My Life Has Changed In 3 Weeks.

SpicyDuck

SpicyDuck

SpicyDuck

Soldato
Joined
10 Dec 2003
Posts
6,348
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.
 
you didn't tell us how/why you made the desicion to go from unemployed nerd, to teaching english in china... (and how you could afford it if you were unemployed... bank of mum and dad perhaps?)


but glad to hear things are working out. :)
 
Last edited:
and the moral of the story is, don't lose your flight tickets - it only causes stress, theeeeeee enddddddddddddddd

good luck with the future
 
00bob00 said:
and the moral of the story is, don't lose your flight tickets - it only causes stress, theeeeeee enddddddddddddddd

good luck with the future
Click to expand...

lol was thinking the same thing.

Good luck with your new life

p.s. don't put milk in the tea in the resturants ;)
 
Hope things go well for you, I used to chat to a Chinese girl most nights I worked. It's a very different culture there, interesting people.
 
Change

From nerd-type-guy, to English teacher in China. How and why.

I dropped out of high school, not because I hated it, but for a reason I still haven't realised to this day. I've always loved learning but I hated high school. Maybe my school just gave me that feeling, but I received plenty of punishments and beatings. But it was all worth it at the time. I really hated it and I didn't want to go.

So, why a teacher? It's simple really. I wanted to prove to myself that I can move out of Liverpool, go to a foreign country and adapt. I wanted to change everything. Absolutely everything, in order to prove that I can make such a massive leap and do the least expected job that anyone who knows me would expect me to do.

And I am.

Fame

I went to a theme park here in this city. It was a pleasant suprise to find looping rollercoasters, twisty rides and such. It's actually quite a good place, and the queues move fast.

It's rainy here lately though and this meant that it was raining, thundering and lightning the whole day. I love thunderstorms. Sitting under a hut with hundreds of Chinese, chatting in bad English and bad Chinese. Many laughs.

Photographers were there at the beginning and, me being white, they decided to follow me around and take pictures. All six of them. To say I felt like a movie star is an understatement. It's crazy. Every Chinese person, no exaggeration, looks at you if you're not Chinese. To them, white people are weird, wonderful, strange and beautiful.

I went on the rapids, and some mediocre rollercoaster. That's all. The next day, I bought the Shenzhen Daily newspaper which sells 12 million copies each day, only to see my mug plastered on the front page. Big.

The article goes on to say me and my friends rode many rollercoasters, we had a great time and that we love China. Not true, but the Chinese are known to lie like that. If a foreigner visits the theme park then... HEY, it must be EXCELLENT!

Chinese Women

Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Not all of them of course, but the majority. Slim, petite, sweet and kind. They look, say hello and they giggle when I reply in Chinese.

Some are innocent and some are dirty. The latter of which I have yet to 'try'. I'm not the kind to look, but the kind to wait 'til it happens. I must admit to dirty thoughts and extreme male will power to hold back, though. It's been 3 months and... I want.

Chinese Clubs

Suprisingly very good. My first night in one club I sat down at a table with an American work colleague and we were chatting when a Chinese woman dressed in a suit came over to sit with us. We chatted in Chinese for a while before some Chinese guys invited us to their table for a drink.

We go there, only for more women to surround the table and keep pouring us more drinks. It was all free, on the house. At one point, a woman leads me to the back of the club and opens the door to a private room. I didn't 'get' what I was expecting, but there were 2 other Chinese girls in there and they wanted me to join them.

It was my birthday celebration though, so I politely declined and said I'll be sitting with my friends if they want to join us. 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.

I also had to learn the Chinese hand signals for numbers. They use one hand so it's all the same up to 5, then there are 5 more hand positions to learn for 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Laguage Barrier

What I want to say here is, thank god I'm a lover of languages and have studied them for several years. Why? Because very few people here speak ANY English. I've had to learn lots of Chinese, even for the most simple of tasks.

I walked into and had a wee wee in a ladies toilet the other day as I forgot which characters mean 'men' and which means 'women'. It was only half-way through the relieving of my bladder that I realised I got it wrong. Thank god no one was in there or came in; that would've been a strange situation.

My 'writing style' is very strange today, sorry for that. I guess that's just how it comes out when telling a story from memory. For me at least.

Even more to come, if anyone's interested to read, and thanks for all the well done'ings.
 
McDaniel said:
Declined a threesome on your birthday eh?

Much respect :)

Glad your enjoying it
Click to expand...

You mean an Awesome Foursome :p

1 girl brings him to a room with 2 girls in it. 1+2=3 then ad him and there is 4 :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom