Monday 4 June 2012

China or Bust

A friend of mine has published her story about teaching in China, calling it "China or Bust."  Christine writes under the name of Lana Kerr.  The book is available on Amazon.

She and I had quite different experiences.  She went with her husband, which is clearly of benefit when taking on living in a strange country where the language is impossible to understand or read when you first arrive.

I went alone, but fortunately my contract was with a university that had a large number of foreign teachers, and some 10 or so from Australia, if my memory serves me right.  At least there were plenty who spoke English, and some had been there for a while.

Christine/Lana also did not appear to live on campus, but had the challenge of living in housing surrounded by other Chinese, and without the support that I had.

She tells the story of going to China, and offers advice and suggestions for people looking at going there.



I am also currently reading Peter Hessler's book "River Town" which details a completely different story of an English Teacher in China.  He went to a city called Fuling, in the Yangtze River Valley, a city on the banks of the river, but so steep that going up and down stairs to shops was the order of the day.  There were no bicycles as it was too steep!!!

Both books are available on Amazon.com.

Lana's book can be found here.

Peter's book can be found here.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

I remember your blogs on three trips you took.

Di Hill said...

Yes Peter, there is much material on the blogs - helping me write my story for a book.