Is Six Years Old

Facebook, with its "on this day" feature, reminded me that it has been six years since my first blog..

While I don't use it 2-3 times a week like I did in 2012, I still will come on a couple of times a month to update/document my life. Six years doesn't seem that long, but it has really been a very long time in other ways.

Six years ago I lived in Seongseo, in western Daegu. I worked at SEI, and had no real ambition to do much more than live week to week.

Seongseo E-Mart

Out front of the Lotte Cinema

Makgeolli st. Good street.

Keimyung University, where I would

often go for a walk before work.

my old street.

Not to mention the top kpop songs at that time by Miss A and 2NE1.

Six years later I am in Nanning, in southern China. I have finished my MA and teachers license, and am a university lecturer. 

on campus, Guangxi University

my place on the right

the main gate

past the east gate

It has been neat to have a record, albeit random and edited, of the last few years, glad David got me on to this back in the SEI days.

Around Campus

I've had a few weekends now to explore the areas around the new campus where I live. It really seems like everything you could possibly need is walking distance from where we live and work.

While the options for food and entertainment are nowhere near as extensive as Daegu or Busan, there is still more than enough to keep me.

The main gate is basically the transportation centre, and where I go to get to the gym. There is also a supermarket out there, and if you head east. a WalMart (ewww) and some great patio's for a late night dinner.

Keep going northeast and you connect with the east gate, which seems to be the place to go.

The west gate is mostly apartment buildings, though there is a great Korean place there, which is where I go when I get nostalgic.


So this last weekend I took a Friday mission out to the east gate and found an amazing little Chinese patio. Being so far south the restaurants often close mid afternoon for a Chinese version of the siesta, and then open up at 6. By 9 it is dark but still 22 and you can sit outside with a very light beer and some great food for the evening. The woman who owned the place insisted on taking a picture with us at the end of the night. I am sure we were the first laowai (foreigners) who had ever eaten there. Being in Nanning now is a bit like being in Daegu in 2009-2010. People stared at you, wanted to take pictures with you, you were a novelty. That had well and truly died by 2015, but it is still going strong here, and it is actually kind of fun.


There is also a BBQ street, with meat skewers, amazing vegetable dishes, and more very light beer (a blog on Chinese drink will follow, not especially complimentary). I went out there to sit on a large patio and enjoy the views and food for several hours. I've been there a few times, and I am sure will go back many more. It has a feel much more like southeast Asia than it does China.... in fact I think the whole city has that sort of a feel.

Anyway, with work keeping me so busy (12 hour days are not uncommon, even if much of that work is done from home) it is nice to have those distractions nearby. I often can't be bothered to head in to the city, especially when the only expat bar has classic rock Friday night and football (soccer) on Saturday.

Make Up Classes

Well, it took a while, but I've finally found something I really dislike about Chinese universities. We have just had the "Golden Week" and now students and teachers go back to work..... on Saturday. We do make up classes for Thursday and Friday only (which makes me wonder what the point of the vacation was). It also means that I can't really teach the next unit, because the structure of SCIC means that when the classes get back in to their big groups of 40 I need them all on the same page.

How it works is you teach a class of 40 once (usually on Monday). They are then divided in to two groups of 20 which you teach the rest of the week. So only half the groups are getting a make up class. In practice what that means is that you do a review class. Not a complete waste of time, but I don't want to work for 90 minutes Sunday morning anymore than the students do, especially because we all kind of know it is pointless.

Ah well.

National Day Golden Week

This is the very logical name for the week long holiday here in China is to celebrate the founding of the PRC in 1949. For a week most government employees and many other workers travel around China to visit families or do sightseeing before it gets too cold (up north). A billion people on the move. fun time to travel.

For me, still in the tropics, it is a week off.

I don't have many plans for the week, as I still have not received a full paycheque (Sept's had deductions and was only for 3 weeks). Mostly looking around Nanning, and reading, catching up on some CFL, visit the gym. I am also putting together some photo blogs of Nanning and Busan, though I may not have enough of either to make it worth doing (Busan = Nampo and Gwangalli). So I'll see what happens.

The campus, which has been bustling for the last two weeks, is effectively dead.

I think it is a good chance to go exploring though, see a bit of the new city. Unfortunately the subway line to the university will not be completed until December, so I am still reliant upon buses and taxi's. I've looked in to getting a drivers license for China (you need a Chinese one), but I doubt I'd buy a car here. Doesn't seem worth the hassle and money given that the subway will be ready in a few weeks.