Musings and chronicles on life, work, film, culture, politics, etc.
08 Apr 2013 1 Comment
in expat life, travel Tags: Asia, China
Restoring caves 8 – 12
An hour outside of Datong are the Yungang Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After seeing the Longmen Caves in Henan and seeing something on television about these caves being similar but still showing their original pigments, I thought I’d check them out during our Tomb Sweeping holiday.
29 Mar 2013 1 Comment
in China, expat life, opinion Tags: Asia, China, Cleaning, Domestic worker, Housekeeper, housekeeping, overcharging
I like to think that there’s nothing but goodwill flowing about campus, but sometimes you learn something and realize that’s not quite the case.
For over a semester, one of the teachers has had a housekeeper clean his apartment once a week. The office that helps foreign teachers put him in contact with a woman who has her sister clean while she manages the company. (A Cinderella tale, perhaps?) He pays 150 rmb for two hours. That’s roughly 24 dollars. Quite a bargain!
Wrong.
I mentioned this agreement with a friend who’s been in China quite a long time. She told me the going rate is 15 an hour. Whoa! That’s quite a difference.
I’ve looked into this and it’s true. A Chinese friend found out it’s 15 a hour. I think a lot of us will have cleaner floors at least. (The floors here get incredibly dusty.)
I don’t feel good that the other teacher and now the guy he referred to use the first service are so overcharged. Our apartments are spartan. There’s nothing complicated in cleaning them.
22 Feb 2013 1 Comment
in architecture, expat life, travel Tags: Asia, Buddhism, Cambodia, palace, Phnom Penh, Royal Palace, temples, travel
Above are some of the sights I took in along the way.
18 Jan 2013 31 Comments
in architecture, Blogging Challenge, culture, expat life Tags: Asia, book store, books, Buddhism, China, church, Daily Post, Francine Fournier, Friday, Malaysia, New Orleans, NOLA, Photograph, photos, postaday2013, postaweek2013, Suzhou, Thailand, USA, weeklyphotochallenge2013, White Temple in Chiang Rai
White Temple inspires me to look beyond the ordinary
Books transport us beyond the here & now
Here’s how it works:
1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.
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12 Jan 2013 15 Comments
in architecture, Blogging Challenge, meme, travel, Weekly Photo Challenge Tags: Asia, Beijing, Chiang Mai, China, Francine Fournier, holy, North America, Photograph, spiritual, temples, Thailand, USA
Beijing
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Here’s how it works:
1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.
2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use a “postaday2012″ or “postaweek2012″ tag.
3. Subscribe to The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.
16 Oct 2012 Leave a Comment
in Reblogged Tags: Asia, Japan, photo
11 Oct 2012 2 Comments
in expat life, travel Tags: accommodations, Asia, Bates Motel, China, expat life, Henan, Kaifeng, problems, Shandong, travail, travel
After so much tumult trying to get train tickets, we finally got some. We thought we were on an overnight train since that’s the only trains I asked for. Nope. We were given fast train tickets, which we didn’t realize till we were on the train.
The problem was we didn’t have hotel reservations for Tuesday night. Mind you, it’s a busy travel time. We arrived in dusty Kaifeng at 11 pm. I hate arriving in a city late at night, especially one I don’t know. In Jinan there are some okay looking hotels right by the station, but not in Kaifeng.
Henan is the second poorest province in China and it lags behind my province Shandong in terms of amenities, modern architecture and infrastructure. So there’s one decrepit looking hotel nearby looking like the Chinese version of the Bates Motel. We decide to get to our hotel and hope they have a room. We aren’t thrilled at the prospect of spending who knows how much.
We get to the Tokyo Arts Hotel, which K’s friend recommended. My, it’s upscale and grandiose. Once inside we explain our plight hoping for the best. It turns out that they don’t have any rooms left. Moreover, they doubt anyone has one since it’s a holiday.
All is not lost as the English speaking receptionist spoke with the manager of the adjoining Japanese style spa. We could stay there! For only 49 rmb each (compare to 488 rmb/night for the room we booked).
I’d stayed overnight in such public baths in Japan. They weren’t bad. You donned the cotton cabana sets they provide and sleep on a comfy Lazy Boy chair with 70 other people. It’s a very Asian thing.
After we surrendered our shoes for plastic slippers, he manager led us to the locker room. We changed clothes and were then led through a corridor, into an elevator, down some stairs, through another corridor, up some stairs and around until we were in the VIP section. Eventually, we got to our room. Not one of the big rooms with dozens of people, but a small hotel-like room with a TV and two Lazy Boys. Now the restroom was down the hall and the showers back by the locker rooms, but this was quite nice.
We both slept easily, in fact this was the best night’s sleep I had the whole time I was gone.
30 Aug 2012 2 Comments
in expat life, Teaching EFL, welcome to my life Tags: Asia, Cell Phones, changes, China, Colleges and Universities, education, EFL, power, shock, society, Telephone, transferable skills
I had my first power struggle of the year in class today. I don’t recall any problems like this last year and they’re rare in China. I’ve got a new class and another class with students I’ve taught before. The new class has a lot of willing students of varying levels and a few who lean towards incorrigible. Four were absent the first couple days which is unusual for China. Truants tend to show up the first week and then occasionally if there’s a speech they must give or a test to, in their case fail. It puzzles me that they bother, but they do.
After I asked the administrators to see if these students had transferred out, the four appeared, no doubt unwillingly. I almost wish I hadn’t said anything. They act like middle school troublemakers, which I suppose isn’t as bad as acting like high school rebels. These boys giggle and poke each other when they aren’t playing with their phones. While some students were giving speeches I saw some kids playing with cell phones so I confiscated them promising to return them at the end of the class. I hoped to nip this problem in the bud.
During the break, the boy whose phone I had took his back. When class resumed I asked the students where the phone was. No one said anything. Eventually one boy said it was his phone and he wouldn’t use it. I told him he needed to put the phone back on my podium. Defiant, he refused. He was really quite a jerk about it.
I don’t believe in losing my cool, but I also didn’t want to cave in setting a bad precedent for the semester. I repeated my directions to place the phone back on the podium and said he’d have it at the end of class. He refused. Then I said unless the phone was forfeited, the end of the week video would not be shown and we would do work in the book instead.
That worked as his classmates urged him to forfeit the phone. My training as an elementary teacher again pays off as I teach in a Chinese university.
My first group of students who graduated last year has said that the “younger” generation is more selfish and rebellious. It seems like I got a taste of that today. I don’t think this group will be easy. I hope I’m wrong.
06 Jul 2012 2 Comments
in art, Chicago, China Tags: art, Asia, Botanical garden, travel, Travel and Tourism
Ancient bowl, Shandong Province, PRC
Graffiti, Jinan 2012
Art Institute of Chicago, modern, 2011
Colonial Art, Santa Fe, NM
I could include hundreds of art from my travels. Art is one of the joys of travel, if you ask me. Here’s a wide range of what I’ve seen.
Where’s My Backpack? blog had a post that inspired me to use the same concept.
28 May 2012 2 Comments
in culture, expat life Tags: Asia, China, Closed-circuit television, Light-emitting diode
Somebody’s watching us
In China I often don’t even ask our handlers or students questions. It’s not like we get that many clear cut answers. So when they installed two security cameras with very eerie red LED lights, I didn’t as the school why. I guess they’d say the cameras and the motion detectors positioned by our doors were for our security. Yet I’m too skeptical to buy that. Isn’t everyone’s security important? Why aren’t there cameras by the other residences?
We also have sound detectors in our classrooms.
My big question is “Why?” “Why now?”
Some speculate it’s based on a case in Beijing when a British man allegedly attacked a Chinese woman. I don’t know much about that story, but there’s a good article on the BBC on the love/hate relationship China has with foreigners. The American French Fry Brother exemplifies the love and this attack the hate.
That is horrible that the woman was attacked, but would nationwide surveillance result?
It’s very weird walking by those lights.
smkelly8