They roamed the streets of her hometown, knocking their sticks along to lay a path in that endless shade. What they could not see with their eyes the cards showed them by touch. Lu Jun was little when her mother made them show her her future. They rambled on for awhile, illshapen words boiling down to one sentence: she will be happy at a great school.
She never forgot this.
In primary school they took their les…
When last I looked upon her face,
A smile did greet me.
But gazing up towards her eyes,
A sadness I could see.
This hard cover, a keen disguise,
Protects us from her qi.
But with abundant aperture,
She accommodates me.
While Australasia sits down low,
And joins her on her knee
Euros, Yanks and Japs on top; she shows,
Sun's thoughts on enemy.
Her inconsistant source of power,
Is no reason to f…
Keith, already suspicious of John, is doubly suspicious now that John missed their dinner appointment. On a rainy Friday, he wonders about John's motives for being in China, as he implements a fresh idea into the classroom: a poetry exercise, where the students go outside, and use English to write a poem about what they see.
Keith started class. He did Tongue Twisters. He had arranged them in such a manner tha…
Our hero is John, who is wandering through life without purpose. This wandering led him to a humanities degree, then to unemployment, and finally, to the great refuge of unemployed humanities majors: ESL in China.
Though Wuhan later becomes an existential swamp for John, here at the beginning, everything is new and exciting.
This is John's first day of teaching, where the incumbent dancing laowai, Keith, school…
Jack finished his last class and coming out the door he lit his first cigarette of the day.
At his apartment door, Jack crushed his fourth cigarette and took the fifth inside. He checked his phone messages. Then he stepped back out and lit number six and headed to McDonald's.
Although Jack loved Mcdonald's coffee, he did not much care for McDonald's itself, or KFC for that matter. 5,000 years of continuous civ…
"You need to understand," Walter said, lighting a cigarette. "Chinese love is real love."
"And American love isn't?" Nick said.
"Western love," Walter said, "is not real love. Not in the Chinese sense. It's not. Their love is deeper, truer."
"Yeah," Nick said, "I can see what you mean."
He could too. One night at dinner he had casually remarked that he had worn holes in a pair of socks. The next day his g…
Be sure to start at the beginning with "The 7-Year Laowai: Part 1 – Introduction", or see all posts in the series here.
After Tom, that was it for me. I decided not to "renew the contract". I applied for math-teaching jobs at international schools in many different cities, but come September, I was across Wuhan. In another university.
Teaching oral English.
I never cut down on my drinking. In this place, h…
Be sure to start at the beginning with "The 7-Year Laowai: Part 1 – Introduction", or see all posts in the series here.
I had an English class once where this girl interrupted me to ask what I thought of Japan, and without waiting for an answer, proceeded to tell me that Japan had killed many Chinese people, that they hated China, they were jealous of China. Then she went into Korea. Korea "stole our culture". You…
Be sure to start at the beginning with "The 7-Year Laowai: Part 1 – Introduction", or see all posts in the series here.
With Matt gone, nobody really did anything. They bitched. We all avoided Keith like the walking kindergarten plague he was...but none of us did anything. I won't say that I tried but had no support, but really, what were we to do? We were English teachers in China, lucky enough to have these jobs…
Be sure to start at the beginning with "The 7-Year Laowai: Part 1 – Introduction", or see all posts in the series here.
Paul left in June, and that August brought us Keith. Within a year he had transformed our university into his own private playhouse.
Keith was at first unassuming. From somewhere in the Midwest, he said he had done career counseling, and after an early retirement, had decided to come see China…
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