R.O.A.R.: Fuzhou - Settling In

29th September 2009

It's exactly one month since I landed in Fuzhou and I've been extremely busy, mainly with school and finding a suitable apartment.

To date, school has been a disappointment on a number of fronts:

It is located some 25km from the city in a desolate area populated only by universities
My office is located on the 5th floor of the building and teaching on the 1st floor, but no lifts!
I have an 8:30am class Mon-Fri, requiring me to get up at 6:15am (not my style!)
There is a school bus which I could catch which arrives at school at 8:20am, resulting in a rush to start class on time
The bus does the return trip at 4:45pm; so I need to wait for that bus even if I don't have any classes in the afternoon
I have a heavy teaching load: 15 periods a week, each period of 90 minutes
Each class contains 50-60 students, requiring me to use a microphone or speak very loudly
The classes are a combination of a lesson and a straight lecture: the latter being boring for me and the students!
I'm teaching a Business course in English but the majority of the students understand and speak little English!
I've been given a Student's book but no accompanying Teacher's book
I need to create a mid-semester and an end-of-semester exam myself, plus some assignments (with no guidance)
All my time has been spent at school or preparing school material at home... We now have an 8-day break (National Day holidays) where I'm hoping to get ahead in my lesson planning and estabish some material for the exams.

The good news is that I have found a small, but comfortable, apartment: it is brand new (I'm the 1st tenant) in the city centre, close to many shops and restaurants. As it is quite a distance from the school bus I have purchased an electric bike (which doesn't require me to have a licence). So now I commute to school by eBike every day (40 minutes each way). However, winter is coming...

The traffic in Fuzhou is by far the worst I have encountered in China - it is absolute chaos!

Thousands of e-bikes share the roads and footpaths with pedestrians and pedestrians share the roads with motorbikes and cars: people happily and leisurely walk in the middle of the road oblivious to the chaos around them. I've seen 2 people, in peak period, having a chat in the middle of the road and if you beep them they don't even bother looking around - they just keep walking on the road while cars and bikes swerve around them!
I have one of the fastest e-bikes (good acceleration and hits 60kpm): when doing 60kpm and overtaking slower bikes I'm suddenly comfronted with another bike hurtling towards me going the other way! - it's illegal but it seems to be accepted by everyone.
Most e-bikes either don't have turn indicators or they don't use them - I've had a number of near misses.
Traffic lights don't mean anything - you simply go through a red light if it's clear.
Because you don't need a licence for an e-bike ANYBODY can put one on the road, regardless of their competency level. It's like dodgem cars at Luna Park. I've seen many bikers with a cigarette in their mouth whilst talking on their mobile. Today I was following a police motorcyclist who was all over the road while he was texting on his mobile!

I guess you get the picture, but in an odd sort of way all this chaos is part of the adventure and the excitement...

As always a heroine emerges who goes out of their way to help me: this time it's a Chinese English teacher who found an apartment for me and made numerous calls to the owner when things have gone wrong; she organised internet installation, my mobile card and bank account. It would be impossible to survive in China without such assistance.

My experience in Wuhan and Shanghai is that things look a bit bleak initially and then improve to the point of not wanting to leave... I hope Fuzhou has the same affect on me...

Regards... Renzo

Photos:

My apartment