[Lifted from Dave's ESL Cafe. Non-italicized, non-indented comments by me.]
So, you’re thinking of coming here to teach. Know this advance. 1) With some rare exceptions, your salary at 90% of schools will be no more that $500 US dollars a month, if that. Many schools pay far less than this. China is a poor country. Your accomodation is likely to be on par with what the Chinese themselves would have – a real shocker, by any standards.
This …
中国人，我求你们–不要买彩色隐形眼镜！！！你看这个照片。好看吗？当然不好看！好看个屁！我觉得亚洲人染头发偶尔会好看。但彩色隐形眼镜呢？不可能！我还是觉得自然的颜色最好看。
有时候中国人会问我：“为什么你没有蓝眼睛？”好象他们以为因为我的头发是黄色（其实也不是黄色…），我的眼睛也应该是蓝色。但我这样是天生的。我才不要 蓝眼睛！棕色最好看，给你一种温柔的感觉。蓝眼睛好看是好看，但给你一种冷清的感觉！中国人应该很高兴他们都有天然的最好看的颜色眼睛。反正我很高兴我有 棕色眼睛。
我也 染过头发，但我还是觉得天然的颜色好。（人家也这么说。）…
Man, lately I’ve been bad about responding to any e-mails, writing in my blog, and reading anyone’s blog. I also have tons of pictures from Yunnan that I want to get online. (Despite my whining, I actually took a lot of pictures, and a lot of them are decent.) But the school semester starts Monday, and my new job as ZUCC foreign teacher liaison has already begun. I’ve been running around today doing stuff for that, and I’m going …
Ray posted a nice long comment to my last entry. Unfortunately, Haloscan seems to have lost it. [Update: the "lost" comments are back.] One thing he touched on, though, was “that big dork Dashan.” Dashan is pretty much completely unknown outside of China, but almost universally known within China. This man has become a real nuisance to students of Chinese everywhere.
Dashan is a big white Canadian. The thing is, he speaks Mandarin Chinese perfectly. I mean really, really well. …
It’s been said before, by different people, in various ways, from multiple angles. but it’s such an inseparable part of the expat experience here that I thought I’d share again. So, from behind the Great Firewall of China without further ado, the words of Sam:
I should note that laowai is Chinese for ‘foreigner’ and heard several hundred times a day in various tones: respectful – I understand it is meant to be a respectful term; amazed – …
我回来杭州了。旅行真有意思，很丰富一个人的生活，但我觉得这次也让我很累。回“家”的感觉蛮好。我受够了云南的网吧，现在可以愉快地在家里上网。啊～！
我发现了昆明的书店很不错！本来我不想在旅游当中买书因为书特别重，但我忍不住买6本新的书！我刚买的书包含：新闻汉语导读，Get a Grip on 哲学，和茅盾小说选。（不告诉你另外3本的名称，免得你们以为我是个非常无聊的人！）我特别喜欢茅盾的故事！现在最喜欢的是《创造》。精彩，精彩。我要承认，茅盾小说选是英汉对照版。我看的是英语。但因为特别喜欢，我读完以后会再学这些故事的中文。我特别要学词汇。茅盾的用词真好，我已经学了：姨太太，混账东西，狐狸精，骚货，臭货。呵呵… 还不知道这些生词有多坏，多过时了。…
The other day I was wandering the streets of Kunming, and I came across a strange old man. He was walking slowly, arms raised in front of his chest, clapping a slow and steady rhythm. For no apparent reason.
I gave him a curious smile, and he tilted his head back in acknowledgement, smiling broadly as if to say, “don’t you worry — I’ve got all the random clapping under control.”
So I didn’t worry.…
Although this internet cafe in Kunming is amazingly cheap (1.5 yuan/hour, or $0.19/hour), they have a police force in here! There are these uniformed guards roaming around, looking at people’s screens! Most people in here are playing games, so they’re watching the handful that are actually surfing the net more closely. This is bizarre.
Hey, people in other parts of China — have you seen this before?? I’ve noticed that it’s not only in this internet cafe, but in all …
For a short time, I was Mr. Stinkypants. You see, before departing for a several day trek, I left some laundry with the Banna Hotel in Jinghong. When I came back, not having showered for 2-3 days and quite filthy, I picked up my clean laundry (or “clean,” I should say), changed clothes, and gave them the new nasty bundle to wash. I didn’t notice for a few hours that the “clean” jeans I had changed into stunk! I …
我还在云南省西双版纳州景洪市，今天去参观民族风情园。有少数民族“村寨”，有少数民族表演，少数民族会员（呵呵，我不清楚怎么叫他们… 少数民族人？），热带动物园，热带鸟园，等等。门票是有一点贵（30元一个人），但我今天除了上19：00到昆明的卧铺汽车没事干，所以就去了。
我在那边先看了跳舞歌唱表演。很不错！当然演员都是帅哥，美女。然后我去学习少数民族文化。我看了他们的服装和照片，进去了他们的模拟房子，也问了不少的 问题。最有意思的是瑶族的“咬手定情”习惯。为了表达爱情，谈恋爱的人会互相唱歌，然后咬情人的手。咬得越深，爱得越深！那边只有两个人：一个年轻女性瑶 族导游和我。所以我可以随便问她很多问题。我问了她有没有咬男的或者被咬。她笑了，说没有。她说这个习惯年轻人已经不做了，大部分已经汉化了。
那边的中饭（炒米干）好吃，不过太辣了。她说稍微放了一点点。哇～！我还以为我能吃辣。好象错了。
后来我进去了版纳热带动物园。好恐怖啊！那些动物太可怜！条件又差，空间又非常小。有鳄鱼，孔雀，黑熊，猴子，还有一头老虎。特别是黑熊，老虎，猴子好可怜，眼睛里只有绝望。像它们想死似的。我觉得非常伤心，但没办法，只能对它们低声说：“I’m sorry…”
我不知道去那里的中国人会不会有这种感受。好象很多亚洲动物园是这样。在泰国我也去过，那边更悲哀。那时我发誓了再也不去那样的动物园。我才不要用我的钱支持这样的地方。我就是不知道民族风情园里面也有。 其实这挺复杂的。我觉得我们应该有这样的地方，可以去看动物。我们这样才能发展对动物的爱情。在地球上它们是我们的兄弟。但如果动物园的条件不是非常好，我觉得太残忍。最好没有动物园。 反而热带鸟园蛮好的！有很多我从没看到过漂亮的鸟。里面很大，鸟很自由。感觉不错。 好，我不写了。我要去吃饭然后到昆明去！（不知道今晚是否能睡觉…？）…
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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