JISHOU, HUNAN — So, I’m staying another year here. As it was last year, the decision was an easy one to make.

Logically speaking, it doesn’t make too much sense. Jishou is a small city, with few (Western-style) amenities. It takes at least two hours to get to the nearest airport. And Jishou University is an also-ran in the rankings of China’s institutions of higher learning.

My friends in bigger cities in China have encouraged me to look elsewhere for teaching jobs in China. One said, “The pay will be better, and the students will be more excellent.”

Yes, and no.

No question about the pay. If I moved to Beijing, or even Changsha, I could probably double my pay pretty easily. Of course, my expenses would also increase, and I’d have the hassles of dealing with big-city life. (Changsha has 5 million people. Beijing has 22 million, making NYC look like a small town.) Big cities have higher costs of living, so it’s questionable whether moving would increase my net income to make moving worth it.

I’ve lived in small cities for the last 32 years, two that were minuscule (60,000 population each), one just a bit bigger than Jishou (800,000) and another of 2.3 million. While it is generally true that living in a small community means a small salary, the trade-offs compensate for the comparative lack of dollars, or yuan.

July 19th, 2010 | Tags: China, ESL, ex-pat life, jishou, Teaching | Category: China, Commentary, Teaching, Teaching English | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — Recently, we’ve had a lot of rain here, which is typical for this time of the year. When it rains heavily, some parts of campus get flooded. It happened once last year, and twice this year (so far).

Basically, the storm drains can’t seem to handle the runoff, and the area around the dorms and the stadium ends up with knee-deep water. Someone took a video of the flooding last week, and uploaded it to www.youku.com, one of China’s answers to Youtube.

The title, “吉首大学校园再次被淹” (Jishou Daxue Xiao Yuan Zai Ci Bei Yan), means “Jishou University Campus Flooded Once Again.” You can see the street between the stadium and the dorms, where a bus is parked, the greens near the dorms, people walking along the sidewalks, some stores, and workers setting up temporary “bridges” so the students can get out of their dorms to go eat or take their exams.

My dorm is on the top of a hill, so we send all our rainwater down to the student dorms. So thoughtful we are.

Incidentally, Youku is one of the best sites to watch TV and movies online. There are English language movies, too. If you visit that link, the quick navigation menu is along the top of the page. This is the link for TV: 电视剧; and this is for movies: 电影.

July 14th, 2010 | Tags: China, flood, jishou, life, video | Category: China | Comments (1)

JISHOU, HUNAN — “Drill, baby, drill” is not just a slogan for Sarah Palin’s energy policy. Unfortunately, it’s also an apt description for what I have to listen to morning, noon and night when I am home.

The university is running out of dormitory spaces, so last month the uni tore down an unused water treatment plant and started construction of a new dorm, right down the hill from my humble abode. The project has included drilling and jackhammering though the limestone for the foundations and underground whatnot. Constantly. It starts around 6:30 am and, except for meal breaks, continues all frakking day until about 11:30 at night.

It’s like having Con Edison outside your apartment almost 24-7. (Sorry, that’s a New York reference, but substitute your local utility company — “dig we must” — if it makes you happier.)

The jackhammers stopped about 10 days ago, thank the stars. Now we just have to listen to two of these impact drills banging away all day.

I’ve been watching the construction as it progresses. Considering rate at which they are working, I am guessing that the uni wants this new dorm finished and ready to be used before the fall term starts in September. So far, the crew has built three retaining wall from concrete, mortar and chunks of limestone wrested from the hillside, and chiseled out the trenches for the foundation walls.

April 26th, 2010 | Tags: China, construction, jishou | Category: China, Teaching English | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — So, here I was back in China, after three weeks in the USA, and it seemed like I was stranded in Shanghai. (Or shanghaied.)

When I left China, I was pretty sure my flight to Changsha was just a few hours after my arrival in Pudong Airport. No shuttle bus trips, no worries. But I had no idea what flight I would take, since my foreign affairs officer had worked out the details.

So, as soon as I disembarked from United 835, I connected to China Mobile and sent him a message: “When is my flight?” His reply: “Bad news, it’s been canceled” Turns out I had to go to Shanghai Hongqiao Airport after all to catch a different flight. No biggie, I thought, Another 30 RMB bus fare with plenty of time to catch the domestic flight.

Puh-lenty of time.

Due to stormy weather around Changsha, my flight was delayed not one, not two, but five freaking hours! My 9 pm flight from Hongqiao Airport eventually left at 3 am!

At one point, I fell completely asleep across four chairs, only to wake scared shitless I had missed my flight. I hadn’t. There were still two hours to go.

I had booked a hotel in Changsha and told my friend F. to expect me around dinnertime. Instead, I sent her a message to say I had no idea when I would arrive. She (bless her heart) paid the hotel in advance so I would have definitely have place to sleep once I arrived.

March 8th, 2010 | Tags: air travel, China, jishou, New Year's, Spring Festival, travel | Category: China | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — You know the old saw, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait an hour?” Well, it’s true here, too.

At 3 pm, there was a light cloud cover and 86 degrees F. At dinner, one of my friends got a call from her boyfriend in Changsha, who told her the temperature had plummeted to the 60′s, it was raining, and a northerly wind was blowing hard. (The gusty wind also locked him out of his home: the wind slammed the door against the wall, pushing in the lock button, then slammed it shut … while he was outside and his keys inside.)

Sure enough, by the time we finished dinner at Will Long Cake (they do serve more than cake there; it’s like a Dairy Queen Brazier, but not as greasy), it was cold, gusty and starting to rain. Right now (10:30) it is pouring outside, and I just turned on the heater.

Of course, I shouldn’t complain. The Philippines just got clobbered again by another typhoon, the third in the last five weeks.

October 31st, 2009 | Tags: changeable, China, jishou, weather | Category: China, General stuff | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — It was only a matter of time before swine flu would penetrate into the Chinese heartland. Within a week of classes starting at the university, a student was diagnosed with H1N1.

Then another a day later. According to some (unverified) reports, perhaps eight more students may be infected as well.

Jishou University has four campuses. The first student diagnosed with H1N1 lives at the old campus, near downtown. The second lives here at the new campus. Their roommates are being monitored as we speak.
I haven’t heard any bad news from the other two campuses, medical and foreign languages.

Our students have had the fear of God (or something like it, since China is officially atheist) put into them at meetings earlier this week. Wash your hands. Cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze or cough. Throw your tissues away immediately. Don’t touch your eyes, nose or mouth. If you feel ill or feverish, go directly to the school clinic, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

My foreign affairs officer, Cyril Hu, called me to his office this morning to give me an oral thermometer (A mercury one! The USA has all but abolished those.) and two sheets of instructions (in Chinese!?) about what precautions to take against the swine flu.

Meanwhile, rumors and fears are bubbling through the student community. One girl texted me to say there were “several” people down with the flu. Another student on QQ told me she had heard the uni would ban any travel during the upcoming eight-day National Holiday break. Both rumors proved to be false.

September 9th, 2009 | Tags: China, H1N1, jishou, swine flu | Category: China, Commentary, Teaching | Leave a comment