Small Town/ Teaching/Magic Jack

Lidu is a small town college town about 35 minutes southwest of Fuling and about one hour and half southeast of Chongqing.
Fuling has a population of about 450,000 people. When Peter Hessler was here in 1996 the population was at 200,000.
Chongqing has a population of about 8 million people and is the biggest city in Western China. Beijing and Shaghai (Eastern cities) are about 17-20 million each.

YZNU (Yangtze University) has three campuses with a total student body of 15,000. ECNU, (East China Normal University) where I studied before in Shanghai had about 80,000 students.

So as you can see, I am no longer in Shanghai! This is a very different place. I already feel that I will not have nearly as much fun here as I did in Shanghai.
But I did not return to China for fun, I returned to advance my education on their culture and language. Teaching English to students here will allow me to eat and stay warm but it is not why I am here. I am here to open doors of opportunities later down my career.

Plus, I like the fact that I am not in a big city because this means there are few foreigners which will force me to speak to locals.
By the end of my run here, I hope I can say that I had true friendships with locals.

China is the second largest economy behind USA. Every major company in America, Europe, Japan, Germany, Latin America, etc. is investing in China.
The labor is cheap, the people work hard, the resources are unlimited and they are doing all they can to try to catch up to America.
(The only downside I see is the Chinese corrupt system, but that's for another time).
On my bus 30 minute bus ride from Lidu to Fuling, I saw about 35 cranes and plenty of heavy euqipment. China has been under construction for a while and it won't stop until their leaders seem satisfied with their world ranking, or until foreign investment dries out. In fact, most city's political figures in China are promoted based on how much foreign investment they bring in to their city. Every city or small town wants to be the new spotlight of China for foreign investment.
Some say China will surpass America's GDP in 10-15 years. Of course, one has to take into account the huge difference in population which sques the GDP numbers.
Simply, I think it's stupid for me not to be here right now.

I am not denying that I won't enjoy teaching. In fact, I'm very excited about it.
So far (two more classes may be added) I have 5 classes and the median class size is about 30 students per class. Unlike Kacie and Caity, I will be teaching non-English majors.
I have one Freshman Oral English class and the other four are classes are all Juniors who will be taking American Culture class. All Chinese students are required to take two years of English, and elevetices such as American Culture are offered to Junior and Seniors.

After talking to Dean Li about my classes and reaffirming some things with Kacie and Caity, it looks like the teaching curriculum is totally up to me.
The obvious sensitive topics like Tiannamen Square, Taiwan, Tibet, etc., are not to be spoken about but everything else is really up to me.
Dean Li gave me two books to get ideas from. One is for my Oral class and the other is for American Culture. The American Culture book is titled, " The Society and Culture of Major English-Speaking Countries," and it is one of the books that Peter Hessler taught from.

Juan Urdaneta, my good friend from Orlando bought me a really good device called Magic Jack.
It's a device that hooks up to your PC with a phone jack available for connection. It allows you to set up a local USA area code and use this number outside of the country.
My number is 407-610-4695, and it's a genius invention. It's saving me quite a bit of money and it's convenience is priceless. Of course, you have to be connected to the internet.

So if you ever want to call me my number is 407-610-4695. Leave a voice mail if I don't answer.
Or if you want me to give you a call reply back with your phone number.

Thanks to Juan for a great gift!