One post teasing more to come and then nothing for almost a year. It's not as though I haven't had the time. In China (as I've already mentioned) I have nothing but time. I've never been much of a diarist and there are plenty of TV shows to catch up on or keep up with, so this page hasn't made it close to the top of my priorities. That is about to change... I think... I hope... yeah, it's going to change. China is such a vast place with so many different experiences and my distinct lack of talent when it some to languages means that this is one of the few outlets for my ramblings about it (and other things). It will be useful, I think, to write my thoughts here even if nobody is listening.
I think I left off my last post at the point where I had made my decision to go to China. I don't want to make this a story about my trip (I plan to discuss many topics from beer and football to politics and other dull but important subjects), but I suppose I should probably continue from where I left off.
Once my decision was made to go to China, I had to find an excuse to do it. My degree and lack of much meaningful work experience (other than serving drinks and lifting boxes) didn't exactly make me the type that would be sought out by big businesses operating in China. Teaching was something I never thought I would do, but it turns out that it is something that I can do whilst looking like I know what I'm doing. The first step was to find an online course that would certify me for teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL). There are plenty of those and the one I chose wasn't too taxing. The courses give you the basics of teaching theory and prepare you somewhat for a teaching exercise in a class of fellow teaching students, but do very little to prepare you for the actual thing. Once I'd completed the exams and had a skype interview with a pleasant chap in Beijing (someone who had already done what I was about to do and never found his way back to Blighty) it was time to prepare myself for the off.
To be honest, I didn't do any preparation. My family bought me various things they thought I would need (the most useful of which was a Kindle, though you may choose your own brand of e-reader). My end of the preparation was simply handing in my notice at work and getting a load of needles shoved in my arm. When the day to leave was almost upon me, I had a sudden desire not to go. Sure, China would be an adventure, would make my CV look marginally better and get me out of the rut I found myself in after uni... but I liked my rut and the tiny amount of money it provided me for drinking and *whoring(which was far more than I'd ever had up to that point and far more than I'm ever likely to earn over here). Like a good little English explorer, I kept my chin up, a stiff upper lip and marched myself onto the plane (horribly hung over from the amount of drink that had been required to fortify myself for all of the above). Long-haul flights have never bothered me and I quite enjoy travelling, so I was pretty calm on the flight.
The same can't be said of one of the other intrepid explorers who were supposed to be on the same teaching program as I. Once we got to the airport and met my contact person, I was asked to sit in Starbucks (they really are everywhere... and that's not actually a terrible thing) whilst the greeter tried to find the last arrival. There were a group of us potential foreign experts sitting around nervously and trying not to look like we were shitting ourselves (I think I was pretty convincing). After a long few minutes, our host returned and informed us that the person we had been waiting for had taken one look at the airport and booked himself on the first flight home. Beijing airport is quite nice, as far as airports go, and the security staff were lovely. Not sure what spooked him, but I suppose adventure isn't for everyone.
*no whoring ever actually took place.
