I'll be spending the next nine months working at a university in Zhengzhou and exploring the city and most likely other parts of China as well. I've already got several ideas of places I'd like to visit while I am there. I'll talk about these places more in detail when I actually get to see them, so I can share my impressions of them with you.
This preposterous plan to go to China was conceived, rather casually, about 6 months ago when I was feeling discouraged with my job search in North America. You see, I graduated right around the time everything collapsed in 2008-2009. Not only that, but my previous experience in the working world left me with a strong determination to find work that would be both stimulating and interesting.
With this strong, but still vague determination in my head, I found myself going through my Chinese lessons when it hit me: learning Chinese + need job = go to China!
I'd been learning Chinese through two courses at Dawson College's Confucius Institute in Montreal and then teaching myself through livemocha (great website - you can learn any language of your choice and meet many, many native speakers of that language), but I'd never really thought about actually going to China. I had an idea that one day I wanted to visit, but it didn't occur to me up until that eureka moment that I might want to actually work there.
Anyway, with this brilliant equation shining brightly at the forefront of my thoughts, I immediately ran to the... internet. Yes, I didn't go knock on doors or cajole someone into giving me a job. I just used Google to search for teaching jobs in China. That's how, within three seconds, I found myself on the website of Footprints Recruiting. After thoroughly exploring everything they had to say about teaching overseas, I felt confident they were the real deal, so I applied. After a screening interview, I was put in contact with two potential employers, one of whom I eventually chose because I'll teach business-related courses with them. That's more consistent with my major of economics than the other job I was offered for teaching English. Plus, the pay is better, which is always a good thing.
After that, over the summer, I took a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) course at Canada College. I can't say I particularly enjoyed my experience at Canada College, if only because the learning environment had some major tension. I really, really liked my classmates though, and have since met other friends through them. Some of you may even be reading this blog!
Also over the summer, I've been trying to learn Mandarin frantically. I think I've progressed to the point where I can make my daily and/or emergency needs understood, but I still have a very long way to go before I can have intelligent conversations (my reading and typing of characters has progressed a lot faster than my speaking and listening). I'm hoping to take more advanced Chinese classes while I am there.
This will be my first time traveling to a place where few people speak English or French. I am really excited! I'm also terrified.
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