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.