Enter the Dao Xian.

This photo is staged. Can you tell?
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CLAIRE.

We arrived at the school to a fanfare fit for the Queen: A big banner that said 'Welcome Ryan and Claire from Australia to teach us' and 4000 students lining the street cheering for us. A little girl presented me with some flowers (plastic) and we shook hands with roughly one million people. We then proceeded to pose for photos for HOURS with everyone, taken from every angle and including everyone from the Principal to the driver. It was surreal to feel so famous yet so obviously different from everyone else.

It's tough being normal sized in China.

Claire shaping the young Chinese minds of the future.
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I teach 16 classes of Senior One children (roughly 57 sixteen-seventeen year olds). They like to applaud when I enter class. Who knows how long this will last?

SEVERAL DAYS LATER:

It's a dog eat dog world. Or rather, Chinese eat dog world. Tonight part of the meal saw little paws in soup make their way round and round the table. Little nails, severed bones. I could imagine shaking them. Am so thankful I made the decision to become a vegetarian years ago.

Daoxian is an interesting place. Not big enough to be eventful but not small enough to be without internet, knock-off DVD's and a small, scary amusement park in Xijo Park. Most of the families are either farmers or factory workers, or else somehow play a part in either producing or consuming the great amounts of crap that is bought and sold. People here like shopping. Thrive in it. They constantly ask me to come shop for clothes. When I point out that I do not fit into anything sold here I get the wonderfully patronizing 'It's ok. You can just look'. Someone suggested perhaps sports pants will fit me (elastic waist, generous thighs...) It's tough being normal sized in China.

Our apartment sits right next to the school walls...
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Ryan has more friends than I do. He has one. What does that say about me...

RYAN...

We got up at the crack of dawn this morning to travel from Yangshuo to our new city of residence, Daoxian. For a fair while I thought it was Dorxian and didn’t discover my simple mistake for a few weeks. I have talked about the traffic in China already, but I discovered Chinese traffic from a different perspective today. Getting into the car was like descending into a smoky black coffin. Chinese cars are like entering a smoke filled bar because the Chinese men are like little miniature chimney stacks, puffing at all hours in all locations. Every car has its windows tinted to the absolute extreme so that no one can see inside. They told me they do this in case they are having dodgy meetings or have a girlfriend in the car.

Our lovely office. Note, unseen is the gigantic Chinese flag they put up next to our flag to remind us whose boss...
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Anyway, they drive like maniacs and beep continuously. However, the beeping is not anger fueled like Australian traffic, its simply to say “Hey, here I am, I’m bigger than you and you’d better move for your own safety. If you get in my way then it’s your own fault.” After roaring at 100+km/hour (no seatbelts) and overtaking obstacles leaving only centimeters to spare before slamming into a huge truck traveling in the opposite direction, we realized that in China you must accept the fact that at any moment your life could be over. We learned to just accept this fact and hope for the best.

The ping Pong tables - popular spot to watch Ryan get defeated shamefully day after day...
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On the 4 hour trip from Yangshuo to Daoxian we watched the topography change from anthill like mountains to long stretching mountains. As we went further away from civilization we saw houses diminish, long orange and chilli orchards and rice paddies that hadn’t been planted out yet. Almost every spare inch of China that people don’t live in is reserved for vegetables. The side of the roads, peoples front yards, you name it and they have planted vegetables on it.

Anyway, life in Daoxian has proved to be the complete opposite of anything I ever expected from China. The cities got a nice park and the students and teachers at the school are really nice. We are the first foreigners the have seen so they treat us like celebrities. One morning we woke up to the phone ringing and them saying “I am waiting outside your house for you, what are your doing?” “Um, sleeping….Why?” We are taking you to the countryside of course…We leave in 10 minutes.” We soon got quite used to this method of organization but also found we had to use a bit of our own muscle to let them know we needed to be allowed to keep some of our culture as well.

The most difficult thing for us to handle and adjust to was the drinking. Everyday and every night we were invited to dinner in the first few weeks of teaching. Every meal required us to get totally pissed, regardless of the fact we might have classes the next period. The Chinese men are shocking; they get hammered every lunch time even though they have classes afterwards.

Explaining that we were vegetarian was really hard. For some reason I thought it was a good idea to reply to the question “Why are you Vegetarians” with “We are Buddhists.” Silence fell at the 20+ plus capacity Lazy Susan table and all heads turned in my direction. I looked at the faces of the principal, the head of the Party, the Police representative, the Press and the rest of the school leaders. “You are Buddhist?” came the slow, deadly reply. At this point Claire rushed to my aid saying, “Its like Buddhists, like Buddhists.” After a few moments they seemed to take this as satisfactory and a general murmur of conversation resumed at the table. Following this narrow miss we put our heads down and picked at our vegetables in silence.

Anyway we have enjoyed our time in Daoxian so far and are looking forward to exploring some more of the countryside and seeing some sights. So far we have really enjoyed seeing what China that hasn't yet been touched by foriengers is like and how the Chinese people live and what they get up to