On August 25th 2012, the day after my 23rd birthday, I will be catching a flight west from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Los Angles. This is the first leg in my grand adventure to the Far East- To China (known by the Chinese as the "Middle Nation" or center of Earth). The plane ride will be 28 hours. My new home will be Chongqinq Municipality, which is roughly the geographic size of Kansas with a population over 30 million people. I will be picked up at the airport by a man I know through a few emails as Frank Wang, who will drive me to Southwest University where I will began teaching conversational English to Chinese University students despite having no training in education. All of this, of course, is according to the best laid plans of mice and men.
(The Google Chongqing-Kansas analogy will unfortunately be my last because I will be living in a highly censored communist country.)
I will be living and teaching in China for 11 months. Southwest University is tucked away in what the Chinese call a small village (400,000 people) called Beibei, which is about 45 minutes outside of the mega-city Chongqing. I will teach five to six one hour classes of 40 (I think?) 18-22 year-old English majors who must have a strong grasp of the language in order to be in the class. The class is conversational, and I fully plan on running an interactive classroom. I'm thinking lots of skits and presentations.
Why China? When 1.3 billion Chinese do something at once, the whole world hears. But I want to see it, maybe even be a part of it. How are they doing "it"? How will "it" change business, science, politics, religion, culture, and the future of human earth?
Thus begins the adventure. So.
This blog offers a distinctly human perspective to the American consciousness that is increasingly curious with China, yet remains confused and ignorant. This blog is a 23 year-old on a journey to buy spicy food and cheap beer while postponing a job-hunt. This is John Murray in China, or The New Adventures of Sean Curran.
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