Life Begins in a 3rd-Tier Chinese City

I'm writing this from my apartment in Changzhou, China. CIEE's orientation in Shanghai is over. All the ESL teachers departed for their destinations yesterday.

When I arrived in Changzhou, I ventured out to a grocery/department store with Teddy (the foreign teachers' waiban at Jiangsu University) and Daniel, one of the other CIEE teachers. And I got my first taste of what it is to be a foreigner in a "third tier" Chinese city. I thought Shanghai was bad for staring. Wow, wow, wow. For the next five months, I'll be under a microscope as one of the few foreigners in Changzhou. Some of these people may never have seen a foreigner in their lives. I'm trying to cope with the blatant staring by likening it to what a minority person might encounter in a small Newfoundland outport. People will stare (though perhaps not quite so obviously). It's not that they're being unfriendly - they're just curious.

So Changzhou with its 2.8 million people - more than Vancouver - barely registers as a city in China. It's not even mentioned in the huge Lonely Planet guide book on China. Just on the way to the grocery store, we got a glimpse of the "real" China. Not Shanghai China. People squatting in doorways to hole-in-the-wall shops. People on bicycles pulling loads of cardboard and other junk. Ancient cars. In the meantime, I've been put up in what must be considered a luxury apartment by Chinese standards. I have lots of space and there's heat and hot water. It wasn't what I would consider clean, but it was nothing that a little - or a lot - of elbow grease couldn't fix. I'll be teaching students who'll sleep between 4 and 8 to one dorm without heat. I should consider that when I'm tempted to complain about my hard-as-nails mattress.

School may or may not start on Feb. 16, so I have at least a week to settle in. I might not start until Feb. 23. I've been told I just have to "go with the flow" here, and not be surprised if I don't know my schedule until the day before classes are supposed to start - maybe even day of. We've also been warned to expect last-minute schedule changes. I had dinner last night with the other ESL teachers, and they all seem to enjoy it. Two of them are even considering staying on for another year.

So my adventure in Changzhou begins!