Introductions

Who, what, where, Me? What money?

Ah Damm it Noles.... have you been volunteering my tab again? 

I was busy hitting the other spots on the saloon before I pulled up a "barstool."

Here I am, an American by nationailty, but suspect I was Martian at birth. 34, though past injuries lead me to wonder if some bones in my body are 65. I've travelled a lot in my life. Mostly in Asia. I finished paying off thirty thousand US bucks in student loans last year. For the first time in my adult life I will be am liberated from the endentured servitude many Americans have to enter into just to receive a university education.

I have a disease. It's called travelitis. I caught it years ago when I started teaching English on the little island that China has a lot of interest in, and some loose cultural ties to. I enjoy living and working abroad. I actually enjoy teaching English.

I never wanted to be a teacher and never thought my life would take this turn. It started out as a curiosity and has become an affliction (one I'm all too happy to embrace). Since I returned home it's as if the volume of life is turned down, and the suck factor is amped up. Dead end jobs. No fundimental human right to basic medical insurance. Potential theocratic storms brewing in Washington...

I'll spare you those details.

Only recently did I realize (through profoundly soul-breaking trial and error) that about the only thing I can do well without dirving myself mad and feeling like I've sold myself out - and survive doing it - is teaching.

I'm none to fond of my country of birth and have felt like the country I loved started dying in 1980 and finally died sometime around 2000; and that the deceptively-similar version of it that I'm currently biding my time in is like the bizarro world version of it.

Stop the ship. I want to get off it.

So, I'm going to renew my recently-expired pasport this week and have started seriously looking into living and working in China while I slowly get the graduate degree on track. I'm not sure how long I'll end up working in China. I've been there a few times but only as a visitor.

One year. Maybe more? I'm happy to go in, do my best and let the chips fall where they may. I take things day by day. Such an outlook has been hammered into me after three decades of trying to plan way too far ahead.

Currently, I produce and direct a local television program. I have a love for what I'm doing but not for the system I have to do it in. Aesthetically it's rewarding, but emotionally it just reminds me that I'd rather be doing something that doesn't have me getting up each and every day wondering why I put up with a constant feeling of uncertainty, since every other television outlet has reduced local origination programming to the nightly propagandacast, newscast. So, every bit of aesthetic joy I receive from my work feels like it could be the last fix, and once the "ride" is done I don't want to work in commercial television ever again: local or otherwise.

Good people. Good food. Good drink. Good entertainment. A constant state of learning: that's what I enjoy.

Next round's on me!

Great intro map, thanks for sharing and welcome!

Ditto, a great intro.  Welcome!

Welcome, Moon and BamBam.  If all else fails, you can be sure that the insanity at the saloon is a constant.  Pull up a stool (yeah, I know these little suckers can hardly be called stools, but what the hay, we're in China ...) and join us at the trough.  It seems that LT is paying again.  At this rate, she will be in China another ten years just to pay the bar tab at the saloon.

Hey Moon (May I call you Moon?), what's your ETA and what area of China are you looking to land in? 

Moon... BumBam...

WELCOME, BOYS! HAVE A ROUND ON NOLES! 

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

BAM: My ETA could be winter, or after that. In an hour I'll head down to the post office and begin the process of applying for a new passport. The last one expired in January. I imagine it will take two months (if I'm lucky) for that to process. Since the boogeymna faering Bandejos in Washington deemed it fit that all citizens have to have a pssport to visit our neighbors and even leave the continental U. S. to visit other states, like Hawaii or Alaska - this has driven passport procesing to a lethargic pace since it's like everything else in America: under-staffed and over-worked thnks to this mad glut.

I also have 13 episodes the station is contractually obigated to produce (to air them, that's a whole other up-in-the-air battle). It's practically written in stone that this is the final year for the show.

Unless major catastrophes arise: by winter my obligations will be fufilled and I should have my new pasport.

So, my ETA is 2008.

I'm looking for a Uni gig. Preferably in: Qingdao, Dalian, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou or Zuhai, for starters.

You can call me, Moon, MOP, Bozo, Harpo, Chico, gabacho - whatever floats yer boat!  It's all fine.

Cheers!


EDIT: Did the passport work. I was told it would take 10-12 WEEKS. Ugh!

2008? That's when I plan to be out of China.

But then again, I said the same thing about 2002, 2003... 2007 I am still here!

Me, me! Pick me! (to drink on your account  )

leave the continental U. S. to visit other states, like Hawaii or Alaska

HUH!! Is that true?? You need a passport to travel interstate?? How quaint!

Cheeks it's a given that you would be on the tab.... I think Missi was talking about others...  

Quote

leave the continental U. S. to visit other states, like Hawaii or Alaska

HUH!! Is that true?? You need a passport to travel interstate?? How quaint!

Drive or fly - to get to Alaska you go through Canada.

I wouldn't put it past the gits in the Blight House  - who munch on civil liberties like a speed freak on crank -  having it on their agenda, but as it stands now: interstate travel requires no passport in the U. S. Only for Hawaii (if you can hold your breath you can drive there!) and Alaska (gotta pass through Canada first), and all of our territories. In fact, I think you need one to fly anywhere now (but I could be wrong).

Howdy Parma.   What's the show exactly?  News?  Community events?

Raoul tells me Shanghai is absolutely lousy with jobs right now.  Then again, most cities are...

Howdy Parma.   What's the show exactly?  News?  Community events?

Raoul tells me Shanghai is absolutely lousy with jobs right now.  Then again, most cities are...

Hola, Con! It's a movie show. We plundered the public domain genre movies at our disposal, talked a station into giving us a two hour slot normally running infomercials and we have failed miserably to get enough sponsors to cover the revenue that the station was making from the info-mercials. I live in an area that is best described as "rust belt," and most of the local businesses that could pay for ads, were. That's like 5% of the local business though. Everyting else is Wal-Mart, Target, etc.: chains. To get their sponsorship (and we tried a few places like Coconuts, FYE, etc.) was an insane ritual and lots of calls and e-mails to corporate offices who pretty much laughed in our proverbial faces when they found out we were a local progam, and the kind of local programming that is rarely produced anymore - and that the station that aired us wasn't even "on the book" (i. e. ratings).

It got worse when the station wouldn't promote the show. no on-air mentions. No news brief, no radio, no paper, no free bumpers on their own channel. In the paper, on their website and on DVR we were lsited as "Paid Programming," though we almost sensed a change when an episode was actually listed as "Guthrie-Renker Presents" (another info-mercial company). The show will wrap in August.

For what it's worth, I would only make $1000 less a year teaching at a Uni in China for 4000 RMB a month than what I made working on this show  For me, teaching in China would actually be a step up on the disposable income meter!

As for Shanghai: love the place, but it's but one destination. Dalian, Qingdao and Zuhai are particularly desirable, in my book, but I'm open to suggestions. The only caveat is that it'd have to be Uni work at a reputable school (as in the FTs had no beefs with the school, not "Harvard"-status schools) - and not way out in the middle of the sticks, where one would have to take 2 long bus trips and an overnight train to get to: a hypermart, Pizza Hut, Computer market, or reliable (by China's standards) DVD vendor.

I think I'm not asking for anything that's not possible, except for working in Shanghai!   

When does the next season of University FT positions open up in China? December???