This Blog Has Moved….Again

When we arrived in China we realized that we could not access WordPress.com to blog as the Chinese government has put a block on the site. Therefore, I have moved the blog to www.bloemsinchina.blogspot.com.  Also, I have set up that blog so that all the posts I make will automatically also post on Facebook as a Note, so if you have me as a Facebook friend you can see the posts there if it is easier.

www.bloemsinchina.blogspot.com

And we’re off!

We’re all packed up and ready to go in about a half an hour.

Trip Itinerary:

• Vail to Denver (van) – 2 hrs
• Denver to LA – 2.5 hrs
• LA to Seoul – 13.5 hrs
• Seoul to Shanghai – 2 hrs

Including layovers we’ll arrive about in Shanghai about 27 hours after leaving home. Hopefully we don’t have any delays!

Keep in touch!

Shandong University of Science and Technology on YouTube

I was perusing YouTube this afternoon and found a few interesting videos about the school where we’ll be teaching and about Qingdao itself.

The first is just a slideshow of images of the campus. I was pleasantly surprised with the way things looked.

The second video is just some video of Qingdao from a helicopter. The narration does not quite match with the images, but it is still interesting.

River Town by Peter Hessler

I’ve recently finished reading River Town by Peter Hessler, a memoir of Hessler’s two-year stint as a teacher in China with the Peace Corps in ’96 and ’97.  Hessler taught at Fuling Teacher’s College in a small city situated between the Yangtze and Wu Rivers in Sichuan Province called Fuling. The book was excellent; very often funny and always genuinely insightful. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in China or the experience Megan and I will be having teaching.

The book provided some fascinating insights on modern China and typical Chinese life, but most importantly it inspired me to make the most out of the time I’ll have in China. Hessler does an excellent job of expanding his horizons and challenging himself to explore the city he lives in and its inhabitants. He learned Chinese from scratch, worked hard to befriend his students, and gladly took the time to talk to curious Fuling residents who were intersted in their foriegn neighbor. This effort rewarded Hessler in the form of friendships and experiences that would not have occured otherwise.

Despite living over eleven years in Asia, I have never stretched myself to engage in the local culture like Hessler does in River Town.  Instead, I have been content to live in my “Western bubble,” going to the American school and the American club and listening to American football games online in the middle of the night (although I hope to continue to do this). While studying abroad in Beijing Megan got a taste of how satisfying it can be to become self sufficient in a country that until recently had been completely foreign. Hopefully, we can build on that foundation together.

Only once does Hessler mention Qingdao when talking to a man on a train, but the mention is glowing:

In three years he hoped to live in Hebei, or perhaps Qingdao, the former German concession on the east coast. He spoke lovingly of Qingdao, of the beautiful red roofs and the clean streets, the friendly people and the calm sea…

Below is a part of River Town I thought was pretty funny:

That spring a number of the boy students decided that they needed English surnames. The foreign teachers had Chinese family names; why should the students be different?

I first noticed this trend when I was grading papers one day and thought; Who the hell is George Baker Frost? I had never heard of him before, but there was an assignment with the name written proudly in enormous letters across the top of the page.

I read the paper and realized it had been written by George — the cockiest student in the class, a handsome boy who was one of the best athletes. He was a trend-setter, too, and soon I began to get assignments from William Foster, who had formerly been Willie, and who subsequently promoted himself to William Jefferson Foster. It wasn’t long before William Jefferson Foster persuaded his girlfriend to become Nancy Drew (that was Adam’s recommendation), and then Mo, who was the class monitor and couldn’t allow his authority to be undermined by any perceived shortcoming, starting shopping for surnames. He asked me for suggestions, and soon he was signing his papers Mo Money.

I’m now starting to read Hessler’s second book, also on China, called Oracle Bones, about which I have heard some good things.

Three weeks from today we will be on the plane to China!

New Blog

A few people have had trouble accessing the previous blog at Blogger, so I have decided to move the blog over to WordPress.com.

There are also several cool options I’ll be playing around with that Blogger did not offer, so hopefully this move results in an overall better blog.

The new URL is: www.bloemsinchina.wordpress.com.

Thanks for visiting; hopefully once we’re in China we’ll have some interesting content. (We depart on January 30).

Qingdao…it’s beer! Hooray beer!

This morning Megan and I received an email that we have been assigned to teach at the Shandong University of Science and Technology. We were glad to finally know where we would be placed, but before I became too pleased with our placement I realized I should learn something about the school, it’s location and our specific positions. After all, I hadn’t even the slightest idea where Shandong Province was.

 

Let’s get started.

 

LOCATION

 

 

I was relieved to discover that Shandong University of Science and Technology is located in a town I had heard a little about over the years: Qingdao. Many readers may be more familiar with the spelling that appears on green beer bottles around the world – “Tsingtao.” As well as being China’s beer capital, Qingdao is a major seaport and industrial center. Qingdao also has several beaches which are very popular among Chinese tourists. Perhaps most interestingly, Qingdao boasts a strong German influence, hence the beer, as the city was a German colony in the early 20th century.

 

Resting at the tip of Shandong Penninsula, Qingdao experiences slightly milder winters and slightly cooler summers than inland areas. August is the warmest month average highs of 28 C and January is the coldest month with 3 C average high temperatures. It is nice to know that it won’t be as cold as Michigan or Colorado (probably).

 

Other facts:

• Etymology: “Qing” means green or lush and “dao” means island.
• Qingdao is not an island; hopefully it is lush.
• Qingdao is about 6 hours by high speed train to Beijing and about 10 hours to Shanghai.
• Qingdao was recently named the 9th most livable city in China by China Daily.
• Qingdao has a population of about 2.5 million in the urban area and 7.5 million in the greater Qingdao area.
• Qingdao is nicknamed “China’s Switzerland” due to the European influence.

 

SCHOOL & JOB

 

About 38,000 students attend Shandong University of Science and Technology (SUST) spread between 3 campuses, the main being in Qingdao. The school mentions how it has 8 National Teachers of Excellence, 19 Provincial Teachers of Excellence, and is known for its strength in basic and applied research. The most telling sign of their excellence, however, is the animated .gif fireworks that explode over their logo on the front page of their website.

The top academic programs at SUST are Mining Engineering, Surveying and Mapping Science and Technology, Control Theory and Control Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Mechatronic Engineering, and Mechanical Design and Theory. This is particularly well suited for Megan and I as we are both experts in Mechatronc Engineering.

We will be teaching Oral English, Business English, and Literature to primarily 19-22 year old students.  We will teach 16 classroom hours a week and will also participate in the “English Corner” club.

According to the information we have, our on-campus apartment will have heating, air-conditioning, a kitchen with refrigerator, and internet access. Let’s hope all that is true. 

Also, SUST apparently has a pretty decent basketball team by Chinese collegiate standards.

PHOTOS OF MEGAN’S VISIT TO QINGDAO – FEB. 2007

(Scott Greene & Heather Wigmore also featured)

Posing by the sculpture “May Breeze” near the coast.

Outside the Tsingtao Brewery

After a hike up Mt. Laoshan outside Qingdao

By the beach.

China Bound!

After several months of planning and applying, Megan and I finally heard the great news yesterday that we had been accepted to Teach in China with CIEE.

Megan and I elected to apply with CIEE (the Council on International Education Exchange) because Megan had studied abroad at Peking University with them in the spring of 2007. They offer a great support system, including orientation and sightseeing in Shanghai, organizing our visas and school placements, and offering medical insurance.

We are eager to find out specifically where we will be placed and what age groups we will teach. Our ideal situation would be to teach elementary or middle school students in an urban location. CIEE does not typically offer teaching placements in large international cities like Beijing or Shanghai, but there are plenty of cities in China for us to be placed.

Important Dates:

• November 10: Reply form and program deposit due
• December 12: Medical forms due
• Novemeber – December: School placement
• February 1: Arrival in Shanghai
• February 2-6: Orientation
• February 6: Transportation to school placement

We’ll keep you updated on our progress as we sort these things out!