The school I taught at in Wuhan (武汉), China is looking to hire teachers for the 2012-2013 school year. They need teachers for the kindergarten and primary school (up to grade 6) to teach English.

If you have questions or want to apply, please let me know and I will tried to answer your questions and/or connect you.

1. Humanity, Pt. 1 - October 15, 2010 "We were carrying on our merry way over the pedestrian overpass when out of the corner of my eye I saw them..."
2. Humanity, Pt. 2 - October 16, 2010 "The Bug, eyes wide said, "this is why we are Here...He wanted us to see her tonight!""
3. Humanity, Pt. 3 - October 18, 2010 "I know that there are many more who need help.  But for now, the opportunity to minister to Him exists in little Qian Qian's need...to be His hands and feet...and for His glory alone."
4. Quick update - October 19, 2010 "That is 7 times the cost estimate of yesterday...but translation is a tricky thing...maybe it was 10,000 for only the first surgery...or maybe the doctor today didn't want to bother with a poor woman who couldn't possibly pay?"
5. Looking Ahead - October 21, 2010 "But I see now more clearly...it is an IMPOSSIBLE circumstance.  How could a "median income" family keep their newborn?"
6. Qian Qian's Photo - October 23, 2010 "Two organizations can help us, but Qian Qian and his mother would have to travel several hours away for the first surgery alone (and he will need several over time.)"
7. Qian Qian Update - November 8, 2010 "Now as we are on the verge, Lord willing, of Qian Qian's first surgery, he told me that he sees what is happening as a "God arrangement," too fantastic for coincidence...but a clear indication of a love he believes the world needs."
8. Hospitality - November 13, 2010 "Both Qian Qian and I are known, loved, and He desires our return of wrshp in response to His love."
9. More on Qian - We need some Prayer - November 17, 2010 "no matter what others say...or how Qian Qian's family might act (his Aunt also recently offended the native helpers)...that we're doing this because HE said to...and that it is for Qian Qian...and he is an innocent boy who needs help."
10. Surgery - November 26, 2010 "We are in awe of His mercy and the privilege of watching this healing.  What a beautiful way to remember this Thanksgiving.  We will continue to lift up Qian Qian's family as they begin a new chapter together."
11. It's about people... - November 30, 2010 "I very nearly missed the beauty of getting down on the pavement, of sitting with his mother to hear her story...the deeply spiritual experience of looking into his eyes and seeing my Lrd staring back...inviting me to wrshp him by helping this little one, the least of these...in need."
12. I saw him! - December 1, 2010 "All the way home in the taxi, all I could do was sing praises...the sky was alight with an very unusual sunset...my heart filled to the brim with divine joy...over the horns honking, the radio blaring a Chinese news report, the throngs of people pressing together to get to their homes...I'm pretty sure I could hear the very heartbeat of my Father."
13. Transformation - December 2, 2010 "He was just as darling as I remembered him from the street that night.  He has such personality and was so curious about the foreign woman in his hospital room."
14. Life on the Range - April 7, 2011 "We have good news on the Qian Qian front...looks like in about 3 weeks he'll be traveling with his parents to have his palate surgery!  We've been waiting all winter for him to gain enough weight (now that his lip is closed, it has been much faster) so that he could undergo anesthesia under the hospital protocols."
15. Strengthen your hands - May 19, 2011 "We thought for sure that in 6 months, a normal 14 months old baby (at this point) should have gained weight.  Sadly, we got the call after they had arrived for the pre-op physical that our precious boy had LOST weight in the past 6 months."
16. Qian Qian Update - June 8, 2011 "We have very limited contacts...almost none outside of our city...but here He has brought us a connection that leads to the very village where QQ's family is!  Praise Him. Praise Him, Praise Him."
17. Back at it... - September 3, 2011 "How thrilled we are that we've been privileged to be a tiny part in the Plan for this boy, his family, and his fellow villagers."
18. Encouragement - September 4, 2011 "Then they all hear."
19. Qian Qian - The Next Step - September 28, 2011 "At any rate, he has been gaining (up 1.5 kgs in the past 3 months) and we are setting our sights on November. "

I started this post with the intention of talking about differences in Chinese life and Canadian life. More of a complaint about why Canadian life is so much more convenient than Chinese life. But as I was typing it, I realized how silly it was and how silly I was. Of course, it’s nice to have things at my fingertips but I have been spoon-fed everything. I can have out-of-season fruit sent from half-way around the world, all for the low cost of unnecessary carbon emissions. I can drive to the corner store or to work in the heart of downtown every day at the low, low cost of a tank of fossil fuels. I can wear winter clothes indoors during the peak of summer for the cost of oh-so-familiar smog-warning days. I can go watch the basketball game and have friends eat the wings of 40 chickens in the span of two hours. We don’t stop to think about these things because Toronto life is so busy and these are things we just do. At least that’s what it felt to me.

Living in China for two years has been the best thing I could have done. My eyes have been opened and my life has changed in so many ways. Even before I came to China, I was already trying to do the gung-ho save-the-world by being the change you want to see in the world deal. Then I came to realize that they still do that in the rest of the world. My grocery store here doesn’t get out-of-season fruits and vegetables. If the farmers here grow them, they sell them. It’s as simple as that. They don’t import from half-way around the world. They sell local, at least more local than, say, Loblaws (aka Canadian Safeway). I love mandarin orange season. It’s probably the sole reason why I don’t get sick here. If my 中百 (Zhōngbǎi) supermarket doesn’t have mangoes, I don’t eat mangoes. What my 中百 has, I buy. But they did bring in a box of Sunkist oranges at one point but I refused to buy them and bought the local ones.

Depending on who you talk to, the population of Wuhan is eight to 12 million people. That’s a lot of people. There’s a lot of cars in Wuhan but you also haven’t seen how many buses we have here. They’re finally starting construction on the subway system, too. I’ve always heard how our subway system is crappy and small, I even thought Montreal had it better than us. But Shanghai’s subway system is huge and they stop at major tourist locations. Hong Kong’s subway system is pretty awesome, too. But Hong Kong, in general, is teeny tiny in comparison to Wuhan. I remember walking on the streets two Octobers ago with a girl friend and walking way too far because we kept looking at the map thinking it was bigger than it actually was. We missed our turn to the jazz club where we met some interesting German characters staying at the Shangri-La.

China isn’t all for saving the environment either, though. When I arrived in Shanghai, my impression was how much waste was being produced by everyone. Take-out containers from street-food vendors. Individual plastic bags, not 4-cup cardboard cup holders, for your drinks from McDonald’s. We have so far to go as a global community to stop our destructive behaviours.

I’m tired. Time for bed.

I was surfing and found this excellent post about how to cross the street in Wuhan. It really does hit the nail on the head. I haven’t been conditioned to cross the street like a local still and I’m in my second year. I live right across the street from my school so I cross the street every morning. A vehicle could be 150m down the road going about 50 km/h, I’ll stop  even though I know I can make it across in time if I walked briskly. I think I just hate hearing the horn go off.

Speaking of horns, I hate walking down Liufang, it’s “the village” just up the street from us. I hate it when I’m walking down the narrow streets and hear a van come down it while s/he’s blaring the horn to let you know that they’re there. It’s LOUD! Try standing at the bus stop and have a bus honk their horn 20m away. That’s even louder!

If there are others with me while crossing the street, I let them take the lead. I still hesitate when they decide to cross but I do my little freak-out skip across the street instead of the calm and collected prance of my neighbour.

I don’t think it’s a China-only thing. When I cross at a crosswalk in Toronto, I still don’t cross if there’s a car that looks like they’re still going 30 km/h and barely slowing down. I wait for them to come to a near stop before I walk out. I’d rather be safe than sorry. I can’t assume that they noticed the blinking crosswalk lights with all the distractions in cars.

I’m bored and without sound on my laptop. The sound card appears to have come loose or just went plop and died. No sound from the speakers, no sound from the headphones but I can use the microphone. Any guesses? Listening to your iPod over and over again just isn’t the same as having 680 News running in the background. I can’t watch my TV shows either and we’re at the end of the season. *violin plays in the background*

This week, I’m working on a project for my students. Little paper craft houses for our little town. I’m glad I have a small class just finishing up the last few and then I’m off to bed. Anyone want to purchase property in our little town of 12? Contact Karen Realty, you know where to find me.

My Privacy settings were changed to block all messages that don’t come from people on my contact list but this was a request to be added me to their list. Here is today’s Skype message of the day.

[10:17:09 AM] Delko: hi am a foreign englsih teacher.i offer private tutoring in oral english in wuchang if you are interested.Thanks have a good day

For a foreign English teacher… they sure know how to compose a message in English.

I live on the fifth floor and I walk the stairs when I do not have a 20-pound backpack and five-pounds of groceries to carry. I left the school last night and had dinner with some of the other teachers. By the time I went home it was dark already. It is really hard to push myself to walk the stairs when the lights in the stairwell do not work. The lights on the first to fourth floor are all burnt out or the motion/noise detector is defective. I do get light when I pass by the third floor though because the detector in the third-floor hallway works like a charm.

I suppose I would not think twice about it if I were walking in a well-constructed stairwell but it is not. Let me start with the hand rail.The underside and sometimes the side of the handrail has this rough texture to it. It feels as though the wood was not sanded properly or something went wrong with the paint and it now has a texture similar to stucco applied in that prickly fashion. Then there are the actual steps. It starts out okay, you walk up the first two flight of stairs and you think you are on any other flight of stairs then it turns on you. As you hit the third floor, the steps start to play tricks on you. As I climb the stairs between the third and fourth floor, I feel as though I am going to fall backwards. As I climb the stairs between the fourth and fifth floor, I feel as though I am climbing a near-vertical stairwell or as if I am going to fall flat on my face. I always know when I get to the fifth floor because I get the fall-flat-on-my-face feeling before I hit the fifth floor. I wish they would fix the lights in the stairwell.

Here’s the talk around the office. The government instructs that any classes with more than 30 percent of their students exhibiting flu-like symptoms should have their classes suspended for a week. The kindergarten has already suspended classes for one of their classrooms. Today, 16 percent of the elementary school is absent because of flu-like symptoms. What will happen? The teachers are having a meeting while the English teachers are in class in a few minutes, so we’ll find out what was decided after we get out of class.

I’m Canadian. I am taught that you should always put on your seat belt when you enter a vehicle. No one does that here but me. I get into the front seat of a taxi, I put on my seat belt. I’ve assimilated somewhat. I get into the back seat of a taxi, I don’t put on my seat belt. I don’t think I do that in a Canadian taxi either. It is very rare to find me in a taxi in Canada so I don’t recall if I do put on my seat belt.

Today, I went to extend my resident permit. I was going with someone from HR and two other people that needed to renew their permits, too. I felt like I was doing something wrong by putting on my seat belt when I sat down in the van but I can’t help from doing it. I’ve been in a few accidents, one of them in China, so I understand how precious the seat belt really is. I feel like I should stop wearing it so I don’t offend the drivers but Wuhan driving is kind of crazy sometimes.

We have school buses that drive students home after school. The buses are supervised by two teachers. I had to take over someone on Friday. I love the driver, he’s an awesome guy, but I get scared when I’m in the bus sometimes. I don’t know exactly how fast he was going but it felt like 80 kph because it sounded like the bus was working pretty hard but maybe it was only 60 kph. We’d hit bumps on the road and I’d fly half a feet into the air. I would flinch whenever he braked hard to avoid the vehicle in front of him or the person that was jaywalking across the street.

As I am tired, I am going to stop right here and go to bed. Good night. :p

Why is it that between the span of two months China decides to block Facebook forever? I could pay for a VPN but then China might decide to block them too. I will stick to what I have been doing and tweet and blog when I feel like it. Which is often but I just never get the chance to sit down and do it.

Another year in China. I get another chance to see a little more of Asia. I still have yet to see the Great Wall of China but I will be flying/railing to Beijing at the end of January to catch my flight to Tokyo. I came over from Toronto to Beijing, too, I already feel closer to the Great Wall, don’t you? Unfortunately, I won’t have time to linger in the city. I don’t even have time to renew my passport at the embassy. I should make time though. I’m going to Tokyo! I’m ready to burn a serious hole in my wallet. Sui, if you read this, e-mail me, I want to meet up but I don’t have your e-mail address and Facebook is blocked behind the Great Firewall of China.

Three weeks of vacation for Chinese New Year. One week in Japan. Two weeks in… ? I have time to decide. I can’t even buy my flight to Beijing yet because it’s so early. I could ride a train over instead, I hate going to Wuhan Tianhe International Airport, it’s such a long drive, the train station is much closer. I don’t think I saw any fast trains to Beijing though, so it will be at least a 10-hour train trip. At least it’s shorter than my flight over from Toronto.