My Life Has Changed In 3 Weeks.

Glad you are enjoying it, sounds like you had a real "feel the fear then do it anyway" moment as well.

China is a great place, If you can get to the Forbidden Palace and Tiananmen Square.

Supermarkets are interesting, you can buy things like tinned gunieapig and pickled scorpions, well worth a look :p

And haggle for everything!

Good Luck n Have Fun!
 
That's really impressive. I've got a friend who's doing a gap year doing exactly the same thing as you. I'd definitely love to spend some time in China. How long are you planning on staying?

Can I ask how much Chinese you knew beforehand - I take it you went to classes?
 
I'm so jealous of you right now :(

Even though I'll be moving there myself in a couple of years.

I suggest going to the summer palace if you can.
Absoloutley gorgeous place. Even better if you go when its about 40 degrees like I did :p
 
for a self styled bum you have become an inspiration! its not something i think i would have done, so well done.

Keep up the news reporting I have bookmarked your blog.
:D
 
How did you get this job? How did it come about that you're now a teacher in China? Is it one of these programs that foreign governments are using now to employ English speaking people to go over and teach? I looked into it in japan... tell me more! Im interested!
 
OvertoneBliss said:
Do you care? I don't care if you care, or if you care that I don't care.

3 weeks ago, I was 21 years old, jobless, stuck in a rut, pretty miserable with how 'life' had turned out, and I hated it. Staying awake 'til silly hours in the morning, waking up, eating and wasting my time watching movies or surfing the internet.

Don't get me wrong, I still spend a good deal on the 'net/watching movies, but I used to waste away all my extra hours on here. And that’s wrong.

Now I work with 15 other people from America, Canada, Australia, Jamaica and the Philippines. I teach English at a Chinese public school to students in the age range of 6 to 12 years old. Four classes per day, each of which is 40 minutes in length.

My first two classes were yesterday and I never thought I'd say it, but I kind of like teaching. Especially when I had one little girl who was so intelligent, sweet and nice; I guess she kind of represents the 'ideal' student. Young boys are evil, horrible creatures.

All this very nearly never happened. The journey here was absolutely horrible; I had trouble after trouble regarding baggage allowance, plane transfer, lost tickets and then the ferry transfer.

One eight hour flight to Doha, Qatar, lost my tickets, 5 hour wait, 8 hour flight to Hong Kong, ferry transfer was difficult because I lost my tickets earlier, 2 hour wait, 30 minute ferry ride...

As soon as I arrived at Hong Kong, I was going to give up. I sat down and stared into the distance at the direction of the travel agent inside the airport. I very nearly booked a return ticket home and forgot about the whole thing, wasting £2,000.

I never though. I just took a deep breath, stood up and carried on through to the ferry terminal. I had to carry my laptop case, my backpack AND my suitcase, as I lost my flight tickets and a baggage transfer was not possible.

The moment I stepped foot into China, past immigration, and met my boss, the whole pressure of travelling just disappeared. I sat, no; I lay down on the bench in the Ferry terminal and just started laughing my ass off. 36 hours, and no sleep. I took a cigarette from my pocket, sparked it up, and took a drag so big that my hand nearly turned to ash, as well.

More to come. I'll tell you how my picture ended up on the front page of a newspaper that sells 12 million copies per day, about the 'fame', and other funny stuff that will just blow your mind.

Life in China is interesting, to say the least. Culture shock is starting to wave in now, though.
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Good for you dude.
I have a friend who has just come back from amost 4 years teaching english in chinese schools.
You'll find the 'cultural attitude' very very different, by all accounts: 'if it works then it's good enough' & 'the chinese way is the only way'.

He enjoyed it very much but after 4 years got fed up with being treated like a noob foreigner by most of the locals, despite speaking quite good chinese - ie understanding when the locals were trying to pull a fast one and thinking he couldn't understand chinese etc. And constantly having some of the more parochial people 'staring at the whiteman' lol.
I think on the whole he liked it; having lived in nanjing and shanghi and a couple of other places. There's quite a flourishing expat night life in shanghi where he used to play in a couple of bands.
In his own words: "It's a good place to go, but the culture and toilet facilities are so very different to anything you're likely to encounter in the west."
Advice? Try and steer clear of the local fuzz as they can be very different to our chaps in blue here, supprise supprise.
And three 'T's' not to mention in polite conversation:
Tianamen Square
Tibbet
Taiwan
Good things: cheap food, cheap everything- DVD's etc uber cheap booze too. Be sure to try a local rice based spirit called Byjo (or similar) and let us know what you think ;)
 
OvertoneBliss said:
I learnt how to play a Chinese drinking game which involves each player having a cup and 5 dice. I won't explain it, though. The only way I could learn was to watch, although it's really simple.
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Its more complex than advanced physics when youre trying to learn it after a bottle of tequila.
 
good on ya for taking the huge step

but how did you go about geting a job there?
you say you dropped out of high school so have you got any teaching qualifications or what? im only asking this in a fact finding way :)

hope your dreams come true there.
 
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