Still Zhanjiang

Its a funny feeling be back here in Zhanjiang. I was away for just over a month and spent most of that time in Thailand. Though not very far away on a map, Thailand was quite a bit different than my impressions of China from the backwater town of Zhanjiang. It seems that so much has happened for me in the past four weeks but back here, things are more or less the same as when I left...

The campus has been empty, the students are not back yet and only a few other of the teachers live at the school. It has been very nice. I guess I had grown used to the constant noise of students in the courtyards below and blaring announcements coming from the school PA system followed by a random soundtrack of songs, but now that it is gone for a few days, you really notice a difference. One of my earliest thoughts in China was that they do not like silence. I came to this conclusion after every tourist site we visited early on had silly music pumped in from speakers, even out in the woods and on the sides of mountains. I think this doesn't always hold true, but here on campus, it sometimes seems like it. In the absence of steady background noise, I've even turned off the mp3 player on my computer as I've surfed the net and enjoyed the quiet.

The only occasional breaks in the silence have been from the explosive ordinance that passes for fireworks around here. It puts to shame the little things that we use for fireworks that our local and state governments are constantly trying to ban.

As for what's next - I guess five more months of teaching are all that is left. The time seems to have gone by quickly. Still not sure if classes officially start on Monday or not and I definitely don't have a schedule yet...

In the more immediate future, I plan to finally start churning out some Thailand blogs. Also, I did upload pictures from my trip onto Webshots (which is still blocked in mainland China), so if you haven't seen them yet, check them out.