Indochina Expedition 2010: Eve of Departure
24 Jan 2010 Leave a Comment
in Traveling Tags: cambodia, Indochina, journey, laos, vietnam
My first semester in China as an English teacher was over. I would leave at dawn for Vietnam on Monday, January 25, 2010. Now it was time to go and see if I had what it takes to travel for real. This would be the first time traveling alone in the developing world without a gun or a posse. I not only didn’t speak the languages, but lacked any mathematical ability whatsoever. I knew that I was poor by American standards, but in Laos, I was a millionaire. Trouble lurked ahead when I would try to calculate the cost of a soda or a room. If I was a dollar off, the entire economy would go of whack and incite the Lord of Misrule to make a cameo appearance. Furthermore, I knew this little nature walk through the jungles of darkness and up the river of doubt would prove to be my greatest challenge up to date.
I had three goals:
1. Find a beach in south Vietnam before Chinese New Year (Tet) makes travel impossible.
2. Spend my first days of the Year of the Tiger in the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
3. Make it back to China via her back door in the jungles of southwestern Yunnan province: That is, bus and boat through Cambodia, Thailand, Laos via roads and waterways of the Mekong River Basin.
A Day in the Life of a Fake Teacher in the Real China
24 Jan 2010 Leave a Comment
in Teaching Tags: education, favors, gao kao, journey, private schools
One day I found myself squealing like a pig in front of children. I pushed my nose up, grunted, and oinked. We were playing a simplified version of charades. It was a Sunday afternoon in the bleak of January. And this being China, it was bleaker than bleak. The dean of my university had loaned me out to a private high school as a “favor.”
My latest rendition caught the students’ attention. Girls stopped texting and boys ceased roughhousing long enough to look up and shout “pig!” in unison. I asked the teacher if they’ve played this game before, adding, “They’re very confident.” Either the blood of Shakespeare coursed through my veins or the children were very smart.
I spent the next ten minutes striking curious poses. I shapechanged into a frog, duck, and cow. By some feat of thaumaturgy, I even managed to turn an ordinary seat into a flying bicycle, which I rode around the room. But the archfiend boredom was in the room as well. It stalked the children. One by one they fell prey it. I wondered if I could win their hearts and minds back if I showed them the wonderfullest trick of all – the coffin trick. That is escaping from a coffin after it had been nailed shut.
Happiness is a Vampire
15 Jan 2010 Leave a Comment
in Traveling Tags: business, entrepreneurship, vampires
Every day I discover other worlds so unlike the one I once called home. The possibilities seem boundless. I even fantasize about coming to America to become a Wal Mart door greeter or an assistant manager at McDonald’s. If I work hard for a couple years and save money, then I could return to paradise and buy a home and still have enough left over to start a business.
Sometimes when I hang out with other expats we cannot stop saying, “I can’t believe this,” and we pinch ourselves to see if we are in a dream. It is as if we all had met Morpheus in our pre-expat lives and took the red pill. We tell ourselves this cannot really be happening. We have it too good here. And if China becomes untenable we can always relocate to Vietnam or Thailand or Bali or any other country where good old fashioned pioneer spirit and a liberal arts education are valuable commodities.
Goodbye Year of the Ox
31 Dec 2009 Leave a Comment
Since I only teach three days a week, and spend most of my time studying, reading, blogging and sheltering from the cold, wintry rain it is easy to forget where I am. A quick jaunt about the campus quickly reminds me that I’m not in Pennsylvania anymore.
Just beyond the dingy metropolis, my university was nestled at the feet of a jagged, tent-like mountain, green with bamboo, shrubbery, and leafy sword blade foliage. Students roamed the campus in packs on their way to classes, parties, or speeches. Every day at lunch and dinnertime a campus wide loudspeaker system blares out happy-go-lucky pop music, advertisements and announcements in Chinese as well as English sound bites. Stray dogs – enough to provide a respectable cast for a Disney movie – scampered to and fro on errands with or without some tasty piece of trash held in their mouths. Somebody’s chickens pecked at piles of trash. There was the smell of burning trash in the air, and students sang, and played flutes and erhus . They smiled and practiced their hellos on me.
Perspectives on China
29 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in Traveling Tags: blogs, capitalism, New China
November was nearly over here in the heartland of China. The days alternated between short manic bursts of sunny, blue skies and longer periods of sunless, chilly days full of drizzle and melancholy. It was weather most conducive to studying Mandarin, writing for my own site, and reading other people’s blogs. One of my favorite China blogs was Matt Schiavenza’s A China Journal. The Kunming-based blogger brought my attention to the Folger Shakespeare Library’s podcast on Perspectives on China in which two correspondants and an author discuss their “boots-on-ground” perspective on the rise of New China in an informal panel. The moderator asked them to describe their first impressions, especially ones that immediately overturned any preconceived notions.
As for my 2 fen: I had no clue what I was getting into when I first stepped into the blast furnace of a summer day in southern China. I knew little more than that I was going into a part of the country known only for its honorable mention on Chinese takeout menus across America. Only after doing some homework did I realize that it too was Mao’s home province. It was my second day incountry when my employer drove us from the coastal megacity of Gaungzhou to Chenzhou, a “small” city farther inland in Hunan province.
