Yangshuo is a small town, only 2 sets of traffic lights and 1 McDonalds but it doubles or even triples its population with Chinese tourists. The scenery is absolutely lovely the limestone peaks and the Li and Yulong Rivers enhancing a lively town. Of course there is load’s to do here, it’s a Rock Climbers paradise, loads of cycling tracks, rafting, kayaking as well of plenty of courses such as cooking, massage and English. A perfect place for a Chinese person wanting to immerse themselves into an English course during the week then still have plenty of activities to do on the weekend’s and that’s exactly what happens. So Chinese from the surrounding provinces flock into Yangshuo for a couple of weeks or a couple of months and board at the colleges here, learn English, have fun and practise their English as much as possible. So there are a lot of English teachers and a lot of English is being spoken everywhere. There are loads of restaurants including a pocket that are catering to the English teachers, so it is possible to get a really good western breakfast and western food. We have a ground floor apartment in the part of town where there is a lot of the English colleges and all meal’s are included, we eat with the students and just talk to them as much as possible.
I have asked for part time work and have quietly resisted their requests for me to teach full time so I teach for 2 and a half hours every afternoon from Monday to Friday, my class has 5 students in it, they range from 18-30 years old and have pretty good English so their focus is to improve their conversational English so they can deal with foreigners for their jobs. Good English here means a better career path and more job opportunities. So the job is great, Owen college also organises volunteer work, so we have a stream of English speakers spending their afternoons going out to the rural schools. Nick has fitted in perfectly, they only go out 4 afternoons a week, so the weekends and Monday are free and they get to travel around a bit, interact with the children then teach a 45 minute class. Last week Nick and 3 Swedish volunteers were asked to judge a University Public Speaking competition, so Nick was the only native English speaker in the entire hall, as usual the story is full of amusing confusion but they somehow bumbled their way through, during the course of the competition Nick’s name was suddenly mentioned and everyone looked at him in expectation, he realised he was expected to give a speech as well, as I said lack of information and confusing.
Once we had agreed to work and volunteer for Owen College we were immediately given full board, ie free meals and accommodation. We had to wait a week until the apartment became vacant so we were assigned a room with the hardest bed imaginable, I just can’t stop looking at the mattresses in amazement to check if it really was a mattress. The room was ok a bit cold and damp but the lovely reliable hot shower made up for it. This week my job has started and we have moved into a 3 bedroom 3 bathroom apartment. It sounds pretty good and it sort of is, very roomy, quiet, gorgeous soft mattress on the bed, quirky hot water system that has a hammering problem and mould is evident around the place. The other 2 bathrooms don’t have hot water and one bathroom houses the washing machine. It’s comfortable enough but far from being a palace. The weather has suddenly turned a lot warmer in the short time we have been here but I think it will become humid and mould will be an ongoing issue. I am going to send my winter clothes back to Australia as soon as possible before the mould sets in to them. So we are happy, settled and living very cheaply. If we miss the meal time the local restaurants and shops don’t rip you off, a meal is under 10 Yuan ($1.50) each and we both had dinner and drinks the other night for 40 Yuan, of course in town (20 minute walk) this price would be double for a western style meal but that’s still under $15 for a night out. So come on over for a visit. The nearest airport is Guilin which is about 1 ½ hours by bus from Yangshuo and Guilin is 1½ hours from Hong Kong.
