Living in Jilin City, China Part 1

Due to the fact that my travel blog was born after I had departed China (when my teaching contract was finished) I didn't have nearly as many posts as some would expect from someone who was abroad for so long.

This particular post was inspired by another travel blog that I have recently started reading. The Art of Backpacking which had a post about teaching English in China. Thinking to myself "Hey I did that, why haven't I written a post about it?" So here it is! This is will be a pretty lengthy piece  that will be broken down into parts since it does cover a year's worth of life experiences, I hope that you enjoy the read. This post might even give someone going to China to teach especially in the north-east (Dōngběi東北) area a bit of an idea of what they should expect in Jilin.

I don't have much for an introduction so I will recall the most memorable thing that happened whilst in Jilin city. For the very first time I lived through a flood, now I say this in a way where I personally didn't suffer any of the harmful effects of mother nature. Don't worry thought this happened July 28 2010. Even though my 'medical students' shared their horror stories with me about how many were left homeless, they still tried to keep me in the best spirits.


What happened here was I believe there was a huge down pour of water upstream of the Songhua River
that eventually took out a chemical factory where thousands of barrels came barreling down the river. These barrels eventually picked up up a pig farm, now there is pigs and barrels rushing to towards a bridge. It dismantles this bridge adding debris to the mess. I have taken some picture from my students from QQ (the Chinese version of MSN) so you can have a visual.

My roommate Randall and I did buy an abundance of water due to the possibility of a chemical scare. In the end we didn't need it, but it is always good to be prepared.

This is No.1 High school. This is where I taught my grade 10 art class.

From the Bei Shan Mountain or was it Long Tan Shan....Oops I forgot.

 

Good Ol' City Scape.

It isn't unusual to see construction at every turn and a man riding a donkey pulling a huge pile of 'recyclable' goods talking on his cell phone. At night it is all about neon signs questionable massage parlors and drunk middle aged men puking on the street.