A Sudden Upheaval

A week ago today – my twenty-sixth birthday – I wasn’t exactly expecting the rug to be snatched out from under me. There I was, going about my business, teaching my classes as usual. Then, in the middle of the afternoon I was told that my school would no longer exist after the next days’ classes. The academy went bankrupt and we were all suddenly out of a job.

There are two speeds in China: “never” and “right now.”

It only took a few days before they shut off power in the building and expelled everyone from the premises. In the meantime, we were scrambling for new positions. A few teachers decided to return to their respective countries, banished from China to whence they came, rather a bit wet from the abrupt flushing of whatever income they had. The rest of us, however, though a little bruised, pulled our tails out from between our legs and decided to stick it out in this capricious country.

As fortune would have it, I was offered a job immediately after the ball dropped. One of my Korean students couldn’t seem to part with me, so her parents hired me as a private live-in teacher from August to December. For four months I’ll be making more money and comfortably teaching to my strengths. This young girl wishes to apply to my undergraduate alma mater; it is now my goal to get her there.



So, I remain in Hangzhou. This leg of the journey brings me to the Bing Jiang district. Ciao, Xiaoshan. It’s been real, but I’m digging the new digs. The neighborhood is cleaner, the apartment is lovely, and now I have a hip pink electric scooter to scoot me around to the nearest Xing Ba Ke (Starbucks).

If China has taught me anything so far, it is to roll with it all. Next stop on the journey: Beijing in December… tentatively…