hello all!

i know it's only been a couple weeks or so since that monstrous e-mail i unleashed upon the world, but i am sending another bulk(y) mailing to let you all know that my phone number has changed...the new number is listed at the bottom here. why the school has decided to switch everyone's phone numbers i do not know, except perhaps because EVERYTHING in china exists in a state of flux. class times change, class sizes change, class lengths change, class locations change, often for no apparent reason at all. when i first got here, i was told that this semester would have twenty weeks in it, so that is how i structured my syllabus. then, after about a third of the semester, i was told to end all of my classes on the seventeenth week. so i cut some lessons, restructured my syllabus, and informed all of my students about the changes. two weeks later, i was told that the semester was once again to have twenty weeks (i had already accelerated my students into a mid-term exam). i haven't acted on this latest decree yet, because i am just waiting for the semester to change again which, in all seriousness, is not unlikely. such working conditions can often be aggravating, and not everyone can roll with it...we have already had three foreign teachers leave, which of course just adds to the organizational chaos (one of my classes doubled in size a few days ago). c'est la Chine.

life here is good-- i left you last upon the cusp of my twenty-sixth year, the dawn of which was cool(er) and rainy. we dug a fire pit for the b-day BBQ, set up the spit, and then built a shelter out of bamboo poles and plastic tarps. the tarps had multi-colored stripes running the length of them, so the overall construction had a kind of gypsy-circus motif. it rained all day (and almost every day for the next two weeks), and even though it took the better part of the day to roast the pig, the tarps held up and it was a success!

coolest gift since i last wrote: a free bicycle! the school here bought twenty-some brand new bikes so that each of the foreign teachers could have one to use for the year. of course, even though they are new, they constantly threaten to rattle apart and must be tuned-up after every use...but it is certainly a nice gesture from the school. they seem to spend a lot of time and money trying to keep us happy. it is strange to live in a place where it is impossible to be anonymous...i am either treated as a prince or as a pariah-- always to an extreme.

funniest purchase since i last wrote: a drinking cup that taps into the powers of magnetism. i had to buy this cup just for the description on the box it came in...the metal cup case surrounds your beverage with magnets which energize your drink, enabling it to cure a host of ailments including obesity, constipation, and "all forms of calculus"...apparently chinese mathematics seeks less to solve for X than to heal it!

greatest indication that i have been in china too long: a few days ago i was eating lunch in a restaurant and midway through the meal i discovered a maggot (cooked) in my bowl...without really giving it a second thought i picked it out, flicked it on the ground, and kept eating. perhaps if i had actually eaten it, then my acclimation would have been complete?

elsewhere in the news: last week i signed-on with a modeling agency! western features are a hot commodity in this country (at least two-thirds of all the advertising here sports some goofy caucasian mug) because everyone wants whitey to hawk their wares. a representative from a modeling agency in guangzhou actually came to the school here to see if any of the foreign teachers were interested in such part-time work, and i jumped. if someone wants to pay me to take my picture (and they pay a lot), they will be met with no resistance! so basically i now have a file with this agency, and companies go to them and peruse all the foreign devils until they find one they like...i don't know if anything will ever come of it, but i do know that teachers from this school did get work through this agency last year. (how fun would that be? yes, that's me in those thermal undies!) the agency rep took a bunch of photos of me, and then he also shot some video...why? you ask...because apparently people also turn to them to get white folks for TV and movie parts! that would be such a riot, i would do it for free....actually, just making my "portfolio" was a lot of fun, although the guy turned off his video camera before i had finished talking (i was in the middle of listing my superpowers, and had just explained that "i can crack a walnut with my buttocks!" when he said "alright, that's enough"). we shall see....

last week i also began "tae kwon do" training. there are a lot of different martial arts here, although "tae kwon do" originally comes from korea (in chinese it's "tai quan dao"). on the first day all we did is run. we met at the school track and ran laps in order to align our "qi" (which is basically the chinese version of "the force"). i don't know if i aligned anything, but i did have visions of (re)turning to the sedentary dark side. i've been sticking to it, though, and i trust that at some point it will become more enjoyable and less painful. for now, i'm just trying to keep it light...on the second day of training, i thought it might be funny if i wore my black (leather) belt instead of the white one that i was issued. that didn't last very long. shucks. on the other hand, i have created my own sport out of this training by mixing it with ping pong, and i think it may catch on. it's the same as regular ping pong, except that there are no paddles. you can only use the chops and kicks of your bare hands and feet. i call it "ping kwon do" (in chinese it's "tai pong dao"). it really is kind of cool, but do not attempt it at home if you feel that your "qi" has been compromised in any way.

okay, before i go let me wish you all a happy halloween-- and dad, happy birthday!!! it's an unknown holiday here, but i am going to go into town later to round up some pumpkins, carve some jack-o-lanterns, and then get the band together for a "bu hao-lloween" concert...yes!

love, caleb

Caleb Conley
Foreign Teacher's Office
Peizheng Commercial College
Chini Town, Huadu District
Guangzhou 510830
CHINA