China: It Begins

I ate a dog!

Well, not exactly. It could’ve been a dog. It looked like a dog, smelt like a dog, but I’m not sure.

For those tuning back in to Damon’s corner, I just moved to china. Yes, the great land where kungfu is manufactured, eight year old girls are beasts at making Old Navy’s pea coats and where there are no traffic laws. Zero. I almost got ran over twice, by a small Volkswagen and by an old, Chinese man with more wheels than teeth. Still not keeping up? Ok let’s review.

In December 2011, I was in a class with colleagues and a girl was talking about her time as a teacher in South Korea. I thought, “wait, my family and I could travel the world, get paid and still impact lives?” So we started talking, praying, researching and dreaming. Months later, I had an inteview and accepted a teaching position in China with Disney English. This is the sweet and short version, more posts to come on the bumps and bruises that came along the way to me being here in a shanghai hotel lobby typing this post because this hotel is stuck in 1997 with poorly-working wifi.

Nonetheless, I AM in China. It feels like a dream. But it came true. (unlike that 7th grade dream to be 6’3 by the 11th grade.

I’ve been here for roughly five days now and have seen some things that I thought I would observe and a few sights that I didn’t expect. Here a few observations:

-Chinese people aren’t fat. I thought it was a myth but I have yet to see anyone over 121 pounds. You’d think after all those egg rolls someone would break the mold but nope. And just to be clear, if you’ve ever seen a fat Chinese person, they weren’t from china.

-There’s a ton of stray dogs and cats. I didn’t think they’d allow food to roam so freely.

-It’s much cheaper here. You’d think since the Chinese make 98% of the earth’s products, they’d be an expensive country, right? Naw. A mani/pedi is 30RMB. That is $5. Please be sure that I’m having Shin-Chang Mu-Hao on my toes tomorrow!

-Everyone looks the same. Period.

-There’s quite a bit of kids running through the streets around here. Now I’m not sure how the economy is around shanghai, but someone isn’t enforcing that “one child policy”. Just saying.

An adventure awaits after I open my hotel door every morning. I don’t know the language, I’m the ONLY black person on the continent and the humidity could melt a wildfire, but that’s ok! Experiencing a once in a lifetime opportunity with my family is mind blowing (my wife and son come to shanghai in September).

This simply confirmed that traveling is a must for me and mines. I’m ecstatic.

The adventure awaits!

Where have you always wanted to take an adventure?

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