of course, that was when I started to worry. Two days later, just before we let to meet Rebecca at the airport, Vic pulled out a contract and we went over the details. I told him there were some points on which I was not comfortable and he said that if I didn't sign he wouldn't pick up Rebecca at the airport.

Fast forward six weeks at our new school and Rebecca has already quit. (Wise lady) And I have been stiffed for everything I've made so far. Six weeks of work for nothing. The pay here is monthly, but six weeks is a long time to go without pay. At six weeks the school told me it would be another two weeks. They said it was a penalty for coming in late one day, but hadn't been late for or missed any of my classes. I could tell they were just trying to get an additional two weeks of free work out of me. So I left that job and kept living in the apartment until today. I found a new job back in my old town of Chenzhou and I start next week. If everything goes smoothly, I should be settled into a new apartment by the end of the week and working a new job. I've asked for the first month's salary in advance and he's agreed, so hopefully this guy will be more trustworthy. If you're reading this before November 2017, keep your fingers crossed that things go well and I'll update everyone again next week.

I'm sitting in the apartment of my friends, Megan and Emma, on Megan's birthday. We'll be going out later to celebrate Megan's birthday. There will  most certainly be drinking and revelry, but I have to admit that every time I go out with friends for dinner, drinks, or any manner of good times, I'm reminded that this might be the last time I do that in Chenzhou. I'll still be in China next year, only 2 1/5 hours away from here, bur I also know that I won't be seeing any of these people on a regular basis anymore and I won't be wandering the streets of Chenzhou ever again.

I've been surprised at how sad it has made me. I don't remember feeling this way about leaving either Atlanta or Salt Lake City and I wonder if it's just age catching up with me. I've grown attached to this town in a very short order. And to these people. It seems like I've known them and this place longer than I actually have. I think there's one simple reason that this parting has been more emotional than some previous moves: it's a luxury I can afford now. I've always lived hand-to-mouth in the States. The past year in China has been the first time in my life when my monthly intake has been far greater than the cost of living.

I don't mean to imply that I make a huge amount of money here, I don't. But the cost of living is so low, I have no worries at all about whether I'll be able to eat every week.

*Please note: I moved shortly after I wrote this and didn't realize that I never posted it. I've been in Guangdong Province for most of the summer and have recently settled into a place in Zhuhai. This post was never finished, but I've decided to post it after the fact anyway. Hopefully, I will be able to post an update next week. Thanks for your patience!

Waiting for work

It's been about a month since last I worked, officially. Luckily, I've gotten a tutoring job to tide me over. That's finished now, and I'm just waiting for my next job to start. (On the 25th) right now I'm in Guangzhou staying with a friend, who happens to be a Ukrainian model that lives with two other Ukrainian models. Actually, he's a teacher who does modeling work on the side. I'll stay here for a few days, then head back to Chenzhou to say my final goodbyes to everyone.

I've been able to spend a bit of time in Guangzhou and Shenzhen over the past couple of weeks and I think I'm going to like it here. These are big cities where you van find just about whatever you want or need. There are big expat communities in both cities so there's plenty to serve English speaking needs, but these are also real Chinese cities, despite what many people have said about them. You don't lose the experience of being in China just because you're in a big city.

Additionally, Hong Kong is just across the border from Shenzhen, so I'll have my favorite city to play in very close by. All in all, I'm happy with my decision to move to Shenzhen, even though I haven't actually moved yet. I'll keep dropping updates whenever I can, but I may miss a week or two until things settle down.

Wish me luck!

The grand bazaar

This is Ma Jia Ping. This is the biggest market in Chenzhou. I've been quite a fan since I got here. You can find virtually anything inside from underwear and socks to water heaters and stove tops. There's a show department the size of wal Mart and everything is super cheap, though sometimes the quality matches. This is common in Chinese cities but this one is especially impressive to me.

Breakfast in McDonald's

It's all coming to a close. I'm getting ready to leave Chenzhou. I've left the apartment that I spent the last ten months in and now I'm staying in a hotel for a couple of days. The hotel is a lot closer to McDonald's and that results in a McDonald's breakfast at least this morning.

I'll check out of the hotel later today and move in with friends that live on the south side of town. They have a sweet three bedroom on the eleventh floor and one of those is empty so I'll have a place to stay while I wait for training to start for my next job.

The training will be in Beijing, so I'll get a week there when my friends Angelo will also be there, so that will be a lot of fun. Then it's back to this end of the country to Shenzhen, where I will at least the next year.

Shenzhen is in Guangdong province, the next province south of where I currently live. If you haven't read my previous posts about Shenzhen, here's a quick rundown: Shenzhen is the border town for Hong Kong. It didn't exist twenty five years ago when Deng Xiaoping declared the area a special economic zone (meaning it gets special rules that allow it to work more like a western economy). Since that time it has grown from literally nothing to a Chinese megacity. It's larger than Hong Kong and probably the least Chinese Chinese city in the country.

It's also extremely wealthy and tropical. There are beaches nearby and several other fantastic cities in the area. Guangzhou is only an hour away and has the area's main airport, with short flights to southeast Asia :-/ the Philippines, and anywhere else you can imagine.

On offer...

This week I want everyone to know that I have officially gotten an offer from one school and a soft offer from another. Being me, the most important thing about each is location. The firm contract is in Qingdao, a coastal city in the north. The city is unique because it was settled by the Germans over 100 years ago and have subsequently developed a famous brewery and a pub culture, which is rare in China. Qingdao is also famous for its beautiful beaches, which are right in the middle of the city. Beaches and pub culture may make the place seem like a dream, but it's so far north that the winters would get snow, and summer would be a lot shorter. On the plus side, it's so close to Korea and Japan that there are ferries that go to both.

The other offer is from Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, where I currently live. The food would be similar to here (unbelievably spicy), but the city is much larger and more cosmopolitan. Than here. Overall, though, Changsha is not a Chinese mega-city and can't compete with places like Shanghai or Guangzhou. Cost of living is low in Changsha, but so is desirability. I'm eager to live in a place where the things I want to do and see are actually in the city I live in rather than an hour or two hour train ride away.

I've interviewed for a couple of places in Shenzhen but haven't gotten an offer yet. I haven't been searching hard enough in Guangzhou, so I think I'll focus on that for the time being. I feel confident that I can get an offer there or somewhere in the Pearl River Delta. But who knows? I wanted to have a fall job in the works by the end of this week, so everyone keep fingers crossed!

A teacher's sacrifice

I just wanted to make a quick post about the sacrifices I make as a teacher. I love to spend time with my kids and make sure they learn as much as possible, but once a month they have school wide exams and I have to find something to occupy my time.

Difficult though it was, I managed to do just that on a long weekend, so here I sit on a tropical island in the gorgeous sun. It's almost enough to console me over the absence of my...students? Was it?

The Search Continues...

The activity that preoccupies most of my time right now is the job search. I've done interviews and am otherwise in contact with recruiters and schools in Taiwan and mainland China. The one in Taiwan is interesting because it wouldn't be in a big city, but in the mountains in the central part of the island. I would be living on a tropical island with both Japanese and Chinese influence. They speak Mandarin, but also use traditional characters in writing. The Chinese school possibilities are in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and (most interestingly) Qingdao. Qingdao is on the coast between Beijing and Shanghai. Its far enough north that the temperature dips just below freezing in the winter, so there's a possibility for snow. However, winters are dry, as is most of the rest of the year, except for a rainy summer. Qingdao is famous for beaches, breweries, and German architecture (having been occupied by the Germans for several years about a hundred years ago).

It's also worthy of note that one of my best friends from my time here, Rebecca Darling, is leaving this week to return to England. More worthy of note, however, is that we have decided to proceed to our next destination together, and so are looking for a school that can accommodate two teachers next year.Rebecca's original plan was to remain in Chenzhou for another year, but we both know we can make a lot more and have a lot of new experiences by moving on to a new place, so off we go.

Return to the Fragrant Harbor

Short post today to let you know what's happening this week. I'm doing something unwise with my money. Again. A couple of friends and I are heading to Hong Kong this weekend. We all have some time off and we'll be heading down Friday evening. We're going to share a hotel room to defray the cost, and go on the cheap. Meg and Emma are both from northern England and want to see Hong Kong. Meg has been once before, but only for one night (she was there to catch a flight) and Emma hasn't been at all. I'm to be their tour guide around the city, which delights me to no end. I love tour guiding.

Hopefully, that means that next week's post will have plenty of pictures. Also, look to my G+ account to see our trip as we go. This will be the first time I'll be going with the benefit of a phone and social networking accounts, so I'll try and post some of the action as I go.

Rebecca's last night

Rebecca Darling, the first foreigner that I met in China, will be leaving with me to seek a new adventure in next year. We'll probably end up in China, though I don't know if we'll stay in this part of the country. We've been looking at the northeast coast. The cities of Qingdao and Dalian are both enticitng possibilities. Both have cold winters, but also have beaches right in town for summer as well as mountains nearby. Both have interesting colonial pasts that have left some beautiful architecture and both have ferries to Korea and Japan. They're both a few hours away from Beijing and Qingdao is midway between Beijing and Shanghai.

But we haven't ruled anything out. I've also been looking at jobs in Taiwan and we'd both like going someplace tropical, so there are many possibilities. In any case, her contract here is already up, and next school year doesn't start until September so she arranged to go back to England for the summer (also she missed family and friends). 

Rebecca and Vikki at Mustache, the go-to bar for expats in town

Preparing to leave

I'm in 'goodbye Chenzhou'  mode. My job search is in full swing, I've had two interviews and people are sending me links to new sites. My friend Rebecca has decided that she wants to go with me to one of the bigger cities, so I won't be going somewhere new alone. I spent yesterday with my Italian friend, who'll be leaving for Edinburgh to start a master's degree shortly after my contract is up. I won't see him again for at least a year and am feeling pretty guilty for not making more time for him while we were here. But, of course, time always flies faster than you expect and it always seems like you could have done more in retrospect. On the upside, you always remember the past as being better than it was, which is the magic of nostalgia.

One of the things we did yesterday was to go to a movie in the evening. It's one of the more normal seeming things you can do while in China. For two hours you can sit and watch people speaking English and temporarily forget that you're not in your native country anymore (perhaps less so for Angelo). But the experience isn't entirely like being back in the states. For one thing, people talk all through the movie. At first I just thought that Chinese people were extremely rude moviegoers, but then I realized that none of them can understand what's being said. They're just reading, not listening. But more amazing, we negotiated our ticket price. I think we might could have gotten a lower price, but we paid a little more than half price, so not too bad. They originally wanted 90 Renminbi per person, but we talked them into 130 for both of us, including two cokes and two popcorns. Keep in mind this wasn't an old theater outside town running classic movies. We were going to watch Warcraft, a new release, in a multiplex at a major mall in town.

The original plan for yesterday was to go to Dongjiang Lake, which is supposed to be a beautiful place about an hour outside of town. Everyone I've met in town has asked if I have been and advises that I go, but I haven't been able to make it out there yet. It rains a lot in Chenzhou and other people's time off rarely coincides with mine. And, of course, I had to wait for warm weather anyway. On Sunday, Angelo and I were finally going to get everything together and get out there, but then the rain started and we decided that it wouldn't be worth the trip. So I may have to return to Chenzhou at some later date if I'm going to see the lake, but Angelo and I got to make our way around the city and see some other things, like Wuling Pavillion, a pretty cool looking structure that overlooks Wuling Square, which is one of the ritzier areas of town (and also where the only Wal-Mart is located).

Me in front of Wuling Pavillion

I guess all the traveling around town is because I'm getting ready to say goodbye to Chenzhou. My time here has been nice and, as always, part of me wants to stay, but there's more money to be made in the bigger cities and there's much more of the world to be seen. Chenzhou may very well be a nice place to settle down, but not for me. There's too much more of the world to explore. In my search for jobs, I've seen ads posted all over China where the culture is much different than here, as well as Taiwan and I'm also aware that there are jobs in places all over the world as well. There's too much to see and this is an opportunity to see it that I never thought I'd come by, so off I go.

To discuss the place that I'll be going next would be a bit premature, since I haven't gotten any firm offers, but I've got an interview in just a few minutes with a company based in Beijing. This company has an opening in Qingdao, Shandong Province. Qingdao has an interesting history, being the only place in China that I know of which was occupied by Germans at one point. The Germans brought breweries to the city and now the beer made there is the most famous in China. The city also has a pub culture, which is a rarity in China, combined with city beaches and nearby mountains.

Wish me luck!

A relaxing night out

Tonight we're it at a local bar that has opened recently. It's unusual for bars in this town because it features live music, serves both beer and cocktails, and has reasonable prices. And the lead singer has great pecs.

Even better, the bar is located right on Beihu park, so when the temperature gets too hot inside, you can walk out to the lake and, if you're lucky, get a cool breeze. It really makes for a nice, low key evening.

Bars in Chenzhou tend to be lacing in one thing or the other. Lots of places have a single live singer, basically doing a one-person karaoke show.This is the first place that has had a full band play, and they're pretty good. A local celebrity also stopped by. He had apparently made it to the final round of one of China's amateur singing shows (like American Idol). And he is a Chenzhou local, so he came in to sing a few songs. 

Overall the evening was really nice and chill and my friend Rebecca even got her flight booked to go back to England this month, which was something that she had been worried about.We're all getting to that place where we need to make plans for summer. Some people will go back home, while others will stay in China for the summer. Some people will continue working in Chenzhou next year while others will seek higher pay in the bigger cities. I hope to be the latter,  but I'm still hunting. 

A lavish dinner.

Yesterday I was invited to a school play performed by one of the private schools in town. The kids were adorable and, as always, there was a lavish dinner at a fancy restaurant planned for after.

Chinese restaurants often have large rooms like this to reserve for large parties. I thing there were about twenty people seated around the table.The food kept coming as did the beer.

Eva, the owner of the school, also brought along a huge amount of liquor. We went to KTV (Chinese karaoke) afterwards and drank ourselves silly. A good time was had by all.

These sorts of dinners usually follow any big event or for someone's birthday (I attended one of those last week). The restaurants are very interesting. Most table service restaurants have these rooms off to the side, but some, like this one, are composed entirely of them. There is no 'main floor' where the majority of people come in to eat. There are now tables for just two people. If you're not dining with a party of at least a half dozen, there's no place for you here.

Practical matters

If you haven't noticed from my last couple of posts, a couple of things are different. I've made some changes and I hope they'll remain different. Firstly, I've been posting regularly. This has only been for a couple of weeks, but I've heard that's the amount of time a person has to do something to form a new habit, so fingers crossed that I'll stick to it. It isn't just the blog, I've been getting organized in general and that has helped me to post consistently. But I'll get into that later. The second thing is that my writing style has changed somewhat. Before I was wavering between writing this blog as a narrative and doing a 'stream of consciousness' sort of journal. While I like to write narratives, I've decided to put those aside and actually write the narrative of my time in Chenzhou at a later time. For the remainder of my time here and for the foreseeable future in China, I'll be writing this as a journal, which I think friends and family will be more interested in hearing.

And since I'm discussing such things, I think this would be an appropriate time to mention that I'm not really advertising this blog anymore, in the sense of weekly reminders that I have published so that everyone can tune in. I've decided to save those reminders until I have an especially interesting post, ie: one with pictures, video or travel. I have downloaded an app onto my new phone which will allow me to post on the go, so hopefully my posts will get more interesting in the near future.

I realize that this creates a problem because I have been very irregular in posting since I've been here and only recently have things settled down such that I have been posting regularly. Hopefully that will remain the case for a while, though I'm sure there will be some disruption if I move to Shenzhen. In any case, for the friends and family that have been following, there will be much more for you to read when you log on if I only send reminders out every now and again. It looks like there will be at least another year and a half of  messages from China, so here is my pledge:

• I will try to be regular about posting.
• I won't worry if the week's topic is interesting, valid or worthy of publishing. (This is only a journal. Not every day will be filled with fun and excitement.)
• I will attempt to convey my experiences and not always make it a story.
• I will try to include those everyday experiences that have become commonplace to me, but were interesting when I first got here.

One more thing about the app I downloaded on my phone: hopefully, it will allow me to make blog posts when I'm not sitting in front of my computer, like when I went to Guangzhou to get my passport renewed. I posted a couple of times while I was there, but I posted to G+, so they didn't appear on this blog. While it won't be easy to write extensively and in-depth about what's going on, it would be a way to make a quick post where I find wi-fi while travelling. That will be great if I get to do a great trip like the one I took to SE Asia over spring festival. The ability to post on the go will allow me to detail the most exciting times in China without having to remember what had happened after I get back. These abbreviated 'mini-posts' would probably be dominated by pictures, which is probably a good thing.

The Pearl River Delta

I'm still looking for work in China but I feel very positive about my prospects here. Yesterday I went down to do an interview in Shenzhen, the city directly across the border from Hong Kong, and the interview went pretty well. I feel good about moving to Shenzhen, though I don't know a huge amount about the city. Here's what I know: Shenzhen is the strangest of cities in China. In a place where cites are referred to as 'new' if they're less than 2000 years old, Shenzhen didn't exist when I started high school. In the early nineties Deng Xiaoping declared the area across the border from Hong Kong a 'special economic zone'. It would be the first of many, but it was meant to allow business to be conducted more like Hong Kong than mainland China, thereby taking advantage of the enormous amount of wealth that is generated in that world financial center to the south after the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997.

Over the course of the next twenty years Shenzhen grew at a staggering pace, and not just in numbers of people, but in wealth as well. The border town went from basically no one to twenty million people in under two decades. Now it's bigger than Hong Kong itself. It's also one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Number two just behind Shanghai.That means Shenzhen is generally a nice place to be. It's a thoroughly modern city and has all the western amenities. And the pay is much better there than in Chenzhou. 

Shenzhen is also part of a region called the Pearl River Delta which includes Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, and several other smaller cities, most of which get very good ratings for livability. Guangzhou is the biggest city in the region and Hong Kong is the most famous, but the best part about being in the area would be that all of these places are within a couple of hours of each other.  Of course, what city I pick will be hugely important: Mega City Guangzhou has a long history and an endless supply of things to see and do; wealthy, new Shenzhen has the best of everything on offer and it's less than an hour to get to; Hong Kong, the most amazing city I've ever been to and my ultimate target; or Macau, small by Chinese standards, but a former Portuguese colony and also known and the 'Las Vegas' of China.

(not my photo)

Looking towards the future

Alright, I know it's been quite some time since I've posted anything, but I want everyone to know that it's been because of a very good reason: poor time management. In the months since the Spring Festival vacation, I have been trying to save money, figure out what I'm going to do next year, and plan for a summer trip home. But mostly, I've been settled into taking it easy here in Chenzhou and hanging out with friends. I must say, it's nice to be able to do that, but now it's May and it's getting to be that time when the foreign teachers are deciding whether to stay with their current job or to look for something new.

It's nice to be in a job where I know there are plenty of positions available and lots better salaries out there. Since I've made it no secret that Hong Kong is a future goal for me, I should mention that I was not called back about the position in the HK public school system this year, so I will re-apply for next school year. Their standards are high, and I don't really have enough experience yet for that job. If I'm able to get that job, however, I'll be making more my first year than I would ever make in my chosen field of Urban Planning, so it's worth a few years gaining experience in order to get that job.

Three weeks in Indochina

I've missed the past couple of weeks posting because I have been on vacation. I had hoped to have time to post each week anyway, but I didn't really expect that to happen. Chinese New Year was on February 8 this year (they go by the lunar calendar, so it changes every year), and the Chinese have a festival of about two weeks surrounding the holiday called Spring Festival. Yes, even though it's cold and nothing is blooming, they consider this spring. Anyway, schools get out this time of year for an extended holiday. I had about six weeks of vacation for the holiday. Of course, I couldn't afford to travel for the entire time, so I decided to meet up with friends on their vacations since I hadn't traveled anywhere in Asia except China. That afforded me to see the opportunity to see more places than just on beach resort. But I did want to see at least one.

My Italian friend, Angelo, wanted to take a couple of weeks in Vietnam. We decided to base our explorations in Hanoi, a wonderful town that has, unfortunately, been overrun by tourists. The city is very big and sprawling and isn't terribly pleasant outside the city center. That historic center, however, is amazing. The streets are narrow and quaint, the food is fantastic, and they've taken on the french habit of sitting in cafes and drinking coffee while watching the world go by. And Vietnamese coffee is a unique creation. It's thicker than what we drink, served in a very small cup (you wouldn't want a full sized cup). And if you order it with milk, you get sweetened condensed milk poured into the cup before the coffee (stir vigorously before drinking). Some placed even give you the cup with a small press above it to produce the coffee at the table. You have to wait 5~10 min to drink.

Before we stayed even our first night in Hanoi, we went to the mountain town of Sapa on an overnight train ride. The town is nestled in beautiful misty mountains and is also overrun with tourists. People come here to 'trek' through the countryside (I'm not sure what differentiates this from hiking) to the local villages and spend the night in 'homestays' with the villagers. Don't be fooled, as I was, into thinking that a homestay means that you're staying in someone's home. It's just a term they use that is basically the same as a bed and breakfast. Village style. Angelo was quite distressed by the poverty and the sadness of the the children who were dirty and had to sell souvenirs on the street. Also, the children had runny noses. That added to the distress, I think. But all I kept noticing were the villagers driving by in an Escalade (I kid you not) and new scooters (popular all over Vietnam) as well as the several schools (one for each village, I think) that looked to be recently built. All of this has likely come because of tourism. Additionally, these 'homestays' were popping up all over the place and several served a dual function, such as homestay/ restaurant or homestay/ bar. Things seemed to be going pretty well and I tried to remind Angelo that children get dirty everywhere and have runny noses everywhere, and none of them seemed to be starving.

In any case, on to Da Nang. Well, close by. You may have heard Da Nang mentioned in films or television shows about the Vietnam War (called the American War in Vietnam). You may remember the '90s television show China Beach, which was set in/around Da Nang. Da Nang is at about the dividing line between North and South Vietnam during the war. The reason we went, however, is because the ancient town of Hoi An is located about an hour south. The town is quaint and cute, and located close to a beach. However, it's also overrun with tourists. My impression of Hanoi as having too many tourists was quickly corrected. There's nothing in the town except t-shirt shops, leather shops, silk specialty stores. Most of the food is western and very little has anything to do with Vietnam, let alone Hoi An. We did find a really good sandwich shot, though. The old structures are cool to see, but it probably wasn't worth more than a day. We spent three.

Our last few days before leaving were spent back in Hanoi. Angelo had some friends there and we met up with one for a traditional Chinese New Year feast. It was an enormous amount of food, which neither of us could finish. Angelo, because he's pencil thin and I, because I had a cold coming on and didn't have an appetite. Angelo finished the vacations with a trip to Halong Bay, an area close to Hanoi renowned for its beauty and I finished the day by strolling through the streets of Hanoi finding what are called 'communal houses'. These were originally intended to be meeting places for the village (when Hanoi was a collection of villages instead of one giant city), but eventually took on a more religious function as Buddhist shrines were added by royal decree in ancient times.

Next up, I left Vietnam to meet friends in Bangkok. We hadn't prearranged much and I had no real way to contact them upon arrival, so I didn't have much hope that I'd actually find them, but after getting here, I contacted them by email and found out they hadn't come at all. Which I knew was a possibility all along. So I set off to explore a bit of Thailand. After two breakneck weeks exploring Vietnam, however, this last week was going to be a bit more relaxed. I didn't see a single tourist site in Bangkok, experienced no culture, and the finest cuisine I dined on was a really fantastic hamburger and french fries at one of the ritzy malls. Bangkok has quite a few malls, it's worth noting. I can also tell you that the way to get around Bangkok is not the took-tooks, which are basically just motorized pedicabs, but the buses (as they usually are). I'm always amazed at how far people will travel to experience a different culture, then what lengths they will go to to avoid the local people. (It should be noted that it takes a few tries to get the hang of the local bus system, but that's part of the fun).

Another note on Bangkok: many tourists end up, as I did on a friend's advice, on Khaosan Road. If the armpit of humanity is your idea of a good time, then Khaosan is the place for you. Imagine upper Bourbon Street in New Orleans without all the class. Touts that almost outnumber the tourists, every available storefront is either a t-shirt shop or a bar filled with drunken college kids and it seemed most everyone was high. On a single walk down Khaosan after dark I was offered taxi services, massages, and the services of an expert prostitute. All by the same guy, in that order. Apparently his technique is to escalate available services. But I don't want to sour Bangkok's reputation. Oh, who am I kidding? That is it's reputation. But I got the impression that there are also tons of historic sites, too. But I was frankly tired of going and decided the last few days of my vacation should be a well deserved rest.

And that brings me to my current location. This is more or less the last real day of vacation. I start the journey home tomorrow. For the past couple of days I've been on a tropical island off the coast of Thailand. I left Bangkok by bus and 3.5 hours later I was on a shabbily assembled pier waiting on a ferryboat that took about forty minutes to get to the island. The island is small, but covered in tourists. There are a limited number of hotels, but some do look quite nice. I'm staying at a hostel in the town, but the walk to the beach is both short and pleasant. I spent basically the entire day at the beach yesterday and received a bit of a burn as a result. But I plan to go back to the beach today for a couple of hours. That will be a good end to the vacation.

I've never traveled this much at one time before. Also, never really traveled on my own. I'm grateful that I got the opportunity. It has proven to me that I'm capable of doing these sorts of things and having a good time doing it. I've also met several people on this trip, which is also partly what traveling is about. Part of the reason that I'm interested in continuing to work in this part of the world is that I'll be afforded the opportunity to travel more in it. I see endless opportunities for travel here, so I'm glad to have done a little. I'm looking forward to more in the future. Now I just have to see what options are available to continue teaching next year.

As a Tourist in Hong Kong

Last week I described the Pride festivities that I was lucky enough to be able to attend in Hong Kong. It was amazing to be able to attend those on my first day, but the next day was when I would be able to really explore the city. I awoke in my hostel, not terribly late, and found that there was a young German medical student who was about to head down to find breakfast. He asked me if I was interested in joining him and we proceeded to spend the next two days together seeing tourist sites and exploring the city.

Hong Kong Pride

A few weeks before my trip to Hong Kong I discovered that the Hong Kong Pride Parade was going to be held November 7 this year. At first, I didn't think that I'd be able to go. Then I mentioned the event to Neir, my Hawaiian friend. His eyebrows raised and his eyes lit up. "You have to go," he said. "There isn't much to keep you sane while you're living in China. If this is something that you can treat yourself with, you should do it." Neir volunteered to take my classes that day and advised me to take the night train so that I would get there on time. I took his advice and met with him and some friends at Sean's bar before leaving. I had a small bag with me when I was at the bar, but no one asked about it. Then, about ten minutes before I had to leave for the train station I got up and announced that I had to go. When asked why, I said "I'm going to Hong Kong for Pride tomorrow and my train leaves in a little while. The group was dumbfounded and Rebecca, an English friend, exclaimed "Why didn't you invite me?!" I felt bad that I hadn't mentioned it, but I honestly didn't think anyone would be interested in going.

A new love interest

I want to be more regular on posting, so I'm going to use this post as an update. I've only made a few posts so far and missed December altogether. I thought I would start regular posts as soon as things settled down, but I'm beginning to discover that things never settle down here. The holidays were especially crazy. All the foreigners wanted to get together to celebrate as if we were back home, but of course the schools were still operating on a normal schedule. I was off for both Christmas and New Years, but just the one day each. The big holiday here is Chinese New Year. I'll get about a month off for that. So both holidays the expats in town got together for a little dinner and drinks, then went out for more drinks and things went on into the early hours for both holidays. Perhaps things will settle down now that we're in the New Year, but I think the best policy is to work these posts into my schedule regardless.

The biggest point on which I'd like to update is my new love. It's one of those amazing stories where your love interest is beautiful and has an amazing personality with depth, intelligence, and fun. But, of course is unapproachable. Until you approach. Then you discover they're fun to be with, interesting and, surprise, it's possible to start a long term relationship with them. This has happened to me and my love is fun at parties, a foodie, and provides plenty of opportunities for outdoor activities like hiking or swimming at the beach. My new love is part British, part Chinese, and pegs its currency to the US Dollar. Of course, I'm talking about Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is one of those cities that I've observed from afar for many years. Being a geographer, I've been studying maps of Hong Kong and I'm fairly familiar with their transportation systems (Hong Kong has the highest use of public transportation of any country in the world) and am enthralled by the Central and Kowloon districts. It's an amazing city from the point of view of history, culture, and development.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is, technically, part of China. The Chinese military have a presence in the city (albeit an invisible one) and Hong Kong can't enter into diplomatic negotiations with foreign countries, but it ends there. When you come from China into Hong Kong, there's a border crossing between the two countries (the world's busiest) and there's a deep, wide canal at the border (think Rio Grand, but deeper and wider) ensuring people cross at the checkpoint. There are only three checkpoints along the border and Chinese people must have a visa to cross. Hong Kong has its own currency (the Hong Kong Dollar), its own language (Cantonese, not Mandarin), and very different laws from the mainland. The law here is based on British common law because they were a British colony up until 1997, though recent conflicts with the mainland Chinese government has brought the future of the freedom enjoyed by Hong Kongers into question.

Nevertheless, Hong Kong is very western by Chinese standards and certainly qualifies as an economically developed nation. Unlike mainland China, Hong Kong is a place where traffic laws are obeyed, government is democratically voted for, and potable water comes out of every tap. It's just Chinese enough to be exciting and just western enough to be comfortable. To be honest, Hong Kong is the perfect combination of urban and natural, east and west, modern and ancient. In such a perfect city, the cost of living must be astronomical. Except it isn't.

Hong Kong is an expensive city compared to mainland China, but cheap by western standards. Some things are even cheaper in Hong Kong than Salt Lake or Atlanta. For example, it takes less than US$1 to cross the entire island of Hong Kong on the MTR (Hong Kong's metro system) and admission to the Hong Kong Museum of History costs just over US$1. That's compared to $2.50 to ride the bus in Salt Lake or US$16.50 to get into the Atlanta History Center. But the cheapest thing in Hong Kong is the thing it's world famous for, shopping. The markets are places where you can buy good quality clothes, leather goods, electronics, and all manner of merchandise for low, low  prices. Of course, there's one area I've neglected to mention: real estate.

Hong Kong itself is an island. A small island. A small island covered mostly by mountains too steep for construction and sometimes too steep for roads. Therefore most of the island is undeveloped or sparsely developed. Except for the northern shore of the island. A small strip of land mostly along that north shore is where the incredibly dense city of Hong Kong lies. Between the mountains and Hong Kong Harbor is where all the action happens. The entire city is squeezed into this strip, with every square inch of available space put to use. It's amazing. To be sure, this is not all there is to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Across the harbor is Kowloon, the peninsula that faces HK island and it's actually more densely populated than the city itself, since it it a bit flatter and can accommodate more development. Beyond Kowloon is an area called the New Territories ('New' because they were acquired in 1898, after Hong Kong and Kowloon had already been established). HKSAR also includes over 200 outlying islands (most are unpopulated).

Because of Hong Kong's unique geography, the cost of real estate there is unfathomably high. On both the island and in Kowloon, rents can be astronomical. But the government does help. I've read that a large percentage of Hong Kongers receive government assistance for rent. I've also found, when looking for teaching positions, that many employers offer to generously subsidize housing for native English speaking teachers. And, of course, one has to manage expectations if he plans to move to Hong Kong. I had an apartment of just under 800 sf in Salt Lake City. I would never be able afford that much space in Hong Kong, but I shouldn't expect to. I wouldn't have a full kitchen and would probably be living in a studio apartment. Of course, I wouldn't expect to spend much time at home and eating fast food or in a small eatery is cheaper in HK than SLC. And salaries are comparable for teachers. (Higher in HK if you have the right teaching qualifications.) I visited the apartment of a friend of a friend while in HK and was surprised to find that the apartment wasn't small. I've lived in smaller myself and paid almost as much in Georgia.

Hong Kong's geography also means that there are a lot of surprises in store for new residents and visitors. Hong Kong is technically tropical, but weather patterns mean that the winter is cool, but by no means cold. Similar to north or central Florida. And the topography means that one can climb a nearby mountain (or take the bus) in the summer and get a few degrees of temperature relief. But the range of available activities in Hong Kong is the most exciting thing.

In Central, a person has all the urban amenities available that one can imagine: high end and low end shopping, fine dining and fantastic street food (HK is definitely a foodie town), amazing nightlife in several distinct districts, and all the theatre and shows available in any alpha level metropolis.

But it's also a tropical island. There are beaches all over the island and around the region. Take a 30 min bus to Shek'O (as we did) for what is possibly HK's most beautiful beach and matching village complete with open air restaurants or over to Repulse Bay for HK's most popular beaches. Not in the mood for a crowd? Take the 30 min ferry from Central over to Lantau Island for some of the longest, most secluded beaches you've ever seen. Or take ferries to any of the other islands of the SAR and discover a new beach.

Not in the mood for a beach? How about hiking? Victoria Peak is right on HK Island and has plenty of hiking trails, but if you'd like to be a little more adventurous, you can also take the train into the New Territories. Because of the incredibly dense development of HK, and the small area the SAR occupies, 40% of the land area of HK is reserved as parkland. That means that there's still a lot of natural area in HK to explore.

Bored of the big city fine dining, clubbing, shopping, hiking, beaches and cultural options? I understand. If only this city had a tropical version of Las Vegas set in a former Portugese colony an hour's ferry ride away. Oh, wait a minute. It does. Macau is a quick and simple high speed ferry ride and offers up a beautiful colonial city with several of the eyesores of Las Vegas thrown in for good measure. Just in case Hong Kong gets too hum-drum. And that, of course leads me to the fact that HK is right on China's doorstep, with all the amazing adventures it has to offer (pretty much endless), and HK is centrally located in East Asia with reasonably short flights to Indochina, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the list goes on.

I know, I'm gushing. But I did mention that I'm in love. I wanted to inform you of how I felt about Hong Kong. All of these things are good on paper, but how would I actually feel about the city when I got there? The reality of a place can be very different than the information you find out through the internet. The information I've put forth in this post is mostly stuff I knew before I went. Next week, I'd like to take you through my first and second trips to HK (I've only made two so far) and let you know what it felt like to actually be there and what I did while there.

On that midnight train to Hong Kong...

The following content was written on a night train to Hong Kong. It was a grueling trip on a  crowded slow train. I didn't post right away because there's no internet connection on the train, though I should have thought to do it when I first got into the city, I didn't and the post has languished for a while:

I find myself on a train crossing southern China overnight. The temperature is low, though only by subtropical standards. I'm in shorts and a t-shirt because it was fairly warm when I left Chenzhou and two people have shown concern for my well being so far, one managing to choke out, in English, “Where are your clothes?” I've been surprised and delighted so far by how nice everyone is and how willing to help at every turn. A couple of weeks ago I went for a walk along the river that flows through Chenzhou and ended up on the north side of town in a n unfamiliar neighborhood. As I walked, I realized that there wasn't a main road that ran through the neighborhood and I had no idea how to get back to town. A man, apparently, walking home from work intercepted me and walked me back out to the river, crossing rail lines and walking through his neighbors' back gardens to get me there. I thought it was on his way the whole time until, upon reaching the road that ran beside the river, he waved goodbye and turned to head back to where we had first met.

I have no particular reason for writing this post except that I don't often take the time to write as things are happening. Tonight I decided to pull out my computer and put down thoughts in the midst of action, since I may not get another chance. I'm headed to Hong Kong Pride for the weekend, taking the overnight train to get there. I opted for the seats, not the sleeper in order to save money. It has been quite the experience, and not an entirely unpleasant one. The train has been conpletely full for the majority of the trip, though in these last couple of hours it has begun to empty out some. Most of the people around me slept for the majority of the trip, but I've been unable to do so, since the seat, while soft, do not recline at all.

When I arrived at the train station I was ushered towards a desk where I was asked to pay an additional 10 yuan over the ticket price so that I could be escorted to a small room filled with people in terribly comfortable chairs watching an American movie. I got to see about seven minutes of an aging Arnold Swartzeneggar apparently fighting more terminators before I was retrieved by the people who took my ten Yuan and sent out to the train platform to wait for twenty minutes on the train to arrive. When I boarded the train it appeared I had missed the party because most everyone was already passed out and the floor was covered with all manner of trash: snack food bags, candy wrappers, sunflower seed shells and what appeared to be a bedpan were among the plethora of discarded items. It looked as if the train company must not have been cleaned for months. As I soon discovered, however, they do a complete sweep of every car at every stop.

In any case, the trip has been exciting so far, though I am now quite cold. It's close to five AM, so hopefully it will start to warm as the sun comes up, though I think I'll be in Shenzhen before that happens. That this train's destination. A trip to Hong Kong is quite involved. If you're not familiar with the area (and I assume you're not), Shenzhen is the border town on the mainland side of the Hong Kong border. Twenty years ago there was nothing in this town, I'm not even sure there was a fishing village there, which is usually how these stories start in China. Then the Chinese government began to pour money into the town in anticipation of the handover of Hong Kong to China from Britain. And the town began to grow, continuing, of course, after the handover. Today, Shenzhen is a metropolis of about ten million, larger than Hong Kong itself. It is also one of the richest cities in China, perhaps even wealthier than Shanghai.

From Shenzhen, I will cross the international border (yes, Hong Kong is still considered an independent nation in most respects) into the Special Admistrative Region of Hong Kong, where I will then board the Hong Kong rail system and begin the final leg of the journey (about an hour and a half). The train will take me all the way to Kowloon, which is the peninsula that juts out into Victoria Harbor. From there, a bus will take me across the harbor via tunnel onto Hong Kong Island, where the actual city of Hong Kong lies. I've booked a hostel in the city just a few blocks from Victoria Park, where the pride parade will begin.

That's all I know at the moment. I'll try to stop to write as it all happens, but if not, I'll be writing another post on the return train. (I have a sleeper for that one.)