Getting Started- Obligatory Entry Post

Hello! I am an Eaaf. You probably knew that. It says so in the title.

On August 18, 2011, I shall be headed off for adventure- in China.

China, sadly, is not one of the places I thought I'd be heading to in my life. Returning to Japan, yes. China? Not so much. Now I'm kinda sad I switched majors from the old East Asian Languages Major into Japanese. Guess which major required Chinese?

So I'm going to be teaching English to college level Chinese students, and I don't speak any Chinese.

At all.

Oh boy~!


I was introduced to the job through my roommate, Ann, who pointed out that my school was needing graduating seniors desperately to fill a gap from someone that refused. Since my mother was hounding me (rightfully so) about grad schools and resumes, I jumped on the opportunity because let's face it, I don't really want to be spending a year at home. I love home. I no longer wish to live there for extended periods of time and fall into the boomerang generation that plagues my age group.

So I applied, and was accepted. Now I shall be teaching English. In Kaifeng, a city I only heard about once I was interviewing for the job. "What do you know about Kaifeng?" Betsy asked me.

"Nothing," I replied honestly.

And I was informed. There is a famous park, it lies on the Yellow River, it was one of the 7 Ancient Capitals of China, it is an industrializing place, perhaps not as many cars as Japan (there were a lot of comparisons to the difference between Japan and China), and that there is a night market.

Well, it was good to have comparisons between China and Japan. I imagine the hardest part for me will be differentiating between what is "Japanese" and what is "Asian" in terms of mindset and policy.

I was also well informed of the job- I get payed every month, I have a small furnished apartment I don't have to pay for (but afterwards I discovered a curfew of 10pm), I will be teaching maybe 20 hours a week, tops, and I will have breaks and time for travel if I can. Also, my flight in is reimbursed and they pay for my leaving ticket (assuming I stay the entire time and don't run out of China).

So that's a small run-down of my job, where it is, what I know about it, and what I'll be doing.