This morning I walked across the street to the small restaurant where I've been eating breakfast every day since I've been here. I've been going there every day because it's the only place nearby that sells breakfast. There used to be another place but I think they've moved out now that there are no longer any college students in the area to provide them with business. After I finished eating, I went around the corner of the building and onto a side street where one of the other teachers on my hall had told me you could buy vegetables. There were a few people selling vegetables and a guy who was chopping up some meat on a table. Soon after I passed the produce stands I walked by a small brick house with a vegetable garden out front.


I didn't expect to see that style of house, but the street that I came to a little further up the road was even more surprising.


People I've talked to say that Xinyu is a fast-growing city. Slogans on billboards, the city's website, and all the construction going on throughout the area all suggest that they're right. Thus it was strange to find a neighborhood that reminded me so much of the villages my friend Red and I had traveled to last spring when were studying Chinese in Beijing. There are many villages not far from the outskirts of major cities in China, but it was strange to find a sort of mini-village actually in the city and within five minutes walk of where Xinyu University used to be.

After walking around the neighborhood, I took a bus to a park near downtown Xinyu. I walked a loop through the park and as I was coming back to the main entrance I heard Chinese music. It was about three in the afternoon and a large group of retirees had gathered in a little clearing just off the path to play and listen to music. I found out later that they come here every day, set up their mobile amplifiers and play music.

A man playing an erhu approached me and, after he and some other people found out that I could speak Chinese, talked with me for a little while and then invited me to listen to the group of musicians who were playing just on the other side of a small hill. As we were talking, a woman from the group went down the hill to sing a song with the group. When I went over to listen she introduced me to a few of the musicians. There were two guys playing the erhu, one guy played the flute and sometimes sang, another guy provided some percussion with two wooden blocks albeit not always to the beat. And there was one more guy playing an instrument like a banjo but with three strings. I think he was only playing single notes, no strummed chords. There were also two women and two other men who would sometimes sing.


I sat and listened to maybe six or eight songs and then said goodbye.
Tomorrow, I meet Doreen, the head of the English and/or foreign studies department, and possibly the other teachers.

Xinyu

It took me a couple days to get over my cold but I felt pretty good today so I went over to see the new campus where I'll be teaching. Right now, I'm living in the apartments at the old campus but I will be moving to the new one once they finish the apartments there, which should be within a couple months.

This is the apartment building where I'm living right now.


Everyone who lives here teaches at Xinyu University. I've met four or five of the other teachers so far. They're all in their 20's and all very nice. I've been talking quite a bit to a guy named Xiao Yong who lives across the hall and teaches instructional technology at Xinyu. I told him the other day that I want to practice writing Chinese characters and he's offered to let me join him since it's a hobby of his.

This is my apartment, which is too nice. It has a living room.


A bedroom.


And a bathroom. The bathroom is pretty basic. All the Chinese teachers only have one room, a bathroom, and in some cases a roommate.

This is the street just outside the gate to the apartment complex.


This seems to be a pretty typical street in Xinyu. Not too crowded, a few cars, some buses, lots of people on mopeds and scooters, and you can cross the street wherever and whenever you want.

The big shopping district downtown is much more busy, but the rest of the city feels relaxed.


Now, school. The first building you see when you come in through the main gate is the main classroom building.


But I won't be teaching in that building. I'll be teaching in, I think, Liberal Arts Complex C and D.


Every classroom I saw on campus was identical. Some of them, like this one, had pianos in them. I don't know why they were in there but maybe they'll come in handy.


And here's a student dormitory.


Either twelve or seventeen thousand students attend Xinyu University. I can't remember exactly which one it was that Craig told me.

The buildings and the campus are huge. There's still a lot of construction going on including the library. For now, the library's books are housed in the main classroom building. But the campus is like the city. Lots of construction and lots of open space.

I will have my first two classes this Friday, each one for an hour and forty minutes. On Wednesday, I'm going to meet with Doreen, the head of either the foreign studies department or maybe head of the English department, and then get a finalized lesson plan prepared for Friday.

Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and now Xinyu

I've been in China now for a little more than three weeks. I was in Hong Kong first, then Shenzhen, then Guangzhou, and now Xinyu. I can't cover everything from the past three weeks so I'll just be skimming over it.

Hong Kong is a great city. It's beautiful, the food is great, and there are tons of things to do, including some really good hiking on Hong Kong island and on the surrounding islands.

Two days after Zoe flew back to the US, I took the metro from Hong Kong up to the border with mainland China. I crossed into the mainland and stayed in Shenzhen for the next three days, which is just on the other side of the border. Although it was only a small fishing village 30 years ago, Shenzhen is now China's wealthiest city. It's also the greenest (I mean the color, although it may also be China's most environmentally concerned) Chinese city I've ever been to. So it made for pleasant walking. However, except for some bustling clothing and electronics shopping centers, I never felt like there was much going on in the city.












Guangzhou, though, had a lot going on. I took a train from Shenzhen to Guangzhou and stayed there for another three days. Guangzhou has been a major port city for around two thousand years and is the third largest city in China behind Shanghai and Beijing. My first night there I ran into a Korean Chinese guy whose English name is Greg. We went back to the train station to but train tickets and got some dinner afterwords. Later that night, we went to a funny bar near the hostel that was attended almost entirely by a group of people from the Philippines. We stayed for a bit and then went back to the hostel.
The next day I visited a park dedicated as a memorial to the communist Guangzhou Uprising of 1927. The park had some beautiful statues and I was fortunate to have clear skies the day I visited.


















The next day I was not as fortunate. I had planned on seeing various historical sights but had to change my plans due to a steady rain throughout the day. I ended up going to the Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall, which wasn't as interesting as the park I visited on the previous day but it was something to do while I waited out the rain. The rain held off for a few hours that afternoon so I went over to Shamian Island. Foreign, mostly British and French, businessmen lived on Shamian during the 18th and 19th centuries. After the Opium Wars of the 19th century the island was actually handed over to Britain and France but then retaken by the communists in 1949. Many of the old British and French buildings are still there and are now mostly occupied by government offices, cafes, and restaurants.

The next morning I took a train from Guangzhou to Ji'an. In Ji'an, I was picked up by Craig, who works in the English department at Xinyu University, and the driver. We drove back to Xinyu that night and I've been here for almost three days now. So far, Xinyu has been great. Everyone I've met who works at the university is nice. Two of the teachers took me to the supermarket downtown to buy things for my apartment. I also happened to meet a group of Chinese friends who were eating out in a restaurant across the street from my apartment building. One studied art at Xinyu University and the other three studied music. Now all four of them work. We were speaking in Chinese since none of them could speak much English and at one point in our conversation, I thought they were asking me if I liked to sing. I figured they wanted to invite me out to sing karaoke and said sure. Then, last night, one of the girls called me and told me to take a cab to the city exhibition center. They met me outside the doors wearing flashy dresses and with their hair done up. I soon found out that they had not asked me if I wanted to sing but if I wanted to listen to them sing. They were performers in a show of Chinese singers and they had arranged a ticket for me. I watched the performance and then went out to eat and celebrate with them afterwords. The two girls on the left in the bottom right picture are the ones I met. Xu Xiao ("little", a common diminutive) Fang is in the blue dress and Ma Ying Hua is in the red dress.





















And today I think I have a cold. I might go searching for some Chinese medicine. I've seen it do wonders in the past.