I meant to post this in early January. But then final exams came and work went into overdrive with an English camp over the winter break. So here’s a recap of the last two months (and the last decade, since it’s now the 2010s).
A year has gone by and with it a decade comes to an end. I remember watching countries around the world celebrate the new millennium ten years ago before and after daytime basketball practice in the WFBHS field house. I celebrated that New Year with my family at home. In the 2000s I finished high school, went through college spending three years in Madison and one in Spain, and then I spent the last quarter of the decade in China. A long period of peace and prosperity in the United States that stretched through 1990s came to an abrupt end with the dot-com crash and the September 11th attacks, and this decade ended with another economic recession and bursting of an asset bubble.
In December I spent the majority of my time at work and school. Most days I’m out of my apartment from 8 am to 8 pm, juggling university classes and work. I didn’t have much time to sit at home and blog, so please excuse my lack of blog posts.
I celebrated Christmas by going to IKEA and a Costco-like store to buy some things for myself and a few small gifts. I also went to a church for the first time in China on Christmas Eve. The two churches downtown were packed with people and I got into one in time to see some Christmas carols sung in Chinese and a mass conducted in Chinese and English. There was a huge police presence on the streets that night, particularly in areas around the few churches in Nanjing. It was a clear and direct manifestation of the government’s concerns over civil society groups and any large gathering of people. And with big brother’s presence everywhere, it created an eerie and tense feeling underneath the festive atmosphere of Christmas Eve.
In late December I had a brief break at work for the New Year holiday so I bought train tickets and got out of the city for the first time since I arrived in September. I went east about 40 minutes to a city called Danyang where there are glasses are made and sold for very cheap prices. I simply walked out of the train station, crossed the street, and I was in a mall full of glasses shops. I spent just over an hour looking at half a dozen stores and then finally found a pair of the kind of glasses I was looking for – brown colored half-frames with square lenses. I planned on getting just one pair, but when I tried on a pair of the light-as-a-feather Silhouette glasses I knew I had to get a pair of those, too. They were only $30 and $35 each. The city is a destination for people who come from far away places to buy glasses or glasses parts or accessories like cases wholesale. Buying one or two pairs is really easy, too, save for the difficulty in choosing just one pair out of the thousands available. It was worth the trip because the prices are so low. I walked down the street to find lunch after my glasses were made (in no longer than 20 minutes) and had a hard time finding restaurants among all the glasses shops.
From there I went to Changzhou, where I headed directly to the international school and ran into a few teachers that
I had worked with before. I saw a number of students. I had a lot of 7th and 8th grade students in the fall of 2008, and at that age they change extremely fast so it was a shock to see how much they had all grown up. It wasn’t just the growth spurts in the young students in the span of just one year that shocked me, the city had changed a lot as well. The area where I lived and worked was a new suburb that was mostly farmland a decade or two earlier (parts of it still are). There were a good number of apartment towers that I saw completed for the first time and additional blocks of apartment towers that were just started. I stayed in my old house that night and that was about the only thing that hadn’t changed. The same old and worn furniture, stacks of DVDs, fraying posters on the walls, permanent black spots and stickiness on the floor.
In January I took some final exams and had lunch with my class and two main teachers when they were finally over. The other American student in my class is a few years older than me and lives in Nanjing with her husband, also an American, and their two year-old son. She missed the last month or so of classes because she gave birth to her second child on December 24. Her whole family showed up for the lunch.
In the middle of the month we spent two days at school shooting a commercial with a video team from the local TV station. I’ll see if I can get my hands on a copy and put it online.
I’m going to Thailand (Bangkok and Phuket) for the Spring Festival, for which I have 11 days off of work. I’ll blog from there, where I can access Blogspot directly (it’s blocked in China). It snowed last night in Nanjing and it was really slushy and icy outside today, so it’s the perfect team to leave and head south for some warm tropical weather.
Happy Year of the Tiger!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Political and economic challenges for China in 2010
A good summary of the year ahead in China: http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14742402&source=features_box_main
Another interesting challenge in China is the sprawling size of its cities and the strains of absorbing so many migrants from rural areas and providing public services for its 500+ million urban residents. One problem is the long commutes people endure in Chinese cities http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15106202 . My current commute is about 20 minutes walking. During rush hour, walking is faster than bus or car. Biking is almost always the best option.
Another interesting challenge in China is the sprawling size of its cities and the strains of absorbing so many migrants from rural areas and providing public services for its 500+ million urban residents. One problem is the long commutes people endure in Chinese cities http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15106202 . My current commute is about 20 minutes walking. During rush hour, walking is faster than bus or car. Biking is almost always the best option.
Political and economic challenges for China in 2010
A good summary of the year ahead in China: http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14742402&source=features_box_main
Another interesting challenge in China is the sprawling size of its cities and the strains of absorbing so many migrants from rural areas and providing public services for its 500+ million urban residents. One problem is the long commutes people endure in Chinese cities http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15106202 . My current commute is about 20 minutes walking. During rush hour, walking is faster than bus or car. Biking is almost always the best option.
Another interesting challenge in China is the sprawling size of its cities and the strains of absorbing so many migrants from rural areas and providing public services for its 500+ million urban residents. One problem is the long commutes people endure in Chinese cities http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15106202 . My current commute is about 20 minutes walking. During rush hour, walking is faster than bus or car. Biking is almost always the best option.
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