fruit time!

JOB OFFER!!

Straight from contact with a university in Hángzhōu.  The offer seems OK and I have talked to a few people from the school who say it is a great place and teacher friends at other schools envy them.  Of the handful of schools I've talked to, this one has had the most and most prompt communication with me.  However I would still like to see what other schools might offer.  The offer I received is good for two weeks so I have some time to decide what I want to do, maybe even longer depending on whether or not the deadline was a tactic of some sort or if it was legitimate.

Either case, I feel pretty good about it.  Always though, it could be psychological, wanting it to work out, wanting to think I received a decent offer.  Harder to be objective when you are really hoping for something. Man certainly has the capability to delude himself.

Hopefully I can eek out some more later, maybe it will be more interesting instead of such a straightforward account.

no thanks Wendy

The past few days I have felt I'm starting to make another breakthrough concerning my move to China. I have been applying to numerous university positions, pretty much any locations where I have been able to find direct contact with the school. I'm very excited.

The "direct contact with the school" thing has become more important to me as people have repeatedly warned to be wary of dealing with recruiters, companies schools hire to find teachers. Recruiters are known to use bait-and-switch tactics to lure potential teachers in with a nice-sounding job but when the teacher arrives that job is no longer available...but the recruiter has a different job available. The replacement jobs are where many teachers' horror stories come from...small towns away from civilization, bug-infested apartments and salaries nowhere near the original quotes.

jobs

Spending hours a day looking for jobs in China is a hell of a lot more fun than spending hours looking for jobs in America.  Somehow it is exhilarating.  Eventually I have to tell myself to stop saying "one more page" as I wade through pages of job postings.  Half of the stuff I've looked at so far is shit but it's still kind of like opening presents on Christmas.

I've applied for a handful of jobs in Hángzhōu, Qīngdǎo and Tiānjīn.  I will probably have an interview sometime Saturday with a school and their recruiter.  So with the possibility of having a job soon, it is time to get some more last-minute details in order.

Hángzhōu, Zhèjiāng

I believe that this time I have found a city to go to.  Hángzhōu was one of the cities I originally looked up and then somewhat discarded after focusing on dialects.  With the help of some friends and some random people I met on couchsurfing who reside in Hángzhōu I think this will be a good choice.  The climate sounds nice, public transportation looks to be plentiful and also there seems to be a mixture of city life and nature nearby.

City life...imagine me in a city.  I've never really lived in a city.  Oh, also important about Hángzhōu is that there are a lot of schools, so maybe I can even get a job and have a reason to go.

dialectal struggles

Well, it turns out I don't have as much figured out as I originally thought.  In my search for a new home I assumed I could use temperature as one of the main determiners:  Warmer latitude = warmer heart = good home.  Doesn't entirely work that way I guess.  Part of my goal in going to China is to study Mandarin.  From my detailed internet research, most of the cities that I had been considering speak dialects that are not "mutually intelligible" with Mandarin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dialects).  According to the map Chóngqìng speaks standard Mandarin but further research has suggested Sichuanese Mandarin is spoken there.  A handful of expats in China have recommended moving toward Běijīng or Tiānjīn.