You can see it on the Google Map below.

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It’s a nice area and I took a few photos, so here they are:
This is the south side of the lake. There’s a lot of people just hanging out playing hacky sack and walking around. The lake is surrounded by restaurants and bars — most relatively new, from around 2003. If you look at the left side of the second photo, you can see a Starbucks.

Here is a close up: In the far right window (under the glare, sorry) you can see the standard logo. Starbucks is pretty much the same price in China, maybe a buck cheaper, which really sucks because I have a serious caffeine addiction and I pass one every day on my way to work. It’s so tempting, especially the green tea lattes which are amazing. They taste like the green tea ice cream you get at sushi places in America.

Here is a shot from the western side of the lake: It’s kind of pretty, but not the kind you think of when you imagine lakes. It’s not serene, at all. China doesn’t do serene.

For example, here is one of the alleyways leading away from the lake: Oh look, it’s a crowd of people.

Speaking of crowds, I saw a bunch of people gathering around a little bird so I went to check it out. He was the most amazing little guy ever. He would take money from people and drop it in a little birdie bank.

And while we’re on the subject of cute animals. Look at how fluffy and goddamn cute this Chow is: Hey guys, there’s a reason Chinese dogs are called chow. I’m kidding! Well, not really. But I’m pretty sure nobody ate this dog.

Let’s change the subject. I found a little shack along the lakeside selling propaganda posters. A lot of children were depicted in the posters, not really surprising.

I think this set was my favorite: I love the farmer holding the Little Red Book aloft, which is hilarious to me. Look how happy he is to be starving to death! Maybe he’s just happy he found his copy, otherwise Red Guards would be beating him. Next to that we have the red fist smashing some guys, I’m not sure who. If you can figure it out let me know, otherwise I’m just going to assume they are capitalist pigs or members of the liberal bourgeoisie. And finally, a smoking ad! Of course.

Alright, I’m going to wrap this post up on a good capitalist note:

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About 5 minutes later the school called and informed us that even though the teachers liked my demo better the students preferred Anderson. This meant that I had to go next door and demo at another school, while our liaison told Anderson to wait either at the McDonalds or the KFC (apparently that’s the US embassy). I interviewed at the next school which went well and it seemed like they liked me but our contact was pretty vague on if I was going to be working there.

Anderson and I went back to the offices of the recruiting group and they called us in regarding housing (no, we have not found housing yet, and yes, we are still in a little 9×9 hotel room, with a 2 foot separation between our beds). Anyway it seems like our placement company wants us to take their housing based on the stipulation that they help me get a job at the school where Anderson had interviewed the day before (that’s right, in the middle of training they brought Anderson, who had no idea what to do during an interview or a demo for the students to interview with the headmaster of a school on his first day in China). Finally, we agreed to take their housing assuming that I get the job at the same school as Anderson.

All of the things that our agency is doing seems pretty weaselly and when we asked, we were told that it will be fine, and they literally said to me “you’ve been to China you know how things work” (take that as you will). So Anderson and I went to the school to demo with another person who is using the same agency as us, who had never had any training before and was actually chosen by the headmaster to go first. This was my 3rd demo of the day (which is essentially running a class on the spot in front of all authority figures in the school and is very stressful and draining).

After her debacle (which actually wasn’t considering she had no idea what to do, she did fairly well), Anderson and I both seemed to do well. Last night they called Anderson and told him that the school wants him to go down tomorrow and observe the school and assured him that they liked me, but they still don’t if they are going to accept me. Now we are forced to play wait and see and if they don’t accept me we’ll be back where we were yesterday afternoon, assuming they don’t screw us. As our contact told me yesterday I’ve been to China I know how things work, which is to say not very well.

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