Where we live now is the original campus of the Petroleum University . Most of the university was moved out to Changping years ago, but a few of its schools and institutes and whatever stayed here. It’s an odd campus. Once you get behind the Mengxi Hotel...
I forgot to mention in my last post, I’ve decided I want to become a professional misanthrope. I’m not entirely sure yet how I’m going to build a career in professional misanthropy, but I’m going to try my best. And I’m glad Bei Yu finally dropped the...
I have come to a conclusion: The only good people working in Chinese banks are the security guards. So many times I’ve walked into a bank and asked the security guard something like “Can I pay the phone bill/power bill/whatever I need to do here?” and...
From a lesson in Changping: Student: “Where are ’s colonies?” Me: “ Vancouver .” General laughter and nodding in agreement. So this ‘new’ (but it’s actually old) class I have to teach for three more lessons before their course is finished: Well, they...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10397725 "Civilians Israeli targets says Amnesty" "Headlines Yoda writes", says Chris. What kind of sentence structure is that? Object-subject-verb? Never heard of that occuring in English before....
I finally have a timetable. Sort of. I have four three-hour classes, starting from tomorrow. I don’t know what’s happening after that. I’m just finishing off their course, their previous foreign teacher has already left, or so it would seem. Anyway, the...
Monday morning: On the bright side: This is the second straight day of a perfect, bright, blue sky. No clouds, nothing, and visibility like I haven’t seen since I was last in . But otherwise, fuck. I showed up for class at 8 this morning, but instead...
Monday lunchtime: Back in Changping. Fortunately this morning went easy. The students from both classes had stuff they wanted to talk about, so I didn’t need to prepare anything. And actually, I wound up talking far more than I would have had I prepared...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10395870 "Their report included a copy of an email, sent to recyclers, from an agent asking for waste for export to China. "Due to low labour cost, our well trained workers are able to manually...
Monday lunchtime: “Life is what you make of it.” That’s the first thing I wrote on the blackboard today. I asked the students how their weekends were, but only one could answer, and all he told me was that he just did the same old boring shit: Sleep through...
