u/arsebeef

I just finished my first semester teaching in China. I have money in my foreign banks so that’s not an issue, but I do have a decent chunk in my Chinese bank account. I was trying to use my Chinese card to book a flight and this particular site wouldn’t accept a Chinese card. is my Chinese bank card essentially useless outside of China? This is not a how to get my money out of China Post (though I’m starting to understand why) but what are the limitations of its use?

Hope you enjoyed the soggy condom graveyard you inevitably found. I’ll never understand this aspect of the culture.

I have not completed my first journey to the tower yet, I’ve only read through songs of Susanna. I just finished fairy tale, it was a great read! In wizard and glass they come across the shimmering green city. Was that Lilimar? Did they cross into empis temporarily? I’m still fairly new to Stephen King‘s work, the dark towers is the majority of what I’ve read, this book mentions the child Roland to the dark tower poem and Charlie was clearly a born gunslinger. In fairytale, they talk about the black things in the green glass and I feel like I vaguely remember something in wizard and glass about them seeing something inside the gate when they’re trying to get in. Either way it was a great fun read and the audiobook was top-notch.

How do you interpret “Please turn down the AC? “ to me it’s turn down the power, to make it warmer, it’s too cold. But I can easily see turn down the AC as to turn down the temperature. I don’t know which one to teach my students and it came up today and chaos ensued.

Update: seems like it varies from person to person so I ended up going with “turn up/down the temperature” to avoid confusion when they speak. And let them know it can be ambiguous from person to person so use context clues to help know which direction they mean.

I was under the impression the school would pay for all my visa fees. I had to leave and apply for my visa in hongkong where it was 2300 yuan for my visa. After entering I had the medical and Insurance expenses etc. the school is saying they only cover the cost after entering in China. Another old veteran of English teaching said he’s never heard of a school not paying for the visa. Is this normal? For context I’m at a very major university not some no name school.

First time to the Tower, I was a bit confused about the journal entries in the very end of the book, especially the last one saying king is dead. I know about his real life accident. People in the fantasy sub said Eddie and Roland changed the timeline and saved king. I didn’t get this from the book at all. What did I miss? If they did change the timeline, Why is there an article in there saying he’s dead?

First time to the Tower, this one was probably the toughest read for me, though i still enjoyed it. It didn’t have the same pull as the other ones have had, I was glued to wizard and glass (my favorite in the series) So i was happy to see this one being the shortest one. I did not like the whole metaness of them going to meet Stephen King in the book. The little name drops were kind of cheeky but actually going there and telling him to finish the books was too much for me. I really enjoyed the excerpts from his journal at the very end and all the insight we get on his creation of the dark tower. The last journal entry is an article saying he died from the car accident when he got hit by a car. Though obviously he didn’t die so why is that article in there? I could see myself skipping this one on a reread in the future, but maybe it’ll hit different after some time on a second journey.

I’m curious what other people do that stop teaching in China but decide to stay in China. I’m in my first year teaching and it’s fine. It’s quite easy and supplies a great life style. But I can already tell I think I won’t want to do this for more than a couple years. I’m not interested in returning home and if I went to another country in Asia I would still probably be stuck teaching. So I’m looking for ideas of what I might be able to do after saving teaching money for a couple years.

This is my first year teaching and had a weird situation with the student today. I work in a training center inside a prestigious university in China. It’s basically an ielts speaking preparation class filled with a bunch of rich, spoiled brats that don’t give a shit. Poor attendance is normal and for one of my afternoon classes only one student showed up. we just had a long holiday so she told me about her holiday and waited a few minutes to see if other people would show up, nobody did. So I gave her the choice. We can have a relaxed conversation for class or do ielts questions thinking she would obviously pick the relaxed conversation. But instead, she refused to answer and just stared at me like a farm animal. So I asked again and they even asked a fourth time in Chinese. I know she understood me she has already received a five on previous ielts test. Her just refusing to answer really irked me so I picked ielts questions which she didn’t wanna do. I asked her what she wanted to do and she said play on her phone. So I asked her do you really want me to teach to an empty class while you play on your phone? Then I told her either participate or leave, so she got up and left. It truly boggles my mind that these kids wanna go study abroad, but do everything they can to not speak English or study. I understand she didn’t book a private lesson with a teacher, but her not even putting in any effort to try really annoyed me, and I think she could pick up on that, It seemed like she was leaving on the verge of tears. Obviously, I wasn’t going to teach to an empty classroom while she played on her phone so ,what else was I supposed to do? I gave her an easy option for just conversation and to probably to just leave early halfway through the scheduled class time.

Has anyone taken private music lessons in China before? I live in Chengdu and I was seeking out a teacher to improve on the Chinese bamboo Flute (quite a common instrument in China so this is nothing crazy) with a teacher who doesn’t speak English. A teacher wanted to charge me 260 yuan for a 45 minute lesson. This seems a bit inflated to me as this is quite close to what I’ve paid for private one on one lessons in the USA for other instruments (one of them being pretty obscure). I could accept it if this is just market rate, but it does feel like I’m just being taken advantage of because she knows I’m a foreigner.

I just finished this. I was quite pleased because I had low expectations but needed an Abercrombie fix, and gave it a go. It was quite a quick read coming in at under 300 pages, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It felt more like joe Abercrombie than the Devils did (which I also liked). It felt very proto first law. I believe it mentions that the shattered sea is in a circle like the first law universe, and a fun little Easter egg he mentions a constellation called stranger come knocking. Yarvi also felt like a first draft of glokta, a cunning cripple. It did lack the character depth and complexities that was signature in first law, but I think he did a pretty good job still with a moral ambiguity in that grey zone for our characters. I think these are really great palate cleansers in between longer more complex books and look forward to starting book 2 after song of Susannah.

Spoilers below

>!The reveal that Nothing was actually his uncle was surprising and I didn’t hate it, but I did feel a little like…mmmkay convenient…🤔 The very last scene when he poisons his teacher, while telling the story was classic Abercrombie and really enjoyed that reveal that the tea was poisoned!<

I have learned Chinese to an intermediate level, because I live in China, having the immersion and daily exposure is the game changer. I can’t do that with Japanese for the time being. Advice on to actually have success studying from the text books? My plan is to try and do a chapter a week and get a tutor on italki (preferably trying to do it in Chinese to maximize efficiency for limited study time). I’ve been to Japan many times but for my next trip this summer I want to have something to say 😂

I know going anywhere during a long Chinese holiday will be hell, but I assume some places will be more hellish than others. I live in Chengdu currently, I would assume places like Shanghai and Hangzhou would be on the higher end of chaos. Any idea of places that would be less chaotic? (I know anywhere will be a hassle, but I’m just looking for the least amount of hassle I suppose)