Some of you may have known that the BBC ran a special 'questiontime' in Shanghai with representatives from China's government whichincluded controversial topics about Taiwan etc.
I read about this from various sources. Notably the China Daily(offial, english language, state run media) commends how open thecountry is becoming about these issues and western media accessingthem. I find this very amusing, as the show was not shown in China,and the BBC is blocked in China, in all but the expensive hotels (orrich who have satellite TV). So its a great example of many things Ihave highlighted about China (controlling media, being open to somepeople but not to others, pretending so much) -I wonder if thechinese version of the paper mentioned the show at all?[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/12/content_424237.htm]
So what's news with me? Last week I taught 4 evenings out of 6. Ipromptly then quite the company that provided 3 of them due to:
-kids being too young
-pointless teaching them English
-kids being uncontrollable in English (my chinese is bad)
-any serious attempt for me to teach them would require seriouspreparation and thought into designing games, communicating somehowand so on.
-travel time being around 30 minutes each time....based on all this, I am not being paid enought for it to beworthwhile at all. Anyway, the other job is great; kids are 8 yearsold, speak some english, I have a textbook to use, and its evenbased in a classroom. I'll continue to look for other opportunities!
I met an english girl at a party (dont see many of them around!),and she had taught english for her gap year (pre-uni) in a ruralpart of China, been proposed to by a chinese student of hers (whowas only a year younger) -the proposal was the same as 'asking outfor a date' as they hadn't been on a date yet, she accepted; wentback to uni, quit after 1 semester to start Uni in China instead,and now hopes he can get into Uni Beijing. wow, the things Love willdo (did she really know she would love him, having just taught/beena friend with him for a few months?). apparently her parents gotengaged after knowing each other for 10 days, so it must be a familything. Although she also said that every year at least 1 girl getsengaged, from the group that go to teach overseas through ProjectTrust (the ngo that she went with), and some even come backpregnant. YIKES!
Anyway, the fiancee is from one of the most remote, poorest placesin China (1 of the 100s of millions of chinese who have never lefttheir province, live in a 2 room hut with a fire..); so I am veryinterested as to how their relationship works (cultural differencesetc, although she speaks fluent chinese). I mention this due tosmall-scale past experience with Katy, but also from a couple ofother friends who have dated Turkish guys and others who have datedChinese guys and so on.
She's a nice girl, and I might help her and a friend start a newcharity on campus here to raise money from the (rich) foreigners tosend to help poor people with their education/health etc. She wantsto make it a national movement across all Unis here...nice idea :)
Other news is, and I could go on about this for a loooong time, I amabout ready to kill one of the girls in class; too many irrelevantquestions, too much talking, too bad a dress sense, too critical,grrr. Anyway, a bunch of us students met after class informally, andalso at dinner, to vent our feelings! Felt SOO good! enough of thatthough! the rest of the class are pretty cool; an american who wantsto get drunk (and get the teacher drunk too) in class -just becausehe thinks he can. He isn't here for the studying obviously! Also metsome Andorran who studied in UK and enjoys doing acid in theevenings and a french girl who got arrested last time she was inChina for almost killing a chinese man (who had been stalking her)with her high-heels!
so you meet all kinds here!!
did i mention how weird it is that China is talking about this 'anti-seccession' law with Taiwan and talking about reunification; yetclaims the country is already unified? Bizarrely claims Taiwan as aprovince yet classes its students here as 'international'...the listgoes on. Anyway, for those of you out there interested, the bestarticle i read yet was how this law will be a bad thing for China,because it will allow Taiwan to just look for loopholes in it and dothings that are 'according to the law', whilst going against thespirit of it (if there is no law, then anything against the idea canbe criticised). Also keep a look out for the development in the nextfew months of the EU arms laws being officialy relaxed to China, theconflicts this is causing with the US and so on. Taiwan shouldbecome a bigger issue in the western press I think. Long-run, lookout for signs that US-China cooperation is turning into US-Chinacompetition. From what I have read, the signs are all there forexplicit military and economic competition within the next 5 years.
Lets just hope its not another Cold War (I know noone has mentionedthis much in the press, but...) -I sincerely hope not!
Enjoy your Saturday night, wish England well :)
Adam
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