What?! Other foreigners?!

Taking the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course out here in Hefei (合肥) has been more informative for finding neighbors than teaching so far. Claire and I met four other Wuxi folks, all our age, all living within half an hour of my neighborhood. One of the guys is British and lives in Binhu, a district a bit further south toward the lake. The only other girl lives right near the bar street on the southern end of downtown Wuxi, not too far from Claire. I live in Xishan (锡山), east of the city center. Two of the other people, also both guys, live in Dongting (东亭), which is a smaller part of the larger district. They’re probably a five minute bus or cab ride away from my school, which means I actually know non-Dipont foreigners in my district. For the longest time I thought the only foreigners were the Dipont folks and I’m very excited to know that other native English speakers exist on my end of town.

So far they don’t know much Chinese and have asked me to investigate whether an appliance in their kitchen is actually an oven, with the caveat that I don’t blow up their apartment. I mean, I’ll try not to, but with everything in Chinese, I feel like I’ve come close to blowing up my washing machine a couple times (it just kept running cycles – I waited for like 2 hours while it washed and re-washed and re-washed my clothes). Just kidding…about blowing things up, anyway. 

 

 The hotel room I share with Claire at the university guesthouse:

On a more serious note, everywhere I go, I’m faced with some of the extreme educational differences between the United States and China. Students start military training quite young – I’ve seen some as young as 10 or 11 – and continue through at least their freshman year of college. All students are required to participate, and of course some hate it and don’t try very hard while others enjoy it like a normal PE class. The government has its own reasons for doing this, but I have to say it’s very disconcerting to walk around my campus as a teacher and see children in military uniforms. I understand the logic behind the training; China and the United States often have surprisingly similar ideas of war, especially at the root of the ideologies of each country. That said, logic doesn’t factor in much when I see a girl with a pink messenger bag and pigtails in fatigues.  

Military training at China's University of Science and Technology in Hefei (Anhui province): 

Also, I'm sorry I don't have very many pictures. We have been extremely busy, often spending 7 hours a day or more in our TEFL class (not including homework), and I just haven't found the time to think about much else.