Uberche

Damn, sorry to hear but stay strong. Sooner or later all governments fall.. Hope they leave you alone.

Well I was hired once to a foriegner in a bar, basically I went there, drank for free and talked to anyone who came in. It was suppose to maket he bar look good and they wanted me to start some "foreigner" nights to bring in my clientele. Was pretty good. I was also hired to pretend to a businessman at a meeting, went, sat at the meeting, sad nothing and was paid. I've had quite a few offers like that, though not as many as there used to be. I did the businessman thing once but refused since as it just seemed way to shady and weird, but I know lots of people who do it.

I jumped in head first, I don't suggest this, a CELTA is a good first step, but mostly you need to learn how to be entertaining and educational at the same time, i"m lucky as it turns out I'm good at it so I am well loved but I know a lot of teachers who jump in and hit bottom.

The schools are just for profit corporations, they will do anything they can to try and screw you out of money or get as much out of you as they can. The contracts mean very little and as a foreign teacher in China you have little to no real protection. I don't like lying greedy assholes, so I hate the schools. My last one was pretty good though, they just left me alone to do my thing and they did their thing. This one has been less good.

By spitting I mean exactly that. It's VERY common in China for people to spit everywhere, Hospitals tend to have no spitting signs because they need them. A lot of the people are migrant workers so they have no education and live in the countryside and don't know the dangers of spitting on everything, in fact most believe that not spitting is unhealthy as you don't get the pollution out of your body. Though the spitting isnt' the worst of it, the hoooowwwack sound they make before hand is. That said most educated people in large cities don't do this anymore, it's the poor and uneducated.

I have no real culture shock anymore as I've been here 10 years, it was pretty crazy when I first arrived though, My first day in China I was taken to a Chinese party (not for me) and dumped into a group of Chinese who didn't speak English, insisted I drink heavily, didn't understand I didn't eat meat so kept trying to push meat onto my plate and drank very very heavily in case I missed that. It was a good introduction really.

I get more culture shock when going home now. Going into a grocery store back home is insane, it's so neat and tidy and everythign looks PERFECT, every mushroom is exactly teh same... it's creepy actually...

Not sure what you mean by ROC, everyone knows there is only one China... ;)

Oh! Forgot Face: Face is the single worst concept in the history of concepts. Well, OK, maybe not that bad, but it's up there. I hate it with every single cell of my body and it has made my life and job almost impossible at times. Students wont speak English because they'll lose face, anytime I'm having fun and doing something stupid, I'm losing face and people will scold me. I hate face. Honestly, It hink it's probably also going to be the cause of any war that breaks out in Asia... Hopefully there wont be one, but if there is, I would bet face will be the root cause of it.

Staring, lauging, comments, insults, offers of sex, offers of marriage, hatred, violence. Many different ways. Mostly staring though.

Mint Chocolate Chip. God damn do I love Mint Chocolate Chip. No where in China had it till I moved to Beijing and saw Cold Stone Creamery was here, Such a happy happy day.