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After you have signed your first contract to teach ESL in China, you have to start thinking about what you are going to bring with you to China. Packing for your trip to China may seem overwhelming especially when you know that you will be living in China for at least a year. So what [...]
I do not remember paying for anything during my first month of teaching in China. Whether I was eating dinner, playing badminton, singing at KTV, or watching a movie at the local theater, one of my Chinese friends would always ‘pick up the tab.’ If I started to pull money out of my wallet, my [...]
“Two American men were deported for sleeping with too many girls,” a foreign friend reported to me sometime ago. “They gave a number of girls hope about marriage and traveling to America and the girls willingly gave themselves to the guys.” My friend was a teacher in a small town in Central China were news [...]
“How much money should I take with me to China?” is a common question that I receive when I am working with prospective teachers. Of course, the answer to this question really depends on the person. People who are high maintenance, like to party, and go on buying sprees are naturally going to spend the most money in [...]
The title of this article is a little misleading. I know that you are going to talk about politics in China. Every foreign teacher does; it’s inevitable. Your students will want to talk about politics during social talk. Your friends will want to talk about politics at dinner. You can talk about politics; it is [...]
Do you have blonde hair, blue eyes, and very light skin? Congratulations. You have just earned yourself a minimum of 1 million stares while you are teaching in China. You will be stared at on the street, in the bus, at the bank, in the restaurant, at the train station and wherever else you go. [...]
I was fortunate enough to have had an ancient wall within walking distance of my apartment during my first year of teaching in China. There were also numerous temples, museums, and ancient structures within striking distance. Since the area that I lived in was once a major part of the ancient Three Kingdoms, walking through my town was [...]
I have always drawn the line with dog. Even though my Chinese friends tell me that cooked dog in China is of the wild variety, I just cannot bring myself to partake of it. I always politely refuse. But that does not mean that I have not eaten some other very strange foods in China. Sometimes, you just [...]
“Wai guo gui zi! Wai guo gui zi!” (Foreign ghost! Foreign ghost!) I heard this term again recently while I was visiting a small town in the countryside of China. The nickname didn’t bother me. My English name is certainly not an easy one to pronounce so I wasn’t surprised that people found other ways [...]
I’m a little spoiled. I found that out today when I was looking for apartments. Everywhere else I’ve ever taught, there was acommodation waiting for me when I arrived to start the job. This time, I took a job with a higher salary but with the task of finding and renting an apartment set squarely [...]
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