Hello everyone!

Hello everyone!

My apologies for not keeping you all up to date. My contract with Yi Jian school will be over June 13, so I have been busy trying to line up a new job.

Various sites exist where teachers will post their comments about schools so here are mine.

Yi Jian School:
This school has some good and bad points. Don’t be surprised by anything and don’t expect things to be done the same way they would be done in the West.

I would not recommend this school to a rookie teacher unless Eva (an experienced foreign teacher) is here to work with you. Otherwise you will have a painful time. Note that you do not get paid until you start teaching classes. Observing classes to train is unpaid time.

The kids, parents and most classes are great. You might feel uncomfortable about have everything you do shown on TV monitors, but you will get used to it. Everything else can vary considerably.

Lying is normal here. You may be asked to misrepresent your age, teaching experience or country of origin to parents. It’s just the way things are done here. (I’m not sure if it’s the same in other schools) From this I would assume that its also normal for the school to lie about pretty well anything that suits them.

Teaching Experience:
You will get a lot of classroom experience and come to love your students. I have one class that is uncomfortably large (18-20 students) but the others are more manageable at 6-10. I find the big classes are a waste of teaching time.

There is one school to avoid-the nursing school/high school. All the current foreign teachers refuse to teach there. So likely it will be given to the newest person. In cases of desperation, the school hires part time teacher to teach there. You have the right to refuse classes (something that is not always clear. You just have to back it up by mentioning that you have a return ticket and be prepared to leave the school for home or find work at another school). Be prepared to be subjected to an enormous amount of pressure to teach at this school.

Teaching Materials:
The school uses
Side-by-Side
Cambridge System
New Interchange (not so much-its for older kids)
300 sentences (the old book-There is only one class remaining using this boring book)

The school has a minimal supply of teach tools (hammers/sticky balls). If you buy other things, the school will reimburse you. I did this at first, but now I have my own stockpile of tools that I will keep when I leave the school. Normally I spend 300-400RMB/month on supplies.

Training
There is no training as you would expect in the west. You come with what you have learned from your TESL program and your own teaching experience. ‘Training’ consists of letting you observe other teachers teach until you feel you can teach a class. I observed for one weekend and then started teaching the next Tuesday. Training and class observation time is not paid. Be careful here!

As of May 2007, the current foreign teacher roster is
Eva (1st year with the school-10 years experience and a master’s degree)
myself (1 year in June 2007)
James (new)
Nicole (new)

Chris (2 years-now left) was the veteran and former head-teacher. When I arrived, there were three teachers (Adam, Erika and Chris); two of whom were in the process of leaving.

If you are lucky Eva will still be here and will take you under her wing and show you the ropes, help you prepare classes and show you around town. If not you are pretty much on your own.

Classes:
There are usually 2 teachers in the classroom for all classes. The exception is the New Interchange classes where the foreign teacher works alone. Here the students are older and the level of motivation can vary.

The Chinese assistant is responsible for keeping discipline in the classroom, but the foreign teacher will get the blame for any problems. This has happened to me once. As a matter of course, I usually take the blame for any problems in the classroom. When you come to see the poor conditions for the Chinese teachers, it seems very unfair for the foreign teacher to make more problems for their Chinese assistants.

One big surprise is that all the classes are monitored on closed circuit TV. All the parents are watching the classes and are not shy to complain. You will usually be under a microscope for the duration of the class. Teachers have to remember to teach within view of the camera and speak loudly enough not only for the students, but for the very picky viewing audience.

Teacher’s Rights
You are allowed to refuse classes you do not want! Just prepared to back it up with a threat to go home (a return ticket is very useful for bargaining) or join another school.

Lesson Preparation:
You are supposed to meet with your assistant at least half an hour before a class to prepare. In theory, each of you is supposed to come with a lesson plan and between the two of you, get the real plan done.

The reality is the assistant will tell you what pages to teach and what they have taught in the Chinese teacher’s lesson. From then on, the foreign teacher prepares the lesson plan.

The school has no guidelines for the preparation of teaching plans. The Chinese teachers have to hand in a teaching plan to the head teacher. It’s not clear what happens to theses plans.

Chinese Teaching Assistants:
My assistants (Vicky, Heidi, Flora, and Connie) are angels! They are super helpful to me. From time to time you will get a new assistant for one class as part of their training.

The school usually turns over all its teaching assistants every year. There is one long serving assistant (Vicky-Nangang campus) who I had the pleasure of working with-She was fantastic. All the assistants are very nice but have varying degrees of experience.

All the assistants are young women. They are asked to keep their distance from the foreign teachers (the school won’t tell you this) so don’t expect to be socializing with your Chinese colleagues. I was told this by teachers who have left the school.

Atmosphere:
There is one shocking thing you will notice. Foreign teachers are treated completely differently from their Chinese colleagues.

Foreign Teachers Chinese Teachers
Salary 5000-6000RMB/month 650-850RMB/month
(There are bonuses that can be earned from high survey rankings and monthly test scores.)
Working hours 24 52-55 (or more)

The foreign teachers have their own lounge and are segregated from their Chinese colleagues. There is one thing you will not be told-the Chinese teachers are discourages from having friendships with the foreign teachers and with each other. If you are expecting to make friends with anyone other than your foreign colleagues, you will be disappointed.

Management treats the Chinese teachers fairly badly. Prepare to be shocked. Expect to hear loud shouting sessions where the head teacher will berate her subordinates for varying lengths of time. This is one of the most distasteful and unprofessional things that I have ever seen in my life.

Each Chinese teacher has the first month’s salary and 150RMB/month every following month held back and given to them only when they complete their contracts. The teachers are basically economic prisoners. Salary holdbacks fund the traditional welcome dinners.

The Welcome Dinner
It’s a tradition that new and outgoing teachers get a dinner. Here the bosses, head teachers and all foreign teachers come. None of the other Chinese assistants are invited. Usually, there is a lot of drinking and toasting.

Social Life
Until you learn some Chinese, your social contacts will be limited to other foreign teachers (from this or other schools) and if you are lucky, English speaking Chinese friends. I met most of my outside Chinese friends from taking Chinese lessons at another schools, and by being friends with teachers who have left the school.

In general, Chinese people are very friendly and happy to make friends with foreigners.

Dating
Dating customs are completely different (as can be expected). I have been told that proper dating etiquette does not permit any kind of touching, let alone kissing. If a Chinese girl takes your arm, or kisses you it is to show she loves you. Well I haven’t been on that many dates so I don’t know if this is a universal Chinese custom.

Chinese Lessons:
The school is supposed to provide all the Chinese lessons you want. This usually does not happen. The lessons are given by a newly hired Chinese teacher and usually stop when she gets too busy.

I have had lessons from two teachers. If you really want to learn, you have to pay for formal courses at other schools. Bincai school(one of the more well known schools) charges about 700RMB per month. I went to the HSK academy for 260RMB for each 2 week session.

If you want to learn Chinese properly, you should expect to pay for lessons at a school or a tutor.

Accommodations:
There are two campuses-Daoli and Nangang. The apartments are small.

Mine is 28 sq. meters (although the school says its 32 sq.m). And to boot, I have one of the bigger ones. When I was recruited, I was told that my apartment would have DVD player, washing machine, Internet and 2 bedrooms etc.

The DVD player turned out to be someone else’s and had to be returned. The washing machine never worked. I had to use a laundry service. Internet means you have a connection-and you pay (you have to read the fine print carefully).

There is a hot water heater that worked once and not again. I’ve been taking cold showers for almost a year now.

The bathroom/shower/toilet is a little 1.5 sq.m cubicle. In Harbin, the city controls when the heat comes on, so you will need to invest in a heater for winter and a mosquito scent disperser in summer. There is an air conditioner.

The building is dirty and unlit (outside) and poorly lit inside. I find it disgusting but you have to lower your expectations here.

For Daoli, there are 3 apartments for teachers-2 are close to the school, and one is a 35 minute walk away (also 11 flights up an unlit stairwell).

Management:
They pretty well ignore you unless there are complaints about your classes. This can be a good or bad thing depending on how you like to work. There are no staff meetings, no staff notice boards and only the odd communication. If parents have any complaints, you will be told on payday. Here the owner and the head teacher will go over all the complaints with you. I have had 2 such sessions and they are not too pleasant.

They may start to observe your classes. Here the head teacher or another assistant will sit in you class and take notes. If it’s the head teacher she won’t just observe-during the class from time to time she will as ‘what’s your plan?’ This is another shocking thing about being observed.

The treatment of foreign teachers varies considerably. The head teacher will talk to her favorites or ignore you.

The owners of the school don’t speak English so most of the time no-one really talks to you.

If you want to be paid on time, you have to remind them! Otherwise they will forget to pay you. This is one of the shocking realities here.

Contract Timing
The school may time the signing of your contract until after a long holiday. Watch out for this!

School Meals:
The school cooks lunches but I usually eat out. As a rule, all the foreign teachers eat elsewhere.

Other Schools:
Best are
Bincai (best apartments, good managements and very professional)
Modern English (Nangang campus- great atmosphere, friendly colleagues)

Worst by reputation are:
Hengfeng
High Bird
Sunshine International

I was shocked at the number of Harbin schools that are blacklisted. Everyone has their own opinions after a while. Each teacher can have a completely different experience at the same school.

Salary Levels:
5000RMB/month plus an apartment is pretty well the minimum wage for foreigners. I wouldn’t take anything less even if you have no experience. Demand for teachers is huge so you have considerable bargaining power.

I was initially offered 4500RMB/month but haggled my way up. Now Yi Jian is trying hard to save money so likely they will try to bargain you down. Don’t accept this and just keep looking for other work.

In Harbin here are what some other schools are offering
Modern English: 6000/month (1 years experience)
Nasdaken: 7000/month (with no apartment)
Bincai: 5000/month(1 month probation) to start and increases your salary to 6000 in less than a year and to 6500 after a year.
Star College Harbin Normal University: 5000/month with 2 days off per week, 2 months paid vacation per year (very nice!)

One of the good things about Yi Jian is that there is no need to keep office hours if you are not teaching. However it is one of the lowest paying schools.

If you have a white skin, you are the best type of foreigner that a school can want. I was rejected at one school because I look Chinese! This is one of the silly realities of teaching in China.

Living Expenses:
For a fairly minimal lifestyle you can expect to spend 1500-2000RMB/month. To set yourself up, you need as a minimum

A cell phone
DVDs
A bank account (this you can’t do on your own unless you know Chinese)

The biggest initial cost is likely a collection of DVDs. There is no English TV in Harbin. There is a small store that sells English DVDs (pirate copies) for 7RMB each and up. They offer service in English and replace any defective DVD. This store is very near the Daoli school.

I got the cheapest cell phone I could find at 348RMB. You have to pay in advance for service-you don’t get a bill.

The school helps you set up a bank account and shop for a cell phone. This is one of the nice things they do.

Here are my expenses for March 2007.

Lunch at a food court cost around 10RMB. Dinners elsewhere can vary tremendously. You can eat very well for 30RMB. Most restaurants do not have English menus though. You can expect to point and guess a lot and hope for the best.

Snacks Food Toys Dates Food Court Meals DVDs Other Total
1 8.0 28.0 36.0
2 10.0 10.0
3 0.0
4 48.0 48.0
5 100.0 30.0 130.0
6 0.0
7 10.0 40.0 50.0
8 1.9 1.9
9 99.3 4.9 104.2
11 102.0 102.0
12 55.0 65.0 20.0 22.0 162.0
13 34.2 30.0 64.2
14 0.0
15 20.0 12.0 32.0
16 10.0 68.0 35.0 69.7 182.7
17 2.0 20.0 22.0
18 5.0 5.0
19 78.0 9.0 87.0
20 0.0
21 36.0 22.0 58.0
22 25.0 25.0
23 15.0 35.0 54.0 104.0
24 0.0
25 32.0 21.0 53.0
26 30.0 30.0
27 43.4 25.0 15.0 83.4
28 41.4 47.0 15.5 103.9
29 5.0 5.0
30 68.0 5.0 73.0
31 5.0 5.0
13.9 467.3 405.0 93.0 75.0 276.0 20.0 227.1 1,577.3

There are at least a couple of Wal-Marts in Harbin. Carrefour is here too. There are plenty of places to shop in the Daoli downtown district. The other districts I don’t know so well.

Harbin:
Everything closes down around 9pm. After that, its nightclubs, bars and bowling only. The city can be beautiful in some areas (downtown Daoli) and quite ugly in the outlying areas.

Don’t expect much service in English around the city. You really need to have a translator with you and must learn a few basic phrases ASAP.

Shopping
Prices are fixed at the bigger stores but you can usually haggle at the smaller shops. If you look like a foreigner, expect to be gouged regularly until you know what you should be paying and can say a few basic shopping phrases.

Conclusion:
When I did my original research, I was unaware that there were sites and blacklists. Much to my surprise, later I was told that this school was blacklisted by a teacher in 2004. One of the complaints was the teacher’s passport was stolen and withheld.

Now that I have been with Yi Jian for almost a year, the full story about this school is much clearer to me. The person in question is an email friend now so I know much more about what happened.

I hope this information gives you a better idea of what to expect working at Yi Jian school, life in Harbin and teaching in China.

Unit 731-Japanese Germ Warfare Unit in China

From the souvenir book I bought at the Harbin museum for germ warfare memorial.

Table of Contents
Page 6 Planning for Bacteriological warfare
Page 22 Building Massive Bacteriological warfare unit
Page 54 “Special Transfer” and experiments on live human beings
Page 84 Developing Bacteriological weapons
Page 106 Putting Germs into actual combat
Page 122 Destroying Criminal evidence and fleeing China
Page 128 Wartime responsibilities that have to be answered for
Page 148 Major events of Unit 731

The only thing left of the massive facility is the administrative building, where the museum and exhibits are displayed. The atrocities of Germany get most of the publicity but I was shocked at learning more about the Harbin headquarters of Unit 731, Japan’s research center for germ warfare.

Here’s more information-
Asian Holocost
WWII in the Pacific

Polar Exhibit

My school took 100 kids to the 'Polar Exhibit' on Sun Island today. We saw seals, whales fish etc.


I am taking chinese lessons 2 hours a day now at a Korean school. Is hard to keep up and learn all the new words and sounds.

More Unknown War History

War Crimes Museum

Further evidence of the dubious nature of the Japanese role during their occupation of parts of China in the 1930s and 40s is highlighted here in Harbin.
The Japanese army took the city in 1932, part of the colonization policy that had already claimed Korea and other parts of the newly set up Manchukuo state (Manchuria) with its puppet emperor.
Many Japanese historians even today refute much of the evidence that has been mounting up since the war years, although it is now fairly commonly accepted that the strictly drilled Japanese forces and seemingly polite civilians were less than civil.
The Japanese Germ Warfare Experimental Base (Riben xijun shiyan jidi) was set up in 1939 to "research", presumably, the capabilities of the soul and the endurance of the human body. Run by the Japanese army's Unit 731 (Qi san yao budui), the research center experimented upon many of the captives of the viscous war in Northeast Asia, including Soviet, Korean, British, Mongolian and mostly Chinese prisoners of war (POWs). As with other examples of the demonic brutality that such oppressive authoritarian societies can be stretched to doing, from Auschwitz to Nanjing, the Germ Warfare Experimental Base nowadays shows little of the grisly senselessness that its recent past should emphasize. The sight is said to have witnessed the execution of over 3000 POWs in the most horrific way: frozen, bombed, roasted, infected, injected, dissected...alive until dead.
Almost as chilling and sad as the events themselves is the umbrella of denial that now has spread over much of this period of history, with allegations and misinformation coming from many sides. Just before the 1945 retake of the city by the Soviets the Japanese apparently did their utmost to cover up the evidence of this area, blowing up the site. Allegedly, the Americans also gave the Japanese scientists who worked in the base, prominent in their respective fields, immunity from prosecution in return for research findings. It was not until the 1980s that a Japanese journalist published his findings of the role of the army in the Northeast that, seemingly, the whole truth came out. Nowadays many Chinese are adamant, and with good but possibly overzealous reasons, in their hatred of the Japanese. "Is said to", "apparently", "allegedly", "seemingly", "possibly" are words that appear with frequent maddening regularity here.
The museum that now commemorates this site is situated near to the spot that the original base stood, some 30km south-west of Harbin, near to the little town of Pingfang. The site is interesting for those into history, although the museum is small (two rooms) and has, see above, little evidence of the true past. There are, however, a few photographs, with Chinese captions, and the unearthed site of the original base that could be worth a look.
Nanking(Nanjing) www.historyplace.com
In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China's capital city of Nanking and proceeded to murder 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. The six weeks of carnage would become known as the Rape of Nanking and represented the single worst atrocity during the World War II era in either the European or Pacific theaters of war.
The actual military invasion of Nanking was preceded by a tough battle at Shanghai that began in the summer of 1937. Chinese forces there put up surprisingly stiff resistance against the Japanese Army which had expected an easy victory in China. The Japanese had even bragged they would conquer all of China in just three months. The stubborn resistance by the Chinese troops upset that timetable, with the battle dragging on through the summer into late fall. This infuriated the Japanese and whetted their appetite for the revenge that was to follow at Nanking.
After finally defeating the Chinese at Shanghai in November, 50,000 Japanese soldiers then marched on toward Nanking. Unlike the troops at Shanghai, Chinese soldiers at Nanking were poorly led and loosely organized. Although they greatly outnumbered the Japanese and had plenty of ammunition, they withered under the ferocity of the Japanese attack, then engaged in a chaotic retreat. After just four days of fighting, Japanese troops smashed into the city on December 13, 1937, with orders issued to "kill all captives."
Their first concern was to eliminate any threat from the 90,000 Chinese soldiers who surrendered. To the Japanese, surrender was an unthinkable act of cowardice and the ultimate violation of the rigid code of military honor drilled into them from childhood onward. Thus they looked upon Chinese POWs with utter contempt, viewing them as less than human, unworthy of life.
The elimination of the Chinese POWs began after they were transported by trucks to remote locations on the outskirts of Nanking. As soon as they were assembled, the savagery began, with young Japanese soldiers encouraged by their superiors to inflict maximum pain and suffering upon individual POWs as a way of toughening themselves up for future battles, and also to eradicate any civilized notions of mercy. Filmed footage and still photographs taken by the Japanese themselves document the brutality. Smiling soldiers can be seen conducting bayonet practice on live prisoners, decapitating them and displaying severed heads as souvenirs, and proudly standing among mutilated corpses. Some of the Chinese POWs were simply mowed down by machine-gun fire while others were tied-up, soaked with gasoline and burned alive.
After the destruction of the POWs, the soldiers turned their attention to the women of Nanking and an outright animalistic hunt ensued. Old women over the age of 70 as well as little girls under the age of 8 were dragged off to be sexually abused. More than 20,000 females (with some estimates as high as 80,000) were gang-raped by Japanese soldiers, then stabbed to death with bayonets or shot so they could never bear witness.
Pregnant women were not spared. In several instances, they were raped, then had their bellies slit open and the fetuses torn out. Sometimes, after storming into a house and encountering a whole family, the Japanese forced Chinese men to rape their own daughters, sons to rape their mothers, and brothers their sisters, while the rest of the family was made to watch.
Throughout the city of Nanking, random acts of murder occurred as soldiers frequently fired their rifles into panicked crowds of civilians, killing indiscriminately. Other soldiers killed shopkeepers, looted their stores, then set the buildings on fire after locking people of all ages inside. They took pleasure in the extraordinary suffering that ensued as the people desperately tried to escape the flames by climbing onto rooftops or leaping down onto the street.
The incredible carnage - citywide burnings, stabbings, drownings, strangulations, rapes, thefts, and massive property destruction - continued unabated for about six weeks, from mid-December 1937 through the beginning of February 1938. Young or old, male or female, anyone could be shot on a whim by any Japanese soldier for any reason. Corpses could be seen everywhere throughout the city. The streets of Nanking were said to literally have run red with blood.
Those who were not killed on the spot were taken to the outskirts of the city and forced to dig their own graves, large rectangular pits that would be filled with decapitated corpses resulting from killing contests the Japanese held among themselves. Other times, the Japanese forced the Chinese to bury each other alive in the dirt.
After this period of unprecedented violence, the Japanese eased off somewhat and settled in for the duration of the war. To pacify the population during the long occupation, highly addictive narcotics, including opium and heroin, were distributed by Japanese soldiers to the people of Nanking, regardless of age. An estimated 50,000 persons became addicted to heroin while many others lost themselves in the city's opium dens.
In addition, the notorious Comfort Women system was introduced which forced young Chinese women to become slave-prostitutes, existing solely for the sexual pleasure of Japanese soldiers.
News reports of the happenings in Nanking appeared in the official Japanese press and also in the West, as page-one reports in newspapers such as the New York Times. Japanese news reports reflected the militaristic mood of the country in which any victory by the Imperial Army resulting in further expansion of the Japanese empire was celebrated. Eyewitness reports by Japanese military correspondents concerning the sufferings of the people of Nanking also appeared. They reflected a mentality in which the brutal dominance of subjugated or so-called inferior peoples was considered just. Incredibly, one paper, the Japan Advertiser, actually published a running count of the heads severed by two officers involved in a decapitation contest, as if it was some kind of a sporting match.
In the United States, reports published in the New York Times, Reader's Digest and Time Magazine, were greeted with skepticism from the American public. The stories smuggled out of Nanking seemed almost too fantastic to be believed.
Overall, most Americans had only a passing knowledge or little interest in Asia. Political leaders in both America and Britain remained overwhelmingly focused on the situation in Europe where Adolf Hitler was rapidly re-arming Germany while at the same time expanding the borders of the Nazi Reich through devious political maneuvers.
Back in Nanking, however, all was not lost. An extraordinary group of about 20 Americans and Europeans remaining in the city, composed of missionaries, doctors and businessmen, took it upon themselves to establish an International Safety Zone. Using Red Cross flags, they brazenly declared a 2.5 square-mile area in the middle of the city off limits to the Japanese. On numerous occasions, they also risked their lives by personally intervening to prevent the execution of Chinese men or the rape of women and young girls.
These Westerners became the unsung heroes of Nanking, working day and night to the point of exhaustion to aid the Chinese. They also wrote down their impressions of the daily scenes they witnessed, with one describing Nanking as "hell on earth." Another wrote of the Japanese soldiers: "I did not imagine that such cruel people existed in the modern world." About 300,000 Chinese civilians took refuge inside their Safety Zone. Almost all of the people who did not make it into the Zone during the Rape of Nanking ultimately perished.

Lesson on Unknown History

During my course preparing high school students to go to take an entrance exam, I was made aware of their anti-Japanese feelings during our goodbye lunch celebrations. I had to to a bit of digging to see what this was based on. Here is some background material.
War Lives On at Museum of the Macabre (Washington Post 2006)
HARBIN, China -- More than 200,000 Chinese filed through the remains of Japan's notorious Unit 731 here last year, visiting the ghosts of World War II. In exhibits mounted throughout the bleak headquarters building, they saw wrenching descriptions of biological warfare experiments carried out on thousands of Chinese prisoners from 1939 to 1945.
The phrase "Do not forget us" has been inscribed on the wall of one room, where visitors can see the names and photos of some of those who received botulism injections, were made to suffer frostbite or had their internal organs removed by Japanese military doctors.
Heeding those words, authorities have drawn up plans for a $62.5 million expansion of the museum, condemning a middle school and an apartment complex to make way for restoring the once top-secret facility, where researchers estimate 3,000 Chinese were killed and 300,000 sickened by the hideous wartime experiments. The aim, said curator Wang Peng, is to make the story of Japan's atrocities at Unit 731 known to an ever-wider audience.
"Our goal is to build it into a world-class war memorial and educate people all over the world," Wang said in an interview. "This is not just a Chinese concern. It is a concern of humanity."
The intensifying interest in abuses at Unit 731, on the plains of Manchuria about 650 miles northeast of Beijing, is part of a rising tide of Chinese resentment over Japan's conduct during its extended occupation of China. The resentment, long simmering in the population, has been stoked in the past several years by what Chinese officials and people contend is a refusal by Japanese leaders to acknowledge clearly what happened and seek forgiveness from the victims and their relatives.
The popular anti-Japanese sentiment, mirrored in government-controlled media, has become a key ingredient in an increasingly tense relationship between China and Japan. Although they remain valuable trading partners, Asia's two major powers gradually have slipped into the role of adversaries, with officials regularly trading accusations of bad faith and Japanese leaders explicitly calling China a security threat.

Harbin Beer

Harbin Beer

Apparently Harbin beer is famous-too bad I don’t drink. Here on Zhong Yang Da Jie (main street) some remodeling has been completed for the coming beer festival. The main street is supposed to be one of the longest pedestrian walkways in China and its very conveniently up the street from where I live.

“Bu Lat!”
Bu Lat! Is a key phrase if you don’t want your mouth burned off when ordering food in restaurants. I’ve tried a few of the market dishes and most were quite spicy.

Russian GoodsThere are quite a few stores selling Russian goods here. Also I’ve managed to spot some Russian tourists. Also surprising is that there are quite a lot of Chinese tourists to Harbin.

Night Entertainment at Euro Plaza

There has been regular performance action at the Euro Plaza which is up the street from my place. There is a Korean food festival but there is also a curious lack of Korean food!Yes there are some feeble displays around the stage but not the big ‘festival’ the big sign implies.

Blog for July 12

Singapore Corrections

Thanks for some corrections from Mr. Hugh Brodie on Singapore, who mentions that 1) When I (Hugh) was there - it seemed that every (most?) public toilet was"auto-flush". Maybe there is a law stating that no new public toiletscan be "manual"?2) As far as I know, possessing gum (at least for personal use) was/isprefectly legal.3) I was told by locals that jaywalking is permitted if there is no"legal" pedestrian crossing within 100 m. I just followed the crowds andcrossed "illegally" quite often.4) Most/all elevators are equipped with a device to detect urine.Apparently, there was a problem with people urinating in elevators, andaction is taken against offenders.

SINGAPORE LAW

I am teaching a group of students who will be taking an exam to earn a scholarship to study in Singapore. Here is a bit more info on the destination. Some of the things I learned are quite surprising!

Fines
Fines are a defining element of life in Singapore. Some of the fines are for offenses that international travelers might expect, such as littering or jaywalking. First-time offenders can be fined S$500 or more.

It is illegal to use a toilet in Singapore and then not flush it. You will also be given a fine if you are caught spitting. The sale, importation and possession of chewing gum is banned and subject to heavy fines. First-time offenders can be fined S$1,000 and repeat-offenders are fined S$2,000 and given corrective work, such as cleaning a public place. The offenders are made to wear bright jackets, and sometimes, media are invited to cover the spectacle. This rule was introduced because of the high cost and difficulty in removing chewing gum from public premises.

Other items that cannot be brought into the country without authorization from the government include bullet-proof clothing, toy guns, pistols, weapons, or spears. Chewing tobacco, toy currency, and obscene materials are strictly prohibited.

No Smoking!
Smoking is not allowed in public buses, taxis, lifts, theaters, cinemas, government offices, and in air-conditioned restaurants and shopping centers. First-time offenders face a maximum fine of S$1,000. Where smoking is allowed, smokers must make sure they put out their cigarette butts in the proper place. Flicking a cigarette butt on the ground could easily get a smoker fined for littering. Eating or drinking is also prohibited in Mass Rapid Transit trains and terminals. It carries a minimum fine of S$500.

All laws involving traffic rules, vehicle registration, and liability in case of accident are strictly enforced and may have criminal penalties. Laws against driving while using a cellular phone are very strictly enforced. First-time offenders can be fined up to S$10,000.

Rule of Thumb
A good rule of thumb to use in Singapore is if an activity is prohibited by a rule, guideline, or norm elsewhere, it is quite likely prohibited by law in Singapore.

Felonies
Laws pertaining to felonies in Singapore are also very tough and strictly enforced. For example, there is a mandatory caning sentence for vandalism offenses. Caning can also be imposed for immigration violations and other offenses. Caning is a mandatory part of the sentence for rape and many drug-trafficking offenses.

Drug Trafficking
A person trafficking a Class-A drug, such as heroin, receives a minimum punishment of 5-years imprisonment and 5 strokes of the cane. A person trafficking a Class-B drug, cannabis, for instance, receives a minimum punishment of 3-years imprisonment and 3 strokes of the cane.

Persons caught trafficking larger amounts of narcotics are handled with an even more severe punishment. A mandatory death penalty was introduced in 1975 for persons convicted of trafficking in more than 15 grams of heroin or more than 30 grams of morphine. The death penalty is also mandated for trafficking 30 grams of cocaine, 500 grams of cannabis, 200 grams of cannabis resin, or 1.2 kilograms of opium. If you possess these quantities, you are deemed to be a trafficker and therefore subject to the death penalty.

Harsh Rehabilitation
Laws are strict. People who get caught with small amounts of drugs are sentenced to harsh rehabilitation programs. Rehabilitation is a method of punishment, not a method of curing a medical problem.

Conditions during rehabilitation range from rough to severe. Those determined to be physically able to handle it are detoxified with the "cold turkey" method. The detoxification by "cold turkey" treatment was adopted as it was felt that the traumatic experience of "cold turkey" or detoxification would serve as a deterrent to ex-drug-takers going back to drugs.

Conclusion
Singapore attracts many tourists. The clean and safe city is a haven in the midst of a region governed by shaky regimes and corrupt police forces. The mass transit system runs efficiently and is immaculately clean. Public parks and private gardens are well maintained. Malls, streets, and beaches are free from litter. Crime rates are very low.

My Singapore Scholarship Preparation Class

Here are some of my students on a break.

My school has two campuses, one in Daoli district and one in Nangang. The preparation course is in Nangang.
The school tries to take good care of us and has a cook to make lunches for us. Mostly its rice and pickled vegetables and then something that could be delicious or the more normal salted beans or cold eggplant.

My Three Student Judges

Friday we had interview practice where each student gave a short talk on why they should get a scholarship to go to Singapore.

I had three student judges to help me who were elected by the class as the best speakers so far. They did an excellent job giving feedback to my group. Unfortunately, some of my students decided that they did not need/want to practice and their interviews went badly.
We have a POSC (Period of Self-Criticism) where each person says what they will do better the next time. Next practice interview time is next Friday.

Typical Outdoor Entertainment on Zhong Zhang Da Jie (Main St)

On my way to work I go along main street which is a main tourist spot and hangout for the locals. There is a lot of free entertainment and one day at the outdoor market spot there was a local rock band. Rock has a rather different sound in Mandarin!

Here the band was playing at one of my eating spots where I have to just point at something and hope its edible. One time I got a dish of cold noodles which seemed harmless enough but it was so spicy my mouth felt like it was on fire.

One of the other foreign teachers told me that there will be a two week beer festival coming soon. Too bad I don’t drink! At one of the supermarkets near my place a can of Chinese beer is around C$0.30/can

Ouch It's Hot Today-July 6

Well I thought it was quite warm! Today's high was 35C and tomorrow's high will be 37C according to BBC weather forecast. The little kids in my class just keep the same enthusiastic looks on their faces as their wimpy foreign teacher wilts under the intense local heat. I don't even know if it's a heat wave or just the normal weather.
My solution is just to bring lots of water bottles to class and then go to the nearest store for a fresh cold pop whenever I get the chance. What can I say, there is no cool ocean breeze as in Vancouver. Well at least it rains once in a while here.
Its quite hard to sleep at night too.

Getting Sick in China- July 4

Well it had to happen sooner or later, I got sick. Somehow, I managed to catch a cold when the weather has been steaming hot for a few days in a row. My throat was very sore and I was on the verge of losing my voice. This would be a disaster for my teaching debut.

One of my teaching assistants went to buy some medicine for me. Some bitter tasting liquid and a couple of types of pills and capsules quickly appeared. The pills/capsules seem rather ordinary, but no words can describe the foul taste of the liquid potion.

My symptoms quickly disappeared after a day. Whew!

Chinese Takeout Food-China Style-July 3

I went out for a late lunch snack for some takeout food at a small local restaurant today. Well what could possibly be so interesting about this you may wonder? My food was nicely wrapped in two small plastic bags!

The spicy beef noodles were very tasty. You can’t judge the food by the container it seems.

Random Dinner Selection

I’ve been going to the same restaurant ordering randomly from the menu in a effort to discover local delicacies. Today’s result way a plate full of orange round discs with no taste and had the consistency of gooey jello. The plate was coated with sugar too. Alas I had accidentally ordered a big plate of strange tasting dessert.

I asked for a menu so I could order again but I got a little gesture of hospitality instead as a free plate of mystery salad arrived and a little plain dumpling bun. The staff giggled a bit and smiled at me,as they also realized I had made a mistake.

The salad and bun were gone in no time but most of the dessert plate I had to leave behind.

Sofia Church

Today’s walk took me to beautiful Sofia Church. I explored the shopping malls nearby too and managed to overpay handsomely for an umbrella (90RMBs-C$15). I thought the price sounded a bit high, but after hunting around for a men’s umbrella for a few days, I just did not have the sense to start bargaining and just said ’OK’ like a typical dopey tourist.

The Chinese shopping mall sometime resembles a bazaar or market that stretches out to many floors. There are many (hundreds?) of little booths where vendors cram as many things as they can into their small areas.

The most popular products seem to be women’s cloths. I managed to stumble into a whole basement of cellphone vendors in one mall. Each booth was about 6x6 feet-enough for a display case and a chair.

Saturday June 24th’s Adventures

Street Market from Morning















On the way to work I discovered a little street market that stretched a block and a half. There were plenty of assorted things for sales and food being cooked for sale.

I avoided the temptation to have an outdoor breakfast.

Motorcycle Taxi for Hire
















Scattered throughout the city are middle aged men just sitting around on fancy motorcycles. At first I thought these were part of a motorcycle gang but later I was told they were ‘taxis’ for hire.


Park Behind My School



There is a nice park right behind my school. This is where I go to have my Chinese lessons with my tutor.

Blog June 26, 2006

Here is my adventure today, my day off. It’s tough to drag myself out of bed but I usually go for a long slow walk. I grab a bite to eat for breakfast and try to discover more on foot. Usually there is a visit to the local DVD store where I pick up 4-6 DVDs (daily!) and then I go out for dinner again.

The Morning Show














My walk to work takes me on the main street of the Daoli district, but its not the main street of Harbin by any means.

Today’s show was a big public display of government accomplishments with a taped video show, and posters. T-shirts were also being given away.

Musical Support













The display was suddenly supported by a military marching band. In the background is the central mall of Harbin.

The welcome message is also in English and Russian(!)




Mmmmm- Delicious Bakery















There is a little food court/market on the corner of my street and main street where I get my breakfast food.

I’ve found that bakeries are a serious affair with many ‘watch the cooks work’ type displays where you can watch very intricate creations.

My favorite breakfast food is a 2 RMB (C$0.30) wrap with egg/sausage/hash brown potatoes and vegetables.

Teaching English with Chess

Today I taught my 'New Interchange" class (7 girls) how to play chess in an effort to use chess as an English teaching tool. Because of the similarity between some of the Chinese chess pieces and International chess, the girls learned quite quickly.
This class is my most advanced class and is also the only one where I don't have an assistant in class with me. Funnily enough, the level of spoken English for half the class is quite low. I can barely get some of them to say a word in English in class.
I've improvised on the book material by allowing the class to present one or two short skits on a topic of their choosing. Sadly, this is where I notice the level of spoken English for an advanced class is so low. Next week I hope to get the girls to explain chinese chess (in english!) to me.

Teaching English with Chess

Today I taught my ‘New Interchange” class (7 girls) how to play chess in an effort to use chess as an English teaching tool. Because of the similarity between some of the Chinese chess pieces and International chess, the girls learned quite quickly.

This class is my most advanced class and is also the only one where I don’t have an assistant in class with me. Funnily enough, the level of spoken English for half the class is quite low. I can barely get some of them to say a word in English in class.

I’ve improvised on the book material by allowing the class to present one or two short skits on a topic of their choosing. Sadly, this is where I notice the level of spoken English for an advanced class is so low. Next week I hope to get the girls to explain chinese chess (in english!) to me.

Whew I'm not Crazy!-Energy Conservation

I thought I had lost my mind. Sometimes my stairwell is not lit and
then other days there is dim emergency lighting. Now I have discovered a
clever little secret about Chinese buildings. They have sound activated
internal corridor lights!



Traffic control is cute too:

Traffic lights at major intersections have digital displays showing how many seconds until the lights change. Also there are traffic police with red flags and whistles to signal the right of way. The catch is that pedestrians jaywalk when ever it suits them and cars in the intersection just keep going even when pedestrians are crossing. Both pedestrians and cars seem to ignore each other but no accidents happen.



Speeding is not really a problem. Everyone is going at a reasonable speed. However, indiscriminate lane changing, cutting off other vehicles, dodging jaywalkers is all part of the show.

Daily surprise

They turn the water off without warning to work on god knows what. I just tried to wash my hands(6:45pm) and voila! No water. I went shopping at WalMart today (again). Its a great combination: China+Walmart+Sale= Cheap!!!!!!!! Prices.
I got some nice T-shirts for 9.9RMBs (C$1.50) each. My new DVDs were even cheaper 7RMBs (C$1) so what could I do? I bought 6. Only my dinner was cheaper-tasty beef noodles for 5RMBs. Oh I'm really having too much fun. I'm not even sure when payday is. I doesn't seem to matter. Coke was on sale too. There was a World Cup promotion-4 bottles of coke(500ml) for 2.1RMBs ($0.30).
I alway try my best to go to WalMart-just to hunt around for a bargain.

Car Manners-When to Honk Your Horn

There is something unmistakable about the sound of Harbin traffic. Someone is always honking their horn.

You honk
*To warn someone your are coming
*To warn someone you are close.
*To warn someone you are about to hit them
*To alert the oncoming traffic you are going the wrong way up a one way street.

No need to honk when
*You are cutting off a pedestrian
*You are cutting off another car
*You are cutting off a bus or other large vehicle

Possibly honk if
*You are bored
*You are saying hello to someone you know
*You want someone to get moving,

As a bonus to drivers, there seem to be no parking meters. However, public streets seem to be monitored by people directing parking and carrying pouches as though they were collecting money. I took a closer look and they were wearing official looking ID tags.

Anywhere else, you can basically park anywhere you can stop your car.

Night Market Dinner

Today I went for dinner in an open air night market by the river and had tasty beef noodles for 5RMBs(Less than C$1). There was a little crowd of vendors following me trying to get me to try their dishes when they realized I was a foreigner. I was lucky one of my teaching assistants was with me to explain what was going on to me.

The noodle dish was served on a plastic plate wrapped in an inside-out plastic bag for hygiene (!).

I also sampled shish kabobs of beef, lamb and chicken (not so good); and barbecued fish (very tasty). These were spicy foods and only the fish was good.

This market was a place only frequented by the locals so I got a good idea of what life in China was all about.

World Cup Soccer-China Style

World Cup Soccer-China Style

Viewing the world cup to most people means sitting in front of the TV at home or maybe going to a sports bar. In Harbin, the downtown area has outdoor TVs setup at outdoor fast food malls and near the Wal-Mart there is a huge TV set up for public viewing. The main program is soccer.

Last night Japan-Croatia was shown and enthusiastic crowds were viewing the games.

Nightlife
There is no bar/nightclub style nightlife. Here people enjoy strolling down the main street mall which leads to a lovely riverside walkway. Downtown buildings feature traditional old style Russian architecture, not the modern ugly rectangular buildings.

Its too bad this blog site does not allow me to post pictures anymore

First Saturday Teaching

Saturday June 17-2006
This was my first day of a full weekend of teaching 8-hours plus parent meetings and preparations. It’s a good thing that I have several assistants to do the main work and all I have to do is deliver the material, keep the kids interested and familiarize myself with the text.

Each foreign teacher gets an assistant to help with translation, keep discipline in class, give and mark homework and prepare lesson plans. The foreign teachers need only to review and make changes to lesson plans presented to them.

The textbook(s) emphasize constant drilling to improve pronunciation but nothing can describe a 2-hour lesson with little kids who have to sit still most of the lesson. There is only a 10-minute break for the lessons, so to keep the kids from losing interest, teachers inject some fun with English word games like hangman and Simon says etc.

It’s quite tortuous for the youngest kids who may be as young as 6 years old.

No Pictures for now
I don’t know why but I cannot upload pictures anymore. Hopefully this can be fixed soon.

Corrections
1. The pizza place was in fact not a pizza hut, just a pizza place.
2. My buildings stairwells are lit with dim emergency lights, but the outer exits are completely unlit and would be considered hazards in the west.

Little Details-Harbin

Small Details-Harbin

Jaywalking is one of the main ways to cross any street. There is no end to traffic violations either.
There are no parking meters.
There is no regular garbage pickup service.
There is no visible recycling-but I am told things do get recycled.
There is constant honking of car horns.

When you go into Wal-Mart or large stores, whenever you approach a counter, someone will say something to you or try to show something to you. If you walk down the main mall, many stores have someone standing outside to try to get you to come in or offer you a sample.
The architecture of the downtown area is beautiful.
Ice cream vendors are everywhere. You can get a cone for 1RMB ($0.15).
Middle age men with fancy motorcycles seem to hang around on street corners. Later I learned these are motorcycle taxis(!). I’m not sure if they are legal, but no-one minds them. At first I thought they were some kind of motorcycle gang.

People love Chinese chess. There is always a game going on with a large set and a little crowd around them.
There are no coin operated Laundromats. But there are laundry services; the catch is you must be able to read Chinese to know they exist. I just got my first laundry done for 71RMBs (C$12).

Street drainage is awful. You have to look really hard to find a drain. However, the roads are all freshly surfaced.
Pedestrian pavements are very narrow. It seems like pedestrians have few rights.

Oh yes-I did find a McDonalds, a KFC and a little place that claimed to be a Pizza Hut.

My Apartment-China Style

My New Home

My employer-the Yi Jian English School provides a modest furnished apartment for me. This is standard for all foreign teachers. It’s quite big by Chinese standards but still, for a westerner it is really small.

However, I am quite close to work.

The kitchen has a single gas burner and a small fridge. A microwave is not standard issue or a normal appliance. One very odd thing is the gas water heater. It took quite some doing to figure out how it works.

The bedroom is small and narrow and is the wide of a double bed. I do get a TV and a DVD player included! Also included is an ADSL connection. This was quite a puzzle to figure out how to use. Finally, one of the teaching assistants was able to unravel the mystery.

Today’s adventure begins with-no water!-for some reason, the water has been turned off. Again I get to have a cold shower.

This week’s important task is to get someone to show me how to use the washing machine. It looks like I have to hang my clothes dry. I cannot even escape this by finding a laudromat-there are none to be found.

The garbage pickup system is a big surprise. There is no regular pickup, nor is there any obvious place outside the building that garbage should go. The system is to place garbage outside your door at night and it will be picked up by ‘cleaners’ everyday-in the morning or at night.

The lighting is awful in the stairwells and outside the building. Actually, there is no lighting. There rear building faces are just left unpainted and it really looks like I live in a slum.

My First Class-Tuesday June 13

My first scheduled class lasted 2 hours and was a nervous joy. I had nine keen and curious little students and was helped by Vicky, my teaching assistant.

The orange cloth contraption is my first innovation in teaching for the school. Its a collection of objects (bought from Wal-Mart!) that I used for vocabulary development.

I ask kids to reach in without looking and pullout an object-and then guess what it is. When each child has an object, I ask them to describe it and explain what it is to the rest of the class.

We supplemented the planned textbook exercises with a series a word games, \'Simon says\' and guessing games based on the \'magic vocabulary box\'.

After the class, I met with all the parents and (with the help of a translator) answered all questions. Most of the parents looked at me with a wall of silence with only two of the parents doing all the questioning.

Most of my classes are on the weekend with Monday as my official day off. I also have three evening classes during the week. All the classes are two hours long with a 10-minute break.

Harbin-Main Street

Main street in downtown Harbin is a pure viewing pleasure. However, looking for cheap western CDs and DVDs is quite frustrating. I was expecting to see a CD/DVD superstore with a fabulous selection but I was greatly disappointed.

I did stumble across some small store with very modest selections of western work and finally I managed to snag

• A 5 DVD set of Eagles
• A 4 DVD set of Rolling Stones concerts
• 3 other DVDs

for the princely sum of C$30 total (a teaching assistant from my school did the haggling for me).

Wal-Mart China Style

The Wal-Mart is something of an amazing experience. The main idea remains the same but the chinese experience has 3 floors, a large fresh grocery section, moving escalators that you can take your shopping cart onto and a host of other differences.

The ground floor has 2 bakeries and other food options. I make it a point to go to the Wal-Mart just to hand around for abit and look for an excuse to buy something-on sale!

Shopping is a noisy experience. There always seems to be someone shouting something at you. Salesladies seem to be everywhere.

The next building over is a Parkson's 6-floor department store. It has a top floor fast food court that is simply beyond words to describe. There are no western foods offered but there every conceivable type of chinese fast food. There are no separate outlets, but you are just ringed in completely in an end-to-end array of food options.

The First Day-Thursday June 8

The First Day-Thursday June 8

Shanghai airport has no air conditioning! This is first lasting impression of China. Then I proceeded to invest in can of Pepsi for 18RMBs ($3) to quench my thirst. So much for cheap China prices. One of the first noticeable things at the airport is the large number of foreign travelers.

The flight to Harbin was uneventful. I boarded after paying 260RMBs for exceeding the baggage weight limit. During the five-hour layover I had a chance to chat with an engineer for a Swiss laser-welding equipment company who was making a service call to a customer.

Chris (my foreign teacher contact), Mr. Sun(the owner) and Elva ( a local teacher) greeted me at midnight at the airport. I felt really important for three people to greet me in person. We drove back to my apartment and exchanged stories along the way. One of the streets we went on is ‘Edmonton Road (or Way) as Harbin/Edmonton are sister cities.

I woke at 4:30am to unpack and the first thing I did was blow up a power adapter. My first major task is to get an Internet connection.

The first shower was a cold on as I had not mastered how to turn the hot water on. The bathroom does not have 2 taps for hot and cold water as most westerners are used to.

The kitchen is quite sparse with a single gas stove (my first investment will be the traditional microwave) and no oven.

The washroom has a curious feature-the bathroom is the show area as well-toilet and all. I was greeted with an absence of toilet paper and towels.

My window view is of the run down end of very old looking apartment building. The double door is heavily reinforced and heavy duty metal lock (triple bolts). This should deter any would be burglars.

During the night, there is dead silence. There should be no problem sleeping.

The first task of the day is for my employer to register me at the police station. The is a 24-hour period for this from time of landing.

Shopping Chinese Style!

Team Buying
We all know that if you buy in bulk, you’ll usually get some type of discount, but some enterprising people in China are taking that a step further by organizing online and then visiting a store like a flash mob to team buy items.

Welcome to China’s newest shopping craze, tuangou, or team buying. By combining the power of the Internet to compare prices with the stealth tactics of the flash mob, team buyers are driving hard bargains in the world’s hottest economy. Many team-buying websites have sprung up to catch the trend, which first began in online forums and chat rooms.

So instead of one person buying a $300 camera, 15 strangers meet up at the store to bulk purchase the cameras at a discount. The organizer of the team buy goes with the group and serves as the main negotiator and can form organized walk outs if the deal isn’t good.

Bargaining as a way of life
Typically, shoppers looking for the same items find each other online, then band together offline to negotiate special deals on electronics, home furnishings and automobiles. Some team buyers approach store managers beforehand. Others simply show up and flex their collective muscle.

Bargaining is a way of life in China. Shoppers treat sticker prices as a starting point for negotiations, and it's a point of pride to strike a tough bargain or walk away if unhappy.

This habit of face-to-face haggling is one reason why regular online shopping is only slowly catching on in China, which has more than 110 million Internet users, second only to the U.S. E-commerce, was worth around $1 billion in 2005, according to Beijing-based research company iResearch. Many shoppers, though, prefer cash-on-delivery or checks to online payment systems, and credit cards aren't widely used.

Thanks!

Thanks to Kai and Jazz for the thoughtful gifts. I had a great time at Osler School and the VPL teaching you.

China’s Special Economic Zones

Shenzen at Night

Economic Development (China in Brief)

China began to reform the national economic setup in 1978. Here is a summary

1980: China established five special economic zones,

1. Shenzhen, Guangdong Province
2. Zhuhai, Guangdong Province
3. Shantou, Guangdong Province
4. Xiamen, Fujian Province
5. Hainan province
   

1984: Opened 14 coastal cities—Dalian, Qinhuangdao, Tianjin, Yantai, Qingdao, Lianyungang, Nantong, Shanghai, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Zhanjiang and Beihai—to overseas investment.

1985: extended the open economic zones of the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou Triangle in south Fujian, Shandong Peninsula, Liaodong Peninsula, Hebei and Guangxi into an open coastal belt.

1990: Opened the Pudong New Zone in Shanghai to overseas investment, and opened more cities in the Yangtze River valley.

1992: the State Council has opened a number of border cities, and in addition, opened all the capital cities of inland provinces and autonomous regions.

In addition,

• 15 free trade zones,
• 32 state-level economic and technological development zones,
• 53 new- and high-tech industrial development zones

have been established in large and medium-sized cities.

The five special economic zones are foreign-oriented areas which integrate science and industry with trade, and benefit from preferential policies and special managerial systems. The Shanghai Pudong New Zone has made great progress in both absorbing foreign capital and accelerating the economic development of the Yangtze River valley.

The 5,900 foreign-funded enterprises have formed six pillar industries:

1. automobiles and spare parts and components
2. microelectronics and computers
3. household electrical appliances
4. bio-medicines
5. optical, mechanical
6. Electrical products

Help Yourself-Chess News and Resources

Keeping Up with the News

Chess is slow but news travels fast.

ChessBase - is my favourite news site. News comes daily, has many illustrated reports and you can view games played with a nice games viewer.

The Week in Chess - all the latest results and also has a downloadable games feature for keeping databases up to date

Other Resources

New in Chess-has the best chess magazine in the world. NIC is also publishes quarterly yearbooks and many other resources.

Rybka-is a strong chess program and has a free downloadable beta version

Chessgames.com-is an online database of games

Chessville-has an instruction section, annotated games and other goodies

Ten Tips to Winning Chess is a nice starting point

Playing Online

This is a great way to practice!

Internet Chess Club-you can join or play for free as a guest. The best site for the most serious players

World Chess Network-Many of my students play here

Playchess.com-Has many features and you get 1 year free membership if you buy the Fritz playing program


For Kids in Vancouver

Vancouver Public Library-Chess Club for Children - I used to run this club.

Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. - 8:45 p.m.
Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. to noon

Location:
Children's LibraryLibrary Square - Lower Level
350 W. Georgia St.
www.vpl.ca/branches/LibrarySquare/chi/home.html

Admission: Free! Just drop in

The Big Day!-SLP Board Report Presentation

Today Certified Management Accountant candidates will give their final presentation called the 'Board Report’ for the Strategic Leadership Program.

It is a very nervous time. We have to present the written report we made to a 3-person panel of strangers who will judge our PowerPoint presentation and ask us questions.

Our topic was to make a new strategy for a fictional company called Bon Beverages-a small maker of fruit juices and soft drinks. We had to do a lot of research to support our recommendations.

An example would be to find an independent bottler in California because we are recommending that our company should expand there by licensing soft drink production to a bottler there.

Here is what we found:

'The Dr Pepper/Seven Up Bottling Group, Inc. (DPSUBG) is the largest independent manufacturer, marketer and distributor of well-known and widely-consumed carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks in the United States. We service more than one-third of the U.S. population with operations in 25 states. We operate ten manufacturing plants, over 100 distribution centers and employ over 9,000 employees.

The Company’s portfolio of carbonated soft drinks (CSD) and alternative beverages consist of highly recognizable national brands that are in many cases the first or second ranking brand in their flavor or product category. Dr Pepper, Seven Up, A&W, Sunkist, Canada Dry, Schweppes and Squirt are a few of the leading CSD brands.

The leading alternative beverages, manufactured and/or distributed by the Company are: Snapple, Fiji, Arizona, Clearly Canadian, Glaceau and Deja Blue water. Our brand portfolio is continually updated so that we achieve our goal of providing business value to our customers and refreshing beverages for their consumers.'

Our presentation is 1:30pm to today. After we will meet with our class at a pub/bar and go out for a nice dinner to celebrate the end of the course. If we pass we will all be CMAs. Whew!

Internet Filtering in China

Internet Restrictions in China


Some of my friends in China were having some trouble connecting with my blog for no apparent reason. So I started to dig around on the topic of Internet Filtering in China.

Results are a bit shocking! Some sites are specifically filtered out.

Among the specific blocked pages are the following categories of content:

Dissident/democracy sites
Blocked sites includes sites about democracy and human rights generally and sites specific to China. Of the top 100 sites returned by Google in response to a search for "democracy china," 40 were found to be blocked, while 37 "dissident china" sites were blocked, 32 were blocked for "freedom china," and 30 for "justice china." Specific blocked sites included Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Hong Kong Voice of Democracy, the Direct Democracy Center, and dozens of Falun Gong and Falun Dafa sites.

Health
Blocked sites included sites about health generally and about health in China specifically. Of the top 100 Google results for "hunger china," 24 were blocked; for "famine china" 23; for "AIDS china" 21; for "sex china" 19; for "disease china" 14. Specific blocked sites included the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the Internet Mental Health reference, and the Health in China research project. We found blocking of a total of 139 sites listed in Yahoo's Health directory categories and subcategories.

Education
Blocked sites included a number of well-known institutions of higher education, including the primary web servers operated by Caltech, Columbia, MIT, and the University of Virginia. Blocked non-university sites included the Learning Channel, the Islamic Virtual School, the Music Academy of Zheng, and the web sites of dozens of public and private primary and secondary schools. We further found evidence of blocking of 696 sites listed in Yahoo's Education directory categories and subcategories.

News
The BBC News was consistently unreachable, while CNN, Time Magazine, PBS, the Miami Herald, and the Philadelphia Inquirer were also often unavailable. Of Google's top 100 results for news, 42 were blocked. We further found evidence of blocking of 923 sites listed in Yahoo's News and Media directory categories and subcategories. Nonetheless, some news sites that were previously blocked became accessible during the course of our testing; for example, Reuters was blocked through April 29, but was subsequently accessible, while the Washington Post was blocked through May 6 and was subsequently accessible. This reduction in blocking of entire news sites may reflect that certain new filtering technologies (discussed in greater detail in the appendix) allow blocking only of the particular sections and articles that are particularly controversial in China. As a result, our results should not be taken to suggest that every Washington Post article is now accessible in China.

Government sites
Blocked sites included a variety of sites operated by governments in Asia and beyond. As discussed below, government sites of Taiwan and Tibet were targeted specifically. Also blocked was the entirety of uscourts.gov, including the many federal district and appellate courts in the United States, as well as the United Kingdom's Court Service and Israel's Judicial Authority. The communication sites of various governments were blocked, including the United States' Voice of America, as well as travel sites from Australia, Israel, Korea, Switzerland, and Wales. Government military department sites were also blocked, including the US Department of Defense, though others remained reachable (the CIA). A variety of additional government sites were blocked, without manifest pattern, both in the United States and beyond; examples include the site of Seattle's King County, the main Australian Federal Government index site, the Philippines Bureau of Customs, the British Insolvency Service, the Office of the Governor of Makkah in Saudi Arabia, and the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. Blocked sites included 516 sites in Yahoo's categories and subcategories pertaining to governments.

Taiwanese and Tibetan sites generally
Blocked sites included business sites (like the A&D Company of Taiwan), non-commercial sites (the Taiwan Health Clinic and a total of 709 .edu.tw sites, as well as the Voice of Tibet), and government sites (the Office of the President of Taiwan and the Taiwanese Parliamentary Library among 936 other Taiwanese government sites, and the Official Website of the Tibetan Government in Exile). More than 60% of Google's top 100 "Tibet" sites were found to be blocked, and more than 47% of the top "Taiwan" sites were blocked. Taiwanese content was also blocked disproportionately, relative to its representation in our testing sample; fully 3,284 .TW sites (13.4% of .TW sites tested) were blocked, while our overall block rate was approximately 9.3%. (Of course, comparisons of block rates must be performed with care given the subjective formation of the list of sites tested. For lack of a domain name specifically associated with Tibetan sites, it is more difficult to perform such a comparison on the block rate of Tibetan content.)

Entertainment
Blocked sites included the movie Deep Impact, the Canadian Music Centre, the Taiwanese site of MTV (mtv.com.tw) and multiple sites providing off-color jokes. We also found blocking of a total of 451 sites in Yahoo's categories and subcategories pertaining to Entertainment. Business.
Blocked sites included Novartis, Malaysian Airlines, Oil Industry News, [...]

Religion
Blocked sites included the Asian American Baptist Church, the Atheist Network, the Catholic Civil Rights League, Feng Shui at Geomancy.net, the Canberra Islamic Centre, the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, and the Denver Zen Center. We found blocking of a total of 1,763 sites in Yahoo's categories and subcategories pertaining to religion.

Now that's a very scary list!

Foreign Companies Help Restrict Access
In its quest to control the internet China has sought help from overseas. Some large, US-based computer software companies are believed to have sold Beijing the sophisticated software needed to run its filtering system. Companies like Google and Yahoo! have also been accused of co-operating in China's internet censorship. Google, for example, has modified its Chinese language search engine so that it does not show results for sites the Chinese government deems "harmful".

BBC News has more

Blogger Beware!
Bloggers must register with authorities. Earlier this year, China required anyone starting a Web site or a blog to register with authorities. Hundreds of Internet cafes — the main entry for Chinese who can’t afford a computer or Internet access — have closed as part of an ongoing effort to curb potential political decent.

MSNBC has more

Chinese Food Introduction

Index-China.com

There is an enormous variety of Chinese food that differs greatly from region to region. One interesting thing about Chinese traveling in China or Hong Kong is to try out different food.

You will find how different from what you have known from the fast food stand and how enjoyable it will be if you just release yourself from traditional food paradigm.

Famine and hardship
Famine and hardship played a large role in the development of the cuisine. China has been an agricultural civilization for thousands of years and has suffered from poor harvests.

Energy Saving
The lack of cooking fuel from thousands of years of settlement and clear-cutting prompted the development of stir-frying. The need to save fuel became so influential that most Chinese dishes require a lengthy preparation but only a few minutes cooking time.

Healthier and Tasteful
Most Chinese dishes are cooked with meat and vegetables together, so the foods contain lower calories and are less rich than Western style food.

Beijing Food
Beijing food is the most famous food of China, particularly known for Beijing Duck The northern part of China has a cold climate unsuitable to grow rice, so wheat is the primary grain consumed. Northern Chinese eat more breads than those in the south, where rice predominates.

Cantonese Food
Cantonese food or Guangdong food is typically steamed, boiled or stir-fried. It is a very healthy food since it uses minimum of oil. The main ingredients of this type of Chinese food are seafood, pork, chicken and vegetables, but could include almost anything. You need white rice to accompany the meal to make it complete unless it is a special banquet.

Sichuan Food
What is typical of this southwestern province of China is the spicy taste of its food. Many Sichuan dishes are prepared using chili pepper oil, which gives a special taste to the food. The most famous Sichuan dish is the Gongbao (Kung Pao) chicken, fried with peanuts and chili pepper.

Some noodle knowledge
There are egg noodles, wheat noodles, and rice flour noodles.

• Wheat noodles are often found in Shanghai noodle dishes. These are round wheat noodles that are cooked then stir-fried in a savory sauce with chicken, pork and shrimp.
• Rice flour noodles are often found in Singapore-style noodle dishes and use rice vermicelli noodles cooked with curry powder, shrimp, barbecued pork and ham.
• Egg noodles are often found in Cantonese restaurants as noodle soup (like won ton mien), or stir-fried in a dish.

There are two types of noodle dish.

The first is lo mien which is a plate of cooked (boiled) noodles with some barbeque pork or duck and some vegetables on the side of the plate, and accompanied with a bowl of broth.

The second is Chow mien in which the noodles are pan fried and then mixed with stir-fried vegetables, meat, and seafood.

Soup
Chinese soups have been part of Chinese meals for a long time. There are many different types of Chinese soups. Sweet corn and hot/sour soups are the most popular soups to westerners. Chinese make their soups with chicken, meat or vegetable stock. Chinese soups are very tasteful and can be light in both texture and flavor. Yet some of the soups are filling enough to be a meal by themselves.

Chinese Tea
Tea drinking is an integral part of Chinese life and the Chinese food experience. Tea is believed to be good for you. The Chinese were the first to discover the tea leaf and have been drinking tea ever since in many varieties.

More
Food and cooking in China can be divided into 4 main types or styles

Northern style:
more wheat than rice is eaten in the north. Jiaozi (Steamed dumplings) are a special dish as are spring rolls. Peking Duck too is a famous dish from the north.
The city of Xi'an is famous for it's dumplings known as jiaozi. There are many different types and each type is shaped differently, depending on what is inside. Some contain chicken, some pork, and there is one dumpling which is pinched to make three sections, each containing a different filling.

Peking Duck
Ducks are fed a rich paste made of grain and soybean to fatten them. After killing and plucking, the ducks are rubbed with spices, salt and sugar and the body cavities are filled with boiling water.
The ducks are roasted in an oven, or hung over an open fire where the skin absorbs the smells of burning fruitwood. Slices of Peking Duck are served wrapped in a thin pancake with sliced cucumber, shallots and a sauce/paste made of soy.

Eastern style:
Fish is the ingredient for many dishes from this part of China. Fish tail stew, hot and sour fish soup, steamed crabs and deep fried fish with bamboo shoots are some dishes served in restaurants.

Western style:
Red chilli, garlic, peppercorns and ginger used in the cooking make the dishes of this style hot and spicy. Stir fried pork with hot sauce, stewed eel with garlic, stir fried beef with chilli and Chinese cabbage soups are some dishes of the Western Style.

Southern style:
Dishes cooked in this style include steamed lobster, sweet and sour pork with pineapple, stir fried snake meat with mushrooms, prawns with chilli, roasted pork ribs and stir fried chicken with bok choy.

Introducing Canada

Canada and its Provinces

Introducing Canada

Many people from other parts of the world think of Canada as a very cold and snowy place. While it is true that most of Canada's land is very far north (almost to the North Pole), most Canadians live in the southern parts, where the weather is much milder.

Over 90% of the people live within 100 miles (160 km) of the U.S. border. In some cities the temperature can get very cold in the winter; however, most of Canada can get quite hot in the summer, often over 30 degrees Celsius. On the Pacific coast, there is a lot of rain but very little snow.
Canadians are known to play winter sports such as ice hockey and skiing, while they also enjoy numerous summer activities.

More information from Government of Canada

Becoming an English Teacher

I went to the Vancouver Career College to get my TESL certification. It took four months and I had a great time. The College and my classes were very friendly. There were 14 people in my class and my teacher was great.

The hardest part was English grammar! Native speakers are the worst at this.

Here is my class.

Introducing China

From the World Factbook:

There are 1.3 billion people in China!

China has 23 provinces (sheng, singular and plural), 5 autonomous regions (zizhiqu, singular and plural), and 4 municipalities (shi, singular and plural)

Provinces:

1. Anhui,
2. Fujian,
3. Gansu,
4. Guangdong,
5. Guizhou,
6. Hainan,
7. Hebei,
8. Heilongjiang,
9. Henan,
10. Hubei,
11. Hunan,
12. Jiangsu,
13. Jiangxi,
14. Jilin,
15. Liaoning,
16. Qinghai,
17. Shaanxi,
18. Shandong,
19. Shanxi,
20. Sichuan,
21. Yunnan,
22. Zhejiang;

Autonomous regions:

1. Guangxi,
2. Nei Mongol,
3. Ningxia,
4. Xinjiang, Xizang (Tibet)
   

Municipalities:

1. Beijing,
2. Chongqing,
3. Shanghai,
4. Tianjin

China's economy during the last quarter century has changed to a more market-oriented economy that has a rapidly growing private sector and is a major player in the global economy.

The restructuring of the economy and resulting efficiency gains have contributed to a more than tenfold increase in GDP since 1978. China in 2005 is the second-largest economy in the world after the US, although in per capita terms the country is still lower middle-income and 150 million Chinese fall below international poverty lines.

Economic development has been faster in coastal provinces and there are large disparities in per capita income between regions.

The government has struggled to:
(a) sustain adequate job growth for tens of millions of workers laid off from state-owned enterprises, migrants, and new entrants to the work force;
(b) reduce corruption and other economic crimes;
(c) Contain environmental damage and social strife related to the economy's rapid transformation.

From 100 to 150 million surplus rural workers are adrift between the villages and the cities, many subsisting through part-time, low-paying jobs.

China has benefited from a huge expansion in computer Internet use, with more than 100 million users at the end of 2005. Foreign investment remains a strong element in China's remarkable expansion in world trade and has been an important factor in the growth of urban jobs.

In July 2005, China revalued its currency by 2.1% against the US dollar and moved to an exchange rate system that references a basket of currencies.

Thirteen years in construction at a cost of $24 billion, the immense Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River will be essentially completed in 2006 and will revolutionize electrification and flood control in the area.

China is aiming for a 20% reduction in energy consumption per unit of GDP by 2010 and an estimated 45% increase in GDP by 2010. Conserving resources and protecting the environment are basic goals.