Where In The World Is Evan?

I guess it’s about time I made an update for those of you who are still interested in my activities and whereabouts here in China.

At the end of June I finished my teaching contract in the city of Chengdu, and am now on two months of unpaid summer holidays. I’ve spent most of the last two weeks lounging about Chengdu, partying frequently, and saying goodbye to a time and place in my life where I was truly happy.

Presently I am in the city of Tai’an, in Shandong province, at the foot of Tai Shan–the holiest Taoist mountain in China–about to prepare for my solo night-time ascent of the mountain. On a clear day (which I’m not expecting) you can see over 200 km away, as the sun rises from the ocean!

The greater purpose of my presence here on the East coast, however, is that I’m on my way to Beijing for a once-a-year rave party on the Great Wall. Seriously, who could say no to such an outlandish proposition? I had a job lined up to teach English to the children of Mongolian nomads, on the edge of the desert in Inner Mongolia, for two weeks, but somehow this seemed more important.

After that I’m off to Tibet, over-land via the Golmud to Lhasa highway. I’ll spend about three weeks there–with at least two spent hiking in the mountains–before heading back to Chengdu, for a couple of days, on my way to a new teaching job elsewhere in the country. I’ve been offered a job at a University in Zhuhai–an ultra modern city, fabricated almost from scratch by the Communist Party about 20 years ago to be a high-tech commercial hub sharing a land border with Macau. I’ll be working 30% less hours and earning almost twice as much as in Chengdu, while living in a city famed for both its beauty and that of its beaches. To boot, the nightlife of Macao and Hong Kong will be an easy commute away (20 minutes and 1 hour, respectively) on weekends.

I guess that covers the major stuff for the moment.