The Magic of China

 I had finished my first full week in the training centre at around 8pm on Saturday. I took appropriate lengths to make sure I made a good impression by dressing formally the whole week in navy blue trousers paired with a light blue high neck collar silk shirt. One of the benefits of choosing EF adults was that, unlike EF Kids who were paid more, there was no uniform, and working on online classes would involve taking a pay cut, so teaching adults seemed to be the best 'compromise' between the other two.  Figure 1: Drinking coffee at a cafe in Hangzhou During the week, I had observed around five classes by local teachers and foreign teachers, mostly the Dan, an obese ginger bearded American from what he calls the 'countryside' of Las Vegas. I also taught half of one class myself, which was to a Level 7 student who was advanced in English. To my relief, my first half class wasn't awful-I think. I kind of just read whatever was on the PPT and got the student to repeat...

 YoYo took me to the bank because I wanted to see if I would be able to draw money out of my British bank account to at least pay Andy back. I only had 300RMB and I had no idea where to go to buy food, or how, or what anything was. Even though there was an English option I asked YoYo about on the small computer screen, she seemed to dismiss this and was shocked that I had the equivalent of 10 000RMB waiting in my British account. Andy also told me that we had been paid, and that I could submit my expenses from the Uk, including train tickets and visa fees, so I had also already submitted them.  Since this was my first 'real' job, I had only just clicked that companies also pay for the time spent training new employees, which I thought was generous. I checked my Chinese account and noticed 4000RMB, so this, together with the 6000RMB from my British account would be enough to pay Andy in full, and drew a further 2000RMB to tie me over until the next payday.  During the firs...