Bulgaria with Noodles

Here is yet another e-mail from a teacher who wants to work overseas. Sometimes I wonder where there are any teachers left in the UK. Hi Simon, I spoke to you some time ago via TES and email (although, I can't seem to find the email in my inbox!) about teaching in China. I am currently in the UK but you gave me plenty of information that enabled me to decide that it was something I really wanted to do.  I was looking at a 2020 start but I have been offered an interview for a job at the British School of Guangzhou starting this summer. I imagine that perhaps a candidate has reneged on their agreement to go to the school and so they have had to re-advertise the position at this point in the year. I know you worked in Dongguan (wasn't it?) and I was wondering whether you knew of the school and had any information that could be relevant?  Additionally, I'm definitely set on heading towards that region of China, but if you w...

'Cos making up is hard to do. My dear Irisha was away on Sunday and she did not come back until Monday afternoon. This meant that her poor lonely husband had lunch with AJ at our apartment after church on Sunday. Although she quite enjoys the actual modelling and meeting new people, as well as chatting with the people she has worked with before, Irena does NOT enjoy the travelling that seems to be an inevitable part of being an international model. Well, this “shoot” in Guangzhou was no exception. Yes, the agent did go with her on the train from Shenzhen, but travelling on the GZ MTR is not for the fainthearted. The shoving and the sardine-like crowds on the metro trains were pretty bad. A horse, of course! Irena said that the shoot itself was quite easy, even though it involved more travelling once they arrived in GZ, as they had to go to a sort of country club about an hour from the city. It was all rather twee and English and afternoon tea, except of course tha...

To be honest, I did not think that my dear wife Irena would get some more modelling work quite so soon. But I was wrong. As all of my regular readers will have noted by now, it does not happen very often, my being wrong, but it does actually happen occasionally.   Anyway, Irena’s Friday morning meant a train journey to Guangzhou, surely one of the most impossibly-spelt words in that non-existent language known as Pinyin, and then five hours in front of the cameras. Just in case you are interested, “Guangzhou” is actually pronounced “Gwanjo”, but then how should (and how would) you pronounce “Cholmondeley”? It was all in aid of a UK cosmetics company (I am not allowed to mention the name) and Irena’s job was to tell everyone how this company has developed an exciting series of skincare products and creams that use the power of Nature and plant extracts. Irisha’s speech was in Chinglish, a language that really does seem to exist and is in fact regularly used in China. She ...