• Memoir

    Stop Renting White Guys!

    Chengdu made it on VICE on HBO, but not in a good way. When I first moved to the Hibiscus City a teaching company pimped me out to a snake-oil salesman. It was the ultimate gig. Approximately $1,000 for about two hours of work, which amounted to wearing a suit and white lab coat and some shit talk. All I had to do was read from a PPT to a room full of elderly Chinese people. This is when I was my most penniless. Ramen noodles, rent and Renminbi occupied my mind then. Friends invited me to dinner, and passed on second-hand laowai survival gear. Even the local dumpling peddlers…

  • Prologue

    Matt Muller — Smethport’s China Connection

    Smethport resident Matt Muller is off to teach English at a university in Hunan province in south central China. The province is famous for its spicy cuisine and the birthplace of Chinese Communist revolutionary Mao Zedong. The major city there is Chenzhou, home to about 4.5 million people, most of whom live in the surrounding countryside. After learning that he would have to wait at least a year before enrolling in a master’s level physician assistant program, Matt decided to go on yet another international adventure, having already visited many countries in Europe, Africa and South America. This time the target of his wanderlust is Asia; specifically, China. Continued on…