Traveling the World

Archive for October, 2009

Work, go home, watch tv, sleep. I guess the only reason I do it is to make the time pass faster. Why would I want that? I love China, and enjoy living here thoroughly, but I’m more interested in taking a break by going to Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia for 2 months starting on December 15th, 2009.

I began reading this book again called “The Way of the Superior Man,” by David Deida. It’s an amazing book that aims at getting a man to realize his destiny and pursue his dreams without fear of failure (or success). I read it for the first time two years ago when my Canadian friend JD told me about it. It changed my life then, but I soon ceased taking action as the book suggested. I recently have had some problems in my life I don’t wish to discuss with the world, but as a result, the book has once again landed in my lap, and so I read.

This morning I woke up and began with meditation. After that, I read a chapter from a non-fiction diary written by the famous British author and politician named Jeffrey Archer, who served 4 years of jail time for perjury. The book is called “A Prison Diary: Volume I,” and talks of his daily life in jail. After this, I wrote a blog post, cleaned the dishes, made myself eggs with toast, practiced Chinese, and wrote this bit of my new blog post. As I write this, I am preparing to go outside and go to the dental office on the first floor of my building to ask about the price for a teeth cleaning, and then go ride the public bike for some exercise. After this, I’ll return home and plan teaching lessons for my private students I’ll begin teaching tomorrow, and then for the next week at my public school job. By the time all of this is done, I expect it to be around 4pm.

I then plan to write an article or two from my latest trip around China, play guitar, watch a movie, and read more from the diary. If there is still energy and time in the day, I’ll go to the night market in search of some socks and dishes for the house.

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Update: As with everything in life, I began to slowly forget about the things I was learning from this book, but have been working to keep myself in check so I don’t stop doing what I’m doing. It feels great to spend less time online and more time bike riding, reading, studying Chinese, hanging out with friends, and doing whatever else it is that I desire.

I had a few minor issues with my school, but only of my own doing. I was slacking off because I thought it would be an easy job, but I wasn’t putting in any time to really plan my classes and so my co-teachers were angry with me. It states in my contract that I must spend time planning, and I must write and then print out my lesson plans and bring them to class. I’m also subject to random drop-ins by the headmasters and lesson plan checks. I had a planned “open class” where all my co-workers and bosses sat in on a lesson. I aced it and the headmaster was really happy with me, but this is only because my new friend and father-figure Mark (not the same Mark, this guy is mid-40s and British overheard my co-workers talking about my laziness and swooped in to tell me to buckle down and apologize and start over with them.

I just had my Polish friend Ewa stay with me for 2 days. I met her in August while with the twins and Melba in Beijing. She was staying at the same hostel as us and she was really nice, so I got her phone number. Since then she moved to Guangzhou in the south to study, and said she was coming through Wuhan during National Week, so I offered her a place to stay.

Speaking of National Week, 10/1/2009 is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. We have 8 days of vacation, which is meant to give people time to spend all their money on the economy that they’ve earned in the last year. It works. There was a HUGE parade spanning about 5 hours, all very carefully planned and executed in Beijing. I mean, the streets were shut down, the subway was shut down. They had snipers on the rooftops to prevent any possible problems from occurring. They only invited a few thousand people to watch the parade in person, and strongly urged the rest of the 15-20 million citizens of Beijing to stay in their homes and watch it on TV. I was watching it in HiDef (I think the ONLY thing I’ve ever seen in HiDef in China) at Lily’s uncle’s house.

The parade was too extragavant for my tastes, and I believe most Westerners would agree. I don’t mean to disrespect the government or the country, but my personal opinion is that if China wanted to show the world it’s progression as a country, it wouldn’t spend so much money on the parade, and rather spend the money on something important like education. They showed off their new military technology that the world has never seen before. They had floats from each province, including ones they claimed were represented by Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (which is a joke if you ask me).

Before my website gets banned and my ass thrown in jail or deported, I’ll end by saying Chinese people are very, very nationalistic, and I just hope the Western world doesn’t take it in the wrong way. They want to be respected by other countries and seen as a clear contender in the world, but I just think they’re doing it the wrong way. If they want to impress us, they should just celebrate with large BBQs, gotten really drunk, and blown up fireworks. Good luck next year China!