Going to Guangzhou, Part 2

Well, it makes a pleasant change to get a letter from a teacher who is hoping to go the Middle Kingdom, rather than the Middle East.


Dear Anne,
Yes, my real name is “Simon”. My username at the TES is “the hippo” and this is an old nickname from when I was at school, more years ago than I care to remember!
Okay, what do you need to do? Well, first you have to read my blog! There are heaps and heaps of posts from when we were in China. Lots of things in GZ will be very similar to SZ. In fact, I remember when I was wandering around Guangzhou, I thought to myself, “I could easily be in Shenzhen!” However, GZ is quite a bit older, so there are some ancient bits that might be of interest. GZ also has the famous (or infamous) snake restaurant, the one where Michael Palin had dinner in Around the World in Eighty Days.
At the top of the Canton Tower
Secondly, once you have actually signed the contract and it is all going to actually happen, then you need to get beavering with your Z visas. This is going to be pretty horrible. The red-tape, officialdom and the general frustration can be fairly ghastly. When I was teaching at Green Oasis School in Shenzhen, we had some wonderful ladies in our HR department. They hardly ever opened their wings indoors and rarely wore their halos because they did not want to dazzle us, mere mortals. They were amazing! And you only have to jump through all of the silly Chinese government hoops once. When you have done it, the following year is pretty much a formality.
Generally speaking, China is amazing, weird, exciting, crazy, frustrating and fun. You might pull out your hair sometimes and yes, you will probably use some words that you shouldn’t. But we had an incredible five years and so many happy memories.
Lunch in GZ
Now you probably have loads (and loads) of questions that you want to ask me. Yes, of course I will do my best to answer all of them, if I can! 
Simon Hill
(aka the hippo)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the Cards, Part 1

Image
Getting our new Bulgarian residency cards from the Microwave Oven Woman Rejoice! Let's celebrate. Hallelujah! At long last, the Microwave Woman has given us our new Bulgarian residency cards (BRCs). As a special treat, just in case you do not know what a BRC looks like, here is my old one.  My dear wife suggested that I should "black out" certain bits, as there are lots of evil people out there on the Internet, all gathering my personal and financial details in order to swindle me or involve me in some dreadful scandal or some such nonsense. Of course, no one who reads my blog could ever do such a nasty thing!   Getting our new BRCs means that we can go ahead with our applications for our Russian visas. Then, maybe two or three weeks later, our passports will be returned to us, with new Russian visas stuck into them. The other good news is that the insurance agent in Dragoman did not lose my car registration document. When she had finished giving me my new car
Read more

Hello once again, Peter

Image
. Yes, he was supposed to be on holiday, but while Peter was with us he fixed the lights in two bathrooms, mowed all three lawns and repaired the hob of the cooker in our apartment in VT.  Now he is back in the UK, having a rest.
Read more

Educaring, Part 2

Image
Not so long ago, I wrote a post for my blog called Educaring . Please do not misunderstand me. I really do believe that teachers, youth workers, parents (and indeed anyone involved with young people) all have a duty to protect children and teenagers, to keep them safe. As I argued in my previous posting, I also believe that the task of protecting children is becoming more and more difficult - almost impossible, in fact. Yes, the Internet has a lot to do with it, I am sure, but there is another problem that is hardly ever discussed.  In a nutshell, anyone who genuinely cares about children finds it very hard to imagine how evil and how subtle child molesters and pedophiles really are. I think that is probably why many teachers and parents just do not know when a pedophile is "grooming" a child and why they often do not believe it, even when confronted with the unpleasant truth. Michael Green at Windlesham House School I knew Michael Green when I was teaching at Windlesh
Read more