some kind of attachment

I think I'm developing some kind of attachment to China. It's been a slow development, but a couple of recent things have led me to believe that I do find many things about this place special and I know that I will miss it when we eventually move on.

Last night my boss confirmed that she was moving on to start up another company and that a couple of other staff would be running the school from May. This was a little sad to hear as she's been a great employer and has personally looked after me well and been very approachable. She also deserves a change because she has virtually not had a holiday in over 3 years and has been working 7 days a week regularly for this period. She's exhausted and I can see why. Managing people isn't easy. Managing teachers who often have a fly by the seat of their pants attitude, is probably more difficult, especially given the different cultural customs. We've had our disagreements at times, but many of these can be explained by understanding the Chinese culture of working non-stop and doing things at the last minute - or giving little notice.

So my boss (Jennifer) and a few teachers had a drink last night, and I thought to myself - I'm going to miss this person and miss the current work environment. The fact that I'm even having these thoughts made me realise that I'm making attachments to people within this strange place, China. Jennifer will still be around and I'm sure we'll see each other regularly, so on the whole I don't imagine many changes to my work.

This week I've had mid-semester exams for my Chinese. So far a speaking examination and general Chinese (reading, comprehension, writing) examination. Both were okay, but tomorrow I have a listening examination (which should be okay) and then a writing and reading characters examination which I believe will be quite difficult. Next week is the May day/week holiday and we're going to Hong Kong.

Sonic Youth - Incinerate (live in Shanghai!!)

Two nights ago we saw Sonic Youth and it was incredible. They were really energetic and sounded very good (the mix as well as their togetherness). Pavement lovers will spot Mark Ibold on bass guitar. The audience was probably two thirds expats, but it was a great audience - very lively and the band treated us to two encores. They also said that we were "the best audience ever", but I've long since stopped believing these statements. Looking around at the pretty impressive Shanghai Concert Hall with Sonic Youth playing, I thought to myself that Shanghai and China has very quickly become a pretty cool place to live/visit. Sonic Youth and most touring bands have never ever bothered to go to established Asian cities like Singapore, Hong Kong or Seoul but now it seems Beijing and Shanghai are not only becoming sought after destinations, but have leap-frogged those other cities...

Sonic Youth - Silver Rocket (live in Shanghai!!) - from where I was standing!


Sonic Youth (live in Shanghai!!) - it wasn't really that noisy