10 Advantages To Being A Laurier Grad Living In China
1. Hearing about the WLUSU election scandal from the other side of the world.
2. Not having to contribute financially to the new Hawk; therefore slightly happy about its return.
3. When asked to think of a ‘chant’ to perform in front of a large audience of ESL teachers for a competition, I had a wealth of O-Week options to choose from and settled on “P-A-R-T-Y, party hardy woo-hoo Laurier!” (etc.) and subsequently won the competition.
Shenzhen, China: “The Biggest Place You’ve Never Heard Of”
A mere thirty years ago, what we know today as the city of Shenzhen was nothing more than a fishing village in the province of Guangdong, just north of mainland Hong Kong’s New Territories. Established as a city in 1979, it was chosen as a ‘Special Economic Zone’ (SEZ) by the Communist government by 1980. In Shenzhen, officials hoped to showcase China’s new economic glory and attract foreign investment from Hong Kong and beyond—and if all else failed, who would notice?
Forgetting One’s Manners
“We’ve all been asked ‘So, what’s new?’ many times in our lives, but it’s almost never that you get to answer, ‘I am going to China.’ I am more likely to respond, ‘Frig all. It’s not like I’m going to China or anything.’” These sentiments of Canadian humourist Dave Bidini are quite in line with the way I felt before embarking on a year abroad to teach English.
