I write this blog from Changzhou, which will be my home for the next year. It's a city with a population a little over 2 million and is about 100 miles NW of Shnaghai, in the Jiangsu province. We arrived on Saturday, were met at the train station by Teddy, who is our advisor in the International Affairs office of the university. I will be teaching at Jiangsu Teacher's University of Technology. There are four of us here from CIEE, and about 6-8 total English
teachers from the US and Canada, as well as 5 or 6 German teachers (from Germany, naturally). Most of the foreign teachers live on the 14th floor of a hotel at the edge of campus. The university owns the floor and has converted them into apartments. But, I live over in the villas, which house the rest of the foreign teachers and many of the Chinese teachers and professors as well. My apartment is wonderful. It's huge (by American standards) which makes it like a mansion here. They treat the foreign teachers so well here, Teddy has been very helpful, very gracious, and I can tell he genuinely cares about my well being. The apartment is two bedroom, two bath, with a kitchen, living room, dining room, and laundry room on the ground floor. I have been to Wal Mart to get supplies for the apartment, to the bus terminal for a bus pass, and to the China Mobile store for a cell phone. Teddy has accompanied
us on all these journeys, as doing it without a fluent Chinese would have been nearly impossible. So, I am getting myself settled and set up. I have been eating most meals over at the hotel, as Teddy arranged for us to have three days of meals there for free!! But dinner tonight was at a small restaurant on the street outside the front gate of the university. It is a Uighur restaurant, and the food is amazing a cheap. We went with Clark, an experienced teacher from Montana, and his Chinese is quite good, and thus we are all able to get what we want without any trouble. So far, my evaluation of Changzhou is superb. I am excited to begin teaching soon and to get to know the city better. The two pictures are of my apartment, it's the second building, the one which juts out in the picture. The other one is a large academic building, which is what the view looks like from my front door.
teachers from the US and Canada, as well as 5 or 6 German teachers (from Germany, naturally). Most of the foreign teachers live on the 14th floor of a hotel at the edge of campus. The university owns the floor and has converted them into apartments. But, I live over in the villas, which house the rest of the foreign teachers and many of the Chinese teachers and professors as well. My apartment is wonderful. It's huge (by American standards) which makes it like a mansion here. They treat the foreign teachers so well here, Teddy has been very helpful, very gracious, and I can tell he genuinely cares about my well being. The apartment is two bedroom, two bath, with a kitchen, living room, dining room, and laundry room on the ground floor. I have been to Wal Mart to get supplies for the apartment, to the bus terminal for a bus pass, and to the China Mobile store for a cell phone. Teddy has accompanied
us on all these journeys, as doing it without a fluent Chinese would have been nearly impossible. So, I am getting myself settled and set up. I have been eating most meals over at the hotel, as Teddy arranged for us to have three days of meals there for free!! But dinner tonight was at a small restaurant on the street outside the front gate of the university. It is a Uighur restaurant, and the food is amazing a cheap. We went with Clark, an experienced teacher from Montana, and his Chinese is quite good, and thus we are all able to get what we want without any trouble. So far, my evaluation of Changzhou is superb. I am excited to begin teaching soon and to get to know the city better. The two pictures are of my apartment, it's the second building, the one which juts out in the picture. The other one is a large academic building, which is what the view looks like from my front door.
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