I stepped out of the local Wu-Mart (not
Walmart) and found a man selling his wares of definitely-not-legit
DVDs. The thing about intellectual property here is that it basically
does not exist. I see knockoff items everywhere and there's no
guarantee that what I see will even work. Vendors will be one place
one day, but not come back the following day, so returning a
defective item will be much harder. This is only one of the
difficulties we face in purchasing things in this country – I
haven't said anything about the language yet!
Apart from the pirates, I'm living out
of a hotel. I do my laundry in my sink, and have to wait 2-3 days for
it to dry. Last week, aside from visiting the great wall, we did 4
days worth of morning and afternoon classes. It was pretty intensive,
but the great wall trip was a nice break. We got there and it was
like being in a steam room – the humidity was through the roof, and
my camera lens did not unfog itself for a couple hours. It was
definitely a workout though! There are many many steps to climb before
even getting up to the wall, plus once you get up there, the wall is
full of steps of assorted sizes. Some are hugenormous and some are annoyingly tinyful.
The small steps are the ones you have to worry about tripping over,
as they're harder to notice.
Training is going well. After a week's
worth of learning about classroom teaching, I'm learning about Asian
Culture and Communication, which is a welcome intellectual break.
Today I will actually be taking a state test to fulfill certain
requirements, upon which my work permit hinges. No big deal, really.
