As of last Monday I am an English teacher again. This time it's China. I'm now sitting in my on-campus apartment with the air-con blowing, looking over the running track towards my classroom. It's a long weekend because of the mid-Autumn festival, and I'm going to join my middle-aged Arizonan colleague and his Korean wife for a trip to town.
Changshu city is a 40 minute bus ride away. The isolation of the campus was a surprise, something that the school hadn't quite explained during the interview. This area, like many in rapidly ballooning China, is to become a new Central Business District. Until then, it's slick black roads, five lanes each side and unused streetlights cutting through the green shrubby foliage, bamboo and corn, in all directions. Large, incomplete apartment blocks are not far away.
Getting out of the campus will involve nodding at the security guards. Apparently a white face is enough of a security pass for getting through. There are no guns or imposing Chinese flags, so scary communist China seems less scary than squeaky clean capitalist America, when it comes to schools at least. Apart from the bus, we've been promised some electronic scooters which will make travel a little easier. Travel to where? I was in the city on Wednesday to visit the deadened hole that is Wall-Mart. There are canals and a downtown area to visit. There's also a massive lake called Kuncheng Lake which is worth exploring. It's got a theme park.
Suzhou is where I wanted to live, and I thought I was close. I asked two Chinese teachers if it's possible to drive an e-bike to Suzhou and they exclaimed loudly no! I'm not sure if they mean the roads between the cities don't allow bikes, or the battery will run out, or it's simply too adventurous. I'm hoping it's the latter.
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