China Trip #2

Every year during Spring Festival, better known as "Chinese New Year," the entire country shuts down as everyone goes home to be with family and enjoy 2 weeks of festivities. So I took advantage of the long holiday and my father, aunt, and uncle came out to visit me. It would be impossible for me to recap the entire adventure (although if you have 2.5 hrs and a computer projector, my father would be more that thrilled to tell you the whole story). So here's some quick highlights of the trip where I played (and pretended to be) tour guide, translator, tourist, and occasionally a "native."

- Hiked up an 1800m mountain (Huangshan)
- Drank various local beers
- Convinced other American expats that we were local Chinese and took pictures and drank beer with them
- Ate frog
- Ate eel
- Met some distant relatives living in Hong Kong
- Celebrated the end of Spring Festival in Shanghai
- Learned a few random Cantonese phrases and insults from my Uncle

All of which was done without any terrible hiccups or injuries. And we were under our predicted budget. Being tour guide was exhausting, but a lot of fun. My goal for my Chinese language skills is to get good enough to become a Chinese tour guide for English speaking groups and have someone compliment me by saying "wow, your English is really good!"

--
Byron Yee
TEFL English Teacher - Shenzhen, China