When it rains, it pours.

While the first two weeks in Haining were a memorable and unique experience, the transition to my second teaching placement in Xuzhou is a mix of relief, concern and boredom.

My first impressions of the city are almost just what I was expecting with some interesting surprises. For example, I anticipated that the air quality would be atrocious (due in part to the large amount of coal powered industries within the greater area), and I was not mistaken. Walking around for more than twenty minutes outside is similar to smoking a cigarette, albeit without the light-headedness and eventual desire for another drag. If anything, it makes you want to close the windows, lock the doors and put the air conditioning on full blast, which only adds to the coal powered electricity usage. Catch-22?

However, contrary to what I expected, the school is located smack dab in the middle of the city center, and with a population of over 9 million people, there is a lot to take in. Our school is on the 3rd and 4th loor of a 8 story building complex, which conviently includes a Carrefour (French equivalent of a Walmart), a parking garage, food court (delicious but a little overpriced), shopping malls with every kind of designer brand, a real estate office, and as I recently learned, an advertisement company, which is throwing a "hong jiu hui" or "red wine party" tonight and invited me as a foreigner that could speak english. Unfortunately I have class from 7-930 pm...

While I am staying in a decent miniturize hotel room, the two other American teachers have an apartment on the 30th floor (known as the "King floor") which overlooks the entire city. Both set-ups (and this is the relief part) have TVs, AC, sit down toilets (hallelujah!) and somewhat soft beds (meaning a hard, hard mattress). Surrounding the city center is a plethora of Adidas, Nike, Puma, and other western brand companies cashing in on the relatively quick rise of income brackets within the city. The general feeling here seems to be: escape the dirty outdoors and seek refuge in the consumer underground.

Teaching here is a much better situation, yet we are still essentially on our own. In place of the teaching assistants that translated when english wasn't enough, we have British based text books, that are so boring I can't in good faith follow a lesson plan completely. The students here are highly motivated and the facilities make teaching easier. That being said, I went into my first advanced oral class having no idea what lessons and levels they were at, which meant the first hour was spent feeling out the classroom. However, by the second hour, I took a chance and really got to see them shine, dividing the class into two competing debate teams focusing on the topic of domestic chinese goods. I was really impressed at their logic forming abilities (in English) and their level of vocabulary. They are, after all, college age students.

Yesterday was my day off, but because of the pouring rain I was confined, like every other day, to this office with my computer and limitted internet access. I did manage to get to the gym (after getting completely soaked in the "5 minute walk), but as usual found the facilities to be lacking in boxing equipment (although guranteed otherwise). Such is China though, nothing is certain and everything is negotiable. The trick is reading in between the lines, and in the process weighing pessimism with optimism.

Aside from describing the precipitation of Xuzhou, the phrase "when it rains, it pours" could not be more appropriate for the current climate I'm in. Some days, the boredom is overwhelming and you wish for a task or goal to keep you busy. Other days, there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to prepare a lesson, let alone keep in contact with the 15 to 20 plus emails that innundate my inbox. I guess I have to learn to balance the two, and in keeping with the daoist tradition of this country, find a middle path.