Seriously though… TWO YEARS since I last made a blog entry??? That’s pathetic!

Well, those two years have gone by in a flash, I must say!  I recently finished my fifth semester teaching here at the Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (GUCAS), and I can say that it has gotten easier, compared to the first semester!

Anyhoo, now that I have the summer ahead of me — we start the new semester about Sept 15th or so –, I am going to make a much better effort at blogging… I won’t say regularly or even weekly, but hopefully ever two or three weeks! I’ve also got about 2000 photos from the last couple of years that I intend to post on my gallery!

However, most of my time will be focused on learning to read and write Chinese characters. I thought that, by this point, I’d be much more advanced, at least in spoken Chinese, but alas, I am not. Thus, I’m dedicating the next 8-10 weeks to learning more vocabulary. By September, I’m hoping to be able to maintain a semi-literate conversation with a Chinese friend — but it’s all based on knowing enough vocabulary to express myself… and for THAT, I need to learn to read the characters. (In everyday life here, there is no pinyin writing to help you get along.)

OK, that’s at least a start, after my two-year blogging absence!

China, Teaching | 4 Comments »

UPDATE: 03 Sept 2007. I finally got my photos online. Click these links for my SF photos and Wedding photos.

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Well, it’s been a while since my last posting, and so I’ll try to get a few more up in the next week!

It was great to see everyone again, even if only for an hour or two, while back in San Francisco area for Steve and Wendy’s wedding. I think I need two weeks when I visit the Bay Area!

A special thanks goes to Andre and Anna who lent me their sweet little Daewoo for the week; that made a HUGE difference in being able to get around to see people. Thanks to Larry and Deb Coryell, who let me use their address for receiving various packages from friends back in Canada. And of course, a big thanks to Jeff and Hilary for putting me up for the week at their place in Mountain View!

The trip was great, I saw all the old friends and the weather was perfect all week. We even made it out to Santa Cruz for a day at the beach my first Sunday back.

Congratulations again to Steve and Wendy on their marriage; all of their hard work and planning resulted in a great day for them and their guests alike. Thank you for involving me! (See my previous post for an explanation of my role in the wedding.)

Steve and Wendy’s wedding—at the beautiful setting of Wente Vineyards in Livermore—went very well. The weather was perfect for the outdoor ceremony, despite the worries caused by a rainy Friday morning; the ceremony ran smoothly, humourously and without incident, except perhaps for one overexcited canine guest ; and the dinner and dance party were a lot of fun to end the evening. I even received a number of congratulatory comments on officiating and also on my efforts at Mandarin.

I was rather nervous in the hour or so before the ceremony began, but I settled down once I walked out there. I had a number of small index cards with everything written out, and earlier in the day, I had read through them once or twice and “timed” myself, to see how long the ceremony would last [my speaking was about 15 minutes, and then the ring exchange, their vows to each other, etc. so it was maybe 18-20 minutes in total.] I think it helped a great deal that I had had good practice through standing and talking in front of 40+ students 7x/week for the previous two months…

My Mandarin impressed most of those who could understand Mandarin. Steve has the video of the ceremony on a DVD, but has not yet had time to post it to a web site; once he does so, I’ll post the link to it. I was miked up for the video, so you should (hopefully!) be able to hear my voice quite clearly. I’ll let you know if/when the video is available. Steve has posted all of the photographers’ work: Wedding Photos (there are a LOT of photos in there! )

Of course, in the excitement of the evening, we all forgot to have me, as officiant, sign the marriage license!! hahaha… Steve called me Sunday morning as I was packing my bags; on the way to the airport, we stopped off in Foster City to meet Steve and Wendy in order to take care of that little detail.

And that was my quick trip to the States! I flew out of SFO on Sunday afternoon at 14:45 and arrived back here on Monday afternoon around 17:30 or so… I hit the hay early that night and it took about 4 days for the body to re-adjust to local time.

Travel | 1 Comment »

So the big news is that I will be heading over to San Francisco for the first week in May. A friend, Steve, from Sun Microsystems is getting married on 05 May 2007. (Steve is one of the guys that I visited in Beijing back in October 2004… see my blog entries.)

Steve had asked me about 18 months ago whether I’d be able to make it back from China for the wedding… at the time, both of us were assumming that I would have been in China for a year by now! hahaha

The funnier thing, though, is that Steve and Wendy want ME to officiate the wedding!! HAHA! Apparently, I can get legally “ordained” online from a website and it’s valid for California; in fact, I’ve already done so. They want me to use a bit of my Mandarin during the ceremony… Steve’s family is originally from Hong Kong and Wendy’s is from Taiwan, so this should be fun!

So anyway, I wasn’t sure when I got here whether I’d be able to get the time off to go back to SF for the wedding, because our semester runs until mid-June. HOWEVER… in a happy coincidence, we have a break here from May 1-7 for “Golden Week”. Since May 1st is a Tuesday and since I don’t teach on Mondays, I will actually be able to leave the previous Friday. I’ve booked a flight out of Beijing in the evening of Friday Apr 27, and then fly back from San Francisco on Sunday May 6th (in order to arrive here on Monday afternoon of the 7th). And then I have to teach on Tuesday May 8th. That will give me about 9 days in total. Steve said he could help out with the cost of the flight, which is good, because it is PRICY !!

It will be good to see the old gang again… Pederrr, Cornstalk, Big Daddy, Greg, Michelle, Kyoko, Shamu!!, Beth, The Chenger, Poooooorna, Aditya, and of course, the happy couple, Steve and Wendy… Hopefully, the waters at Capitola or Manresa Beach will be warm enough for some swimming by that time!

Now I just need to ensure that I’ve got my classes all in order before I leave next week!

Travel | 1 Comment »

For those of you with a computer, if you want a REALLY easy way to stay in touch, try out Skype software. Skype is a small piece of free software that you load onto your computer and then you set up an account. You can make phone calls from your computer to other Skype users on their computers. Since it uses the data networks (rather than the telephone networks) to connect the computers, you talk for FREE.

You need a microphone and speakers, but most computers are set up with that these days. I’ve used it to talk to a few friends back in Canada and the US and the quality of the call is amazing!

Also, if you purchase credits with a credit card or voucher, you can use the SkypeOut option in the software to make phone calls to regular landline telephones or cell phones, for a REALLY cheap rate (2.4 cents/min from China to Canada!) I’ve called my brother in Nova Scotia and my parents in Saskatchewan, and it has worked quite well.

If you decide to sign up, send me an email with your Skype user name and I’ll send you mine (I’m not going to post it to this blog. ) Granted, being 12-14 hours apart means that we would probably have to arrange by email a time when we would both sign in to Skype in order to make a call, but that’s no big deal.

So check it out! SKYPE! Click Here!

China, General/Miscellaneous, Travel | 1 Comment »

The following is from an email that I sent to my former tutor at Global English in the U.K., through which I took my TESOL course in the summer of 2006. I thought I’d share the details of my teaching position.

If you prefer, you can download a PDF copy of this posting and print it: Click HERE.

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Here are the main details of my position at GUCAS:

• My contract is for one year and is renewable.
• The school has taken care of my work-permit paperwork and my residence permit, which allows multiple entries into the country.
• The salary is only xxxx RMB / month — not the greatest. They helped me set up a bank account at a nearby bank for me to receive my salary electronically. (I had heard that a lot of schools just pay you in cash.)
• But they also provide a 2-bedroom apartment within the graduate-students housing, so that helps a great deal; I must say that it is very comfortable for one person — I use the spare bedroom as an office/work area.
• I have about a 10-minute walk to the building in which I teach, so that is very convenient.
• I have pretty good Internet access and a telephone for local calls (I think the school pays for up to 200 RMB of local calls, which is MORE than enough).
• I live about a 15-minute walk south of the Wudaokou subway station on Line 13, up in the northwest area of the city. Qinghua University and Beida University (the two “biggies” in Beijing) are both up in this area as well. The Wudaokou area has a lot of foreign students in the area, and there are also a large number of offices for western companies in the area (Microsoft, Google, Sun Microsystems, etc.)

Classes:

• I teach 7 classes per week: 4 Speaking classes and 3 Writing classes. Each class is 1hr 40 min long, but I only need to create two different lesson plans each week, since each class is a completely different set of students. I have approx. 14 hours in the classroom, and then I spend roughly another 10-13 hrs/week creating lessons, correcting homework assignments, etc. Next semester, things should get markedly easier, as I’ll be able to re-use my lesson plans, and I’ll have a whole new batch of students.
• They have different classes for each of: Speaking; Writing; Listening; and Reading and Comprehension (or those last two might be one class). The students have to sign up for two of those classes, and at the end of the semester, they have to sit for a big English test, which is worth 60% of their mark. It involves writing a summary of an article, writing a longer essay and doing a reading comprehension test (this is how it was explained to me).
• The Speaking class is worth 20% of the final, the Writing class the other 20%. Marks are based partially on attendance and participation; in the final week of Speaking classes, I give them an oral interview that counts for half of my mark; in Writing, three-quarters of the mark is based on their written homework assignments.
• So, instead of having one teacher who would touch on all of those areas, each function is isolated! I don’t think it is a very good setup for overall language learning, but I suppose that, from the student’s point of view, a strong speaker can skip a speaking class and instead focus more on writing and reading classes, and vice-versa. Also, the listening and reading classes are often taught by a Chinese teacher who has pretty good English skills; this frees up the native-speaking Foreign teachers to handle the speaking and writing classes.
• Now, quite apart from that issue, the classes are LARGE!! I have 35-38 students in each class! (Making roughly 250 students each week… I’m starting to recognize some of them now, but… )
• For the speaking classes, this makes it really difficult to spend quality time helping each of the students. I try to have them do as much pair-work and group-work as possible, and I pop around to various groups to listen in.
• For the writing classes, it is a bit easier, since I give them writing homework assignments, but THAT is going to add up to a lot of extra marking time! I really just want to ensure that they can write some reasonable paragraphs when they have to sit their final exam.
• The classrooms have the standard setup of 3 “columns” of 8 two-person desks, and there’s really no convenient way to re-arrange them.
• On the other hand, each classroom has a laptop computer and a ceiling-mounted digital projector, so it is well set up for using PowerPoint presentations. You just carry your materials around on one of those tiny USB storage devices and plug it into the laptop.

Students:

I think it is going to be a lot of fun here in Beijing, and it will become easier as I get more lesson plans done and learn the system. The students certainly seem to like my classes… I’ve received a few emails already from students who have said they like coming to my classes and that they feel relaxed to try out their English (whereas normally they are too shy, they say). And I think they’re being sincere in their comments. I’m usually moving around the little platform in front of the chalkboard or walking around the aisles… trying to make a few jokes here or there. I think my classes have a fair bit more energy than they are used to in the regular classes.

I’m impressed by the level of their English when they do have to speak… although most of them have probably studied English for the past ten years now. These are all Grad School students, so mostly ages 22-25 or so, with a few older returning students. I would say that, in general, their reading and comprehension is probably not too bad, and their vocabulary as well… they’ve just never had a chance to really practice speaking. For most of them, I am the first Foreign Teacher they’ve had for English.

Granted, there are weak students, and a number of them are hard to understand when they speak, but that’s more an issue of pronunciation and enunciation, rather than not knowing what to say. And some of them are very good, almost to the point of where I’d say they’d have no problems on the streets, in a hotel, in a restaurant of an English-speaking city. But still, I’m sure they like to take advantage of any opportunity to practice their English… and these students can be useful in class if I really need to ensure that all of students fully understand my instructions (I might have them explain it in Mandarin).

There are three other Foreign Teachers (three American men) here as well, but there is turnover of at least one or two each year. Another teacher was supposed to be here, but he suddenly decided that he didn’t want to return and that threw the Department into a bit of a lurch just before this semester began. Otherwise, we might have had only 6 classes each this semester.

A few of the other teachers have private students for earning extra cash. Once my first semester is out of the way, I may look into this as well.

China, Teaching | No Comments »

Friday 30 March marks four weeks in Beijing! I’m not doing very well at posting weekly updates as I had promised!

So what’s new here? Read on:

Three weeks ago, I met up with my friend Jane (Li-Bin); it was really good to see her again. Jane works at Sun and I had met her when I came to visit Poorna and Steve on their work exchange in October 2004.

On my second Sunday, I blew out the power in my apartment! There was a burnt-out light bulb in the bathroom, so I removed it. As I was putting the cover back on the light fixture, I touched something to something else and Ka-POOOF!! All the lights went out… the TV went silent… the refrigerator stopped running… I thought, “Hmmm, THAT can’t be good!” I flipped all the breakers in the electrical panel in my apartment, but nothing helped! There is another electrical panel in the hallway outside my apartment door for the group of five apartments near me, so I suspected that there was a switch in there to flip.

I called Daping and asked her to call the Property Management folks to come help me out; then I went over to work at the building where I teach. Later that evening, around 19:00, Daping met me at my apt. building to show me Doug’s old apartment (see below) and we also met the guys who came to fix my problem. They got the electricity back on in about one minute at the outside panel, and then checked out the light fixture and replaced the light bulb. It was a good story to tell the students at the start of classes the following week.

About ten days later, I locked myself out of my apartment! At 21:30!! The apartment door is like a hotel-room door: it is permanently locked from the outside and you need your key to get in. Well, I was going to pop up to see Ryan (one of the teachers) at his apartment for a few moments and, as soon as I closed my door, I cringed with the realization that, D-O-OH! I had left my keys on the coffee table! Luckily for me, I happened to be carrying my dictionary with me, so when I went to see the Property Management folks, I was able to sort of explain to them what I had done, and could someone let me in with a master key. I now have a large, yellow sticky note on the inside door handle that screams out: “KEYS!!”

Doug is the teacher that I replaced when I came to GUCAS. His apartment was on the 16th floor, whereas I’m down on the ground floor. Ryan and Wayne (another GUCAS teacher) are also on the 16th floor. I like being high up, so I made a request two weeks ago to move into Doug’s former apartment. Daping showed me his apartment the day that I blew out the electricity in my place. I hope to get the good word this coming week.

My sister and brother-in-law, and my niece and her boyfriend, are heading to Phoenix for a week in April. Well, we could certainly use some of Phoenix’s surplus heat here… maybe 5 degrees of it. The weather is nice one day, then cool, cloudy the next. Some days, it is quite warm but then by 18:00, you feel a winter chill again! The weather had been quite cold in the evening for most of March; it may be + 1 or 2 C, and maybe even a bit lower but, during the day, it had been getting up to + 8-12 C. We had some crazy wind two weeks ago for a few days and that made it very cold. I had the Property Management folks put weather stripping around my front door frame, because you could feel a strong, cold draft coming through; it is much better now. (No, it’s not always the same guys having to deal with my problems. )

There are radiators in each of the rooms, but no controls on them — the heat was always on. Being a “collectivist” country, the government decrees when the heating will be turned off in public buildings and apartments (I don’t think it affects commercial buildings or private homes), usually around March 15th. This year, it was about March 19th. Thus, the radiators in my apartment no longer provide any heat! It’s not cold in the apartment, but I wouldn’t mind it a BIT warmer! I guess I just have to wear an extra sweater. My bedroom does have a heater that I run at night, so it’s not too bad. My apartment does not really catch any sun, so some days, it is warmer OUTSIDE than in my place!

Although, one has to be careful about what one wishes for… apparently, it bakes like an oven in Beijing in the summer. One teacher described it thus: it’s winter, then there’s two weeks of sandstorms (ie: spring), and then Bam!, right into the heat!!

Believe it or not, there are days when we have bright sun and blue skies… just not that many of them! There were two or three days last week when you could see and “feel” the pollution hanging in the air. It seems like fog when you get up in the morning, but when it is still there at noon hour, you realize that it’s NOT. Apparently, Beijing is the most polluted city in the world and China has something like 9 of the 20 most polluted cities?? I guess you get used to it, except on those days when it is REALLY bad. (I may have a very different opinion on this 6 months from now….)

Side note: Believe it or not — well, I guess it’s not so hard to believe — on channel BTV 8 (Beijing TV), there is a Chinese version of “Deal or No Deal” … hahahah! If I’m home at 20:00, I watch it.

On Monday 19 March, I had to go with Daping to the Administration Office of Entry and Exit office to apply for my residence permit (which gives you a multi-entry visa in your passport). Someone from the school had gone the week previous for me, with my passport, paperwork, etc. but he was told that I had to be there in person. The place was like a Passport office in Canada or the DMV in California… but with about 50x as many people! After 35-40 minutes in line (OK, that wasn’t so bad!), when we got to counter, the woman barely even glanced in my direction! She stamped one or two sheets, checked my passport and passport number, and that was about it! She just pushed the papers back to Daping. What a complete bureaucratic waste of time, but I guess you have to resign yourself to that kind of thing here.

Daping picked up my passport (with permit glued inside) last Monday 26 March and on Wednesday afternoon, we went to the local police station (the same one as on my first Saturday here) to take care of my local registration. It’s nice to get all that straightened away.

OK, this is long enough… Cheers!

China | No Comments »

Hello! This is a quick review of my first week in Beijing, since arriving on Friday, 02 March!

Note: With the time change this past weekend, Beijing is currently:

• 11 hours ahead of Nova Scotia
• 12 hours ahead of Toronto, Ottawa, New England
• 14 hours ahead of Saskatchewan and Alberta, and
• 15 hours ahead of B.C. and California.

Here is a useful time website: World Time.

Thursday 01 March: Well, after a concerted effort to get my luggage put together and weighed on Wednesday, I was ready to go!

My flight left Regina about 20 mintues late, but we made that up in the air and arrived on time at 10:00 local time. After a 2.5-hour layover, I boarded the plane for Beijing.

It was a long flight, but it passed fairly well. I read my book and listened to an audiobook on my iPod Shuffle, and slept for a fair bit. OF COURSE, a couple with 9-month-old was DIRECTLY across the aisle from me… thank gawd for my iPod for those times he would exercise his lungs — SCREECHINGLY!

I chatted with my seatmate on and off. His name was Hongbo, but goes by ‘George’, and is in Beijing for two weeks for business. He works at a small technical firm in Montreal.
We arrived in Beijing roughly half an hour late, at 16:30 on Friday afternoon.

Friday 02 March: I have to say that, as long as your entry visa is valid, passing through customs to enter China is MUCH easier than entering the US!

Once I got had picked up my luggage, I parted company with Hongbo and Xie Yong from the university met me. It was a one-hour ride to my apartment at the university (it was now about 18:00).
At the apartment, I met Mrs. Xü Daping (Daping is her first name), who is our contact person for any issues with apartment and other non-teaching items.

My apartment is on the ground floor and is quite spacious for one person: there is a small kitchen, a front room with couch, coffee table, and a round table and chairs. The master bedroom is large and has sliding doors out on to a balcony. I have set up a little ‘office’ in the second, smaller bedroom. The bathroom is fine, and I have a small, modern washing machine in there, but there is no tub or shower stall. It has nice, ceramic tiles on the floor and wall; at the far end is a western toilet, and beside that is a handheld shower nozzle and faucets attached to the wall. So you just shower right there, and there is a drain in the floor just by the toilet. Quite efficient use of space, actually! Ryan (one of the other GUCAS teachers) calls it a shoilet.

I’ll try to get some photos posted of my apartment.

I unpacked my bags that evening, and that was about it. I zonked out early, around 21:30!

Saturday 03 March: I think I woke up at 04:00 this morning! Hahahah… I spent an reading my book and then fell asleep again.

Daping came around at 10:00 and we went to the police station to have me registered for a local residence permit. Then it was over to the bank to get a bank account set up for me, into which GUCAS will deposit my salary — actually, I was expecting to get paid in cash every two weeks, so this is nice.

That afternoon, the property management people delivered a nice, new TV, new microwave overn and new refrigerator. ALL of the laarger appliances are the Haier brand name! (The washing machine is Whirlpool.)

That evening, I went out for supper with Daping and the acting program coordinator, Mrs. Lian Xian and her husband. Xian gave me some papers and information relating to my classes and they also gave me a 1-GB USB thumbdrive. Nice!

I will have seven classes this semester. Each class lasts 1hr, 40min, and there are two types:

• Speaking
• Writing

The native English speakers teach the students these two types, while there are Chinese teachers for the areas of Reading, Reading Comprehension and Listening. I know sounds quite illogical to break Language Learning into separate classes like this, but…

Once back from supper, I could barely keep my eyes open and I again hit the hay at about 21:00.

Sunday 04 March: I managed to sleep until 05:30.

I went out walking around today with Ryan. He got me acquainted with various spots around the campus housing and our university building. We also headed off to WalMart to start stocking up on supplies for my apartment: soap, bath mat, hangers, scissors and stapler, laundry detergent, an adaptor extension cord to handle my Western plugs, etc., etc.

The jet lag definitely took its toll on me! Again, I felt absolutely wiped out by 17:00… I can’t blame it ALL on fighting the crowds at Walmart! Well, I lay down for a snooze and ended up sleeping right through until 06:00 Monday morning!

Monday 05 March: I had thought that I was to start teaching on Monday, but Xian had told me that I will have Mondays off this semester, and so my teaching will begin on Tuesday.

Daping came around the apartment at 10:00 and we now went to get me registered at the university office and to get a meal card for the student cafeteria. An engineer also came around in the morning to hook up my Internet access and set me up on my GUCAS email acct, which I’ll use for work purposes.

Monday afternoon, I walked about 10 blocks down to Carrefour (France’s equivalent to WalMart) for more things for the apartment (mostly kitchen items this time).

Tuesday 06 March: GAME DAY!! This is it!

On Tuesdays, I teach at the main GUCAS campus located at Yu Quan Lu (Yu Quan Road), which is about 35 minutes away. Daping met me at the location here for the university’s shuttle bus and we rode to the main campus. I met briefly with Mr. Zhang Honghui, the current program coordinator who will be going to the US in a month to teach at a university in Illinois.

I have two Speaking classes on Tuesday, the first at 13:30 - 15:10, followed by 15:20 - 17:00. Now for the daunting part: each class had about 35-38 students!! That is a LOT of students, especially for a Speaking class… I won’t be able to dedicate much individual time to them in class.

I have to admit that I was pretty dang nervous, especially for the first class, standing up in front of the students, but the classes went not too badly… not fabulous, mind you…just OK. I was stumbling along in places because I didn’t have a full lesson planned for today, but I muddled through and survived. I mostly went through with introductions today, talked about myself and Canada, asked questions about sports and other things…. in general, just tried to break the ice for the class. I also had them introduce themselves to me and the rest of the class, so that used up about 40 minutes. The second class went a bit more smoothly than the first. But still… a class of 1 hr 40 mins is a LONG class!!

As I indicated previously, GUCAS is the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, so roughly 90% of the students are in Masters programs and 10% are Doctoral students. Their ages range from about 22-25 years, and there are also a few in their late 20s who have returned to university after working for some years.

I was very impressed with the level of English of all of the students, although most of them have been studying English for close to 10 years now. Some, obviously, are better speakers than others, but each of them was able to stand up, introduce themselves, say where they were from in China, what their field of study was and maybe a few extra words as well…

And the fields of study!! : Biology and Microbiology, Mathematics, Biophysics, Space Physics, Optics/Physics, Polymer-Chain Physics, Condensed-Matter Physics, Psychology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Geosciences, Signal Processing (computers)… AMAZING!! Seriously, I HAVE to be getting smarter just by being in the same classroom with these students!

Well, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the clock hit 16:55 and I let the 2nd class out a few minutes early. Riding the shuttle bus back to my campus, I felt pretty good about making it through the first day and having fun with the students.

Day 1 was now under my belt!

Also, I gave my passport and temporary residence paper to Xie Yong, so that he can go through the process of obtaining a multiple-entry visa for my passport (the visa I got in Calgary was only a single-entry visa).

Wednesday 07 March: Today, I had only one class, a Writing class at 10:00. My Wednesday, Thursday and Friday classes are all at my campus which is located on Zhongguancun Dong Lu. My apartment is about a 7-8 minute walk away.

For the first week, I decided I would just do all the introductions, etc, and so I repeated the same things as I had done on Tuesday. Wayne, another of the teachers, gave me a good idea, though. Instead of having each student introduce him/herself, he said to have them interview their partner (they all sit at two-person desks) and then present their partner to me and the class. That worked out quite well.

This afternoon, I tried to fix up my laptop so that my MS Word documents will display Chinese characters when I open a file, but I have not been able to fix this yet (I think I need my Install CD for Office: Mac v.X, but I didn’t bring it with me.)

I started to review my notebooks from my Mandarin class at Sun Microsystems.

I also need to learn to read Chinese characters, because pinyin is not everywhere. I want to be able to understand the directions for my washing machine, read a label on food items, read the names on buildings, maybe the headlines in a newspaper. Daily life will get much easier once my Mandarin starts to improve.

Thursday 08 March: Today, I had to get another blood test done for HIV and syphilis. I had these tests done in Canada back in January and both were NEGATIVE — otherwise, I would not have received my Work Permit! — but since I did not provide the “original document” from the medical clinic, the department that issues entry visas would not accept a photocopy, I had to go for another blood test this morning. The school paid for it, but seriously, it’s just a money grab. I have 4 complete copies of all the medical work I had done in January, but it’s of no use. For some reason, an “original” copy carries the weight of heaven….

So I went with Daping to Beijing International Travel Healthcare Centre (BITHC) on Thursday morning.

In the afternoon, I had two more Speaking classes. I’m almost starting to get the hang of this thing!

Friday 09 March: To finish the week, I have two Writing classes on Friday morning, but the first starts at (ughh!!) 08:00, followed by another class at 10:00. The school arranges it so that the teachers finish their week by noon on Friday. Nice!

Today’s classes went quite well also. And now I’m off until Tuesday….: -) Ryan has given me a copy of his Speaking and Writing lesson plans from previous semesters, so I will go through those to re-use in my classes or to update with new lesson ideas.

Funny story from Friday afternoon: Ryan and I decided to go to a coffee shop area about a 15-minute walk north of our apartment building. We got to this neighbourhood and went up to the third floor of one of the coffee shops.

So, as I was following Ryan up the stairs to the 3rd floor, I look out the window on the backside of the building,… and what do I see…. but the courtyard of the Leisure Garden apartment complex!! This was where I had stayed with Steve and Poorna back in October 2004, while they were in Beijing on a work-exchange with Sun Microsystems! I almost fell over when I recognized the place!! haha!!

So I won’t give a day-by-day breakdown in future postings, but I did want to give you an overview of my first week in Beijing.

Now I just need to get cracking on improving my spoken Mandarin AND learning to read characters, which will make daily life here so much easier. (I can only read romanized ‘pinyin’ at the moment.)

Cheers, all!

China, Teaching | 1 Comment »

Happy Belated Chinese New Year!

Yes, I am still here but my days in Regina are numbered!

I have found a job, obtained my Work Permit and booked my flight for Beijing — I fly out of Regina on Thursday, March 02, to Vancouver and then direct to Beijing. I arrive Friday afternoon at 16:00 and (I believe) I have my first class on Monday, March 05!

Now to pack my bags and get on that plane!

So, let me recap the last few months. You know that I have been looking for a teaching position in China. I had wanted to find a school for which a friend or acquaintance could give me a recommendation as a good place to work, so that I didn’t get screwed in a crummy school for a year. Of course, that kind of limited my options. Nevertheless, Providence glanced my way and I caught a nice break.

While at Cobalt Networks and Sun Microsystems, I worked with a guy named James Cheng, as some of you know. When I left Sun in April 2005, James put me in touch with his sister Marie, who at the time was teaching English in Nanjing. Marie now lives and works in Beijing. At the start of December, Marie put me in touch with one of her friends (Doug) who works at the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GUCAS). (See their site here.)

Doug was working there as an ESL teacher, but was more interested in working as a translator. Well, he found another job working as a translator, but was still under contract to GUCAS; Doug wanted to bring someone in to replace him. So that’s when Marie asked me if I would be interested in this position. I said YES, and then Doug and I started emailing. At the end of December, the Foreign Languages Dept. at GUCAS offered me a position and I accepted!!

The position calls for 16 hrs teaching per week, and Doug said he could help get me set up for private lessons as well. GUCAS will also provide a 2-bedroom apartment for me as part of the contract, so that is a nice perk and one less hassle to worry about.

It took about 3 weeks to get together all the documents (application letter, reference letters, Employment Application, Working Permit Application, copies of my university diplomas, Medical forms, etc.) and send them off to GUCAS. The medical forms required about two weeks to complete. Then it took another two weeks or so to prepare the Work Permit paperwork for me and then ship it back to Canada.

Two weeks ago (Thursday, Feb. 15th), I received from GUCAS the necessary paperwork so that I could apply for a Work Permit at the Chinese Consulate in Calgary, Alberta. Of course, it arrived right smack dab in the Chinese New Year period, so the Consulate was closed for 3 days last week! Rather than trying to get my Work Permit through the mail, I decided to drive to Calgary (about 7 hours west of Regina) on Wednesday.

I thought I could get it all done on Thursday morning and then head home right away, but no, no, no… I had not taken into account that the Consulate had been closed for 3 days, so when I strolled into the office on Thursday morning, there were 50 people ahead of me! By the time I got to the window with the correct forms, it was 11:15 a.m. and too late to get it completed that same day, so I had to stay over for another night (many thanks to my friends Tyler and Patricia!).

I picked up my Work Permit/Visa on Friday morning (only 8 people in line this time!!) and drove back to Regina. I then made my flight arrangements on Saturday morning, and there we go!

I will FINALLY get my butt out of here on Thursday, March 01. Whoo-hoo!! The new semester begins on February 26, but my first day of work will be Monday, March 05.

And I will make a more concerted effort to update my blog once a week.

Cheers!

China, General/Miscellaneous, Teaching, Travel | 13 Comments »

Hmmmm… apparently your head does NOT pop off the day you turn 41 (today ).

Your knees don’t work anymore… and you can’t seem to stay awake past 10:00 pm… but your head does NOT pop off. THAT’S a relief.

My once-a-year KFC treat is coming later tonight…

And if you had read my CRUNNNNNCH!!! entry, my ribs have now mostly healed up 5 weeks later, although I can feel it in my ribcage muscles if I stretch too far or shovel snow in the driveway. However, one day about three weeks ago… I sneezed! And it felt like a grenade blew up inside me! THAT one sent me running for the Advil®.

General/Miscellaneous, Horror Stories, Humour | 2 Comments »

During my trip to China in October 2004, we used Steve’s books Lonely Planet: Beijing and Beijing Guidebook. The book I bought for Shanghai was (I think) the Lonely Planet Shanghai City Guide as a paperback. They were all quite useful.

However, this past summer, I bought an incredible guidebook entitled: DK Eyewitness Travel Guides: China, published by Dorling Kindersley (ISBN: 0756609194). Click here for info.

This book is amazing! It has 672 glossy pages with a laminated ‘flexiback’ cover and is about the same physical size as the Let’s Go and Lonely Planet books. It covers all of the regions, provinces, major cities and major historical sites in China. It also contains countless maps; subway plans for Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong; a phrasebook section; a “Survival Guide” section of practical information for tourists; and a “Travellers’ Needs” section covering restaurants, accommodations, shopping and markets, entertainment, outdoor activities, etc.

The book was published in July 2005, so it is still quite new.

It is well worth the price I paid: only $25.50 CAD on Amazon.ca!

I highly recommend this China guidebook and I would definitely buy other books in the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides series.

Travel | No Comments »