A Quick Update

It has been a few days since my last post...

It was nice to speak with many of you on Christmas Eve (Christmas Day for me) and for anyone I missed, I hope you had a Merry Christmas!

It was a bit of a different experience to spend my first Christmas away from family and outside of a country that really celebrates Christmas even, though it was nice to spend my first Christmas with Janet. A group of foreign teachers went to dinner at the Crowne Plaza, Zhanjiang's one and only five-star hotel, and they had a good buffet. There was even a real turkey and ham!

Our semester is quickly coming to an end here and I am busy preparing for final exams. My last class will finish on January 10. After that, I just need to turn in grades and then I am free to go. The current word is that the next semester will begin on February 24, which is a Sunday, so I find that a bit odd. Nevertheless, it makes for a six week vacation, which nobody could complain about!

My plans were thrown for a bit of a loop since Janet will be going home for the first couple of weeks and then coming to meet me in Thailand later on. My flight leaves for Bangkok on January 24, so I'll have about two weeks I need to kill somehow... I may end up resorting to doing some trekking around on my own during that time.

It is almost a new year, and my resolution is an easy choice this year. I need to be more diligent in my studies of Chinese! It may seem that this would be easy, being surrounded by the Chinese daily, but it is all to easy to become distracted and the lingua franca of the south is Cantonese rather than Mandarin.

Finally, let me leave you with a couple of articles on China if you are interested in reading more...

CNN Article about Hong Kong Elections
Before the 1997 handover, British Governor, Chris Patten, wanted to implement a series of election reforms that angered the powers that be in Beijing. Now, plans are finally starting to take hold for bringing more democracy to Hong Kong. Like they say, "One country, two systems."

NY Times Article on Pollution in Beijing
This is the newest in an on-going series of articles the Times is doing focusing on China and environmental issues.