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	<title>bighairylaowai.com</title>
	<link>http://bighairylaowai.com</link>
	<description>Ni Hao. I'm big. I'm hairy. I'm a lao wai.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:57:24 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>The horror, the horror&#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I said a couple times before that I didn’t want to narrate the great sagging vacancy of my office existence on this website.  But like John Prescott’s meaty shagathon, such grotesque lurid things always come to light. None of that background padding. No story-telling scaffolding. Simply, I came across a letter that had sent [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2006/05/19/the-horror-the-horror/</link>
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		<title>Mental, Mental, Chicken Oriental</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So, OK, I came back to the UK, and NO-ONE was squatting in the streets and shitting, or klacking and sweeping  Mah Jong tiles, and bicycles didn’t out number cars, and cars weren’t snarling and cutting unpredictably across adjacent lanes (disputable -ed), NO-ONE was carrying bundles of chickens bound around their feet, or monotone [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2006/04/30/mental-mental-chicken-oriental/</link>
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		<title>Lazy Fecker</title>
		<description><![CDATA[8 hours every other day on rickety buses skipping along unsealed roads, cramping legs stuck to ears, an old man's dozing head slumped on my shoulder and his drool slipping precariously down his lip, cut-and-paste hostel placards shoved in my face on arrival, itchy sheets, bed bugs, underlying planks broken in 2, snoring (often my [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/09/26/lazy-fecker/</link>
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		<title>A Dali Hit and Run</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Lead with your headline story they say, so in a Tarantino style fractured narrative, it is day 4 of Big Hairy Laowai's journey through Western China, and he is being unceremoniously sheperded into the back-seat of a Police (Jincha) Car, to be taken to the station for questioning.

It was my first full day in Dali. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/09/15/travel-log-1/</link>
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		<title>Lazy Summer</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Summer in Chengdu progresses like the JinJiang, the river that flows through the heart of it; an indolent, viscid drift deviating reluctantly around sluggish bends. Just occassionally, the stolid current will squall over a decaying bank of rubbish and human faeces, or to persist with the analogy, an anecdote.

1. Wrath of the Golden Yeti
A nation [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/08/23/lazy-summer/</link>
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		<title>A Chengdu Road-Map</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Wake up to the mid-morning bustle of the vegetable market in the alley outside your window, and the dull drone of the kong tiao (air conditioner). Do not lie in further. You could; the invasive hammering of the drill on the main road until late, the intermittent squeals of a dog spanning the night, a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/08/21/a-chengdu-road-map/</link>
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		<title>Wachoo Lookin At, Old Man?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I'm a sweater.  This damp affliction is borne both of my physiology (a lumbering 100kg +) and personality (regrettable tendencies to be swamped by anxiety and to lend disproportionate emphasis to the scrutiny of others). Some would question my choice in coming to China, a land where foreigners are especially rare and invariably elicit [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/08/15/whatchoo-looking-at-old-man/</link>
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		<title>A Big Hairy Laowai&#8217;s First Day</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The way was clear only briefly.  A single shrill cry of laowai! brusquely interrupted my daze, another of Tom! confirmed my mistake of walking past the first grade classroom on the way out.  A trickle of them scampered over and grabbed at my legs, clung onto my arms and tugged at the hem [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/08/10/first-day/</link>
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		<title>My Chinese Pen-Pal</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Ole tells us in his blog that one of the highlights of living in China is the surprise of having semi-competent English speakers (no, he doesn't mean me) spontaneously greet laowai with the refrain Welcome to China! Happy every day!  I've heard the Welcome to China! part a lot, addressed to the unsuspecting roundeye [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/08/08/my-chinese-pen-pal/</link>
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		<title>Show Me The Monkey</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So, the evil empire graciously permitting its employees a 3 day holiday (read - could not attract any potential students), I took the cue and shot off to Emei Shan with Caligula and the boy.  Emei is one of the 4 principal holy Buddhist mountains in China, and offers a rewarding, atmospheric ascent to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/08/05/show-me-the-monkey/</link>
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		<title>When Laowais Attack</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A fairly painful looking injury happened in a class this morning.  To drum the requisite 6/8 new items of vocabulary into little kids, I often play a TPR (Total Physical Response) game to finish with.  It involves sellotaping flashcards (have a word with yourself) which is teaching-speak for A4 sheets bearing large, colourful [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/08/03/when-laowais-attack/</link>
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		<title>Santai</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My friend Ole (n) is one in a million.  Maybe a million and a half.  That's roughly the population of Santai, a relatively small county in Sichuan province, and he's the only one who needs to shave daily, celebrate Xmas and sit while he sh*ts - he's the one resident whitey.  Although [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/08/01/santai/</link>
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		<title>2 Excerpts</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The following are extracts from blogs that I have encountered.  Dear God, this is why I was worried about the loneliness of the long - distance blogger.  It really is the worst kind of sixth-form poetry, a strong example of a muddle as opposed to a mystery, with a well thumbed thesaurus by [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/08/01/24/</link>
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		<title>An Apology For Blogging</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I've always had a downright disregard for blogs.  Some detail verbatim the acts and occurences of their daily life, and their reactions to them, as if they are the only person who has eaten a hamburger or been late for work or watched a particular television programs.  Though this is naieve and annoying, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/08/01/an-apology-for-blogging/</link>
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		<title>3 Gorges, 2 Furnaces and a Family of Roaches</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Last week was a welcome break. Not that I needed the week holiday, sandwiched between the end of school semester and summer camp, for any kind of recharge of the teaching batteries, far from it. The last couple months have been cruisy. More a chance to get out of the city and escape the everyday's-a-Friday-when-you're-a-flaky-laowai-teacher [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/07/27/12/</link>
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		<title>Come give Uncle Bully a kuss</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The first 2 periods were not quite as smooth this morning, a result of the DVD remote not working. Though possible to play the DVD without it, you need it to activate the Chinese subtitles, and although this is an English lesson, there's no way they can follow the audio. Cue lots of fiddling with the batteries, the points of contact, swapping with students batteries from their headphones. Awkward.]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/07/20/come-give-uncle-bully-a-kuss/</link>
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		<title>Teaching Integrity</title>
		<description><![CDATA[1. The Set Up
Chamone. This is the first of 12 vignettes to update people on what's happening out here. This is not some sylistic invention to prod people into reading past the 5th word, just a result of my passive resistance against 
the various and manifold evils of my company. This is my week off, but its not, thanks to Crazy Pat (more of whom later) who has landed me with an extra 12 lessons instead. Its a typical broken promise on the part of North America ESL (MUCH MUCH MORE OF THAT LATER), and while I would be happy to help out a reasonable, rewarding employer, this just feels like anathema. So following in the bare footsteps of Ghandi, I have decided to display my emotions in a non-threatening, stoic manner. Namely, a 3 minute spiel 'Hi 
I'm Jon. Can you guess where I'm from? No, not America, though yes I do seem a little tall and may have eaten too many McDonalds. Can you guess my age? No I am not f#cking 30.So here are some new words. [writes on board] Zombie, monster, blood, infection, bite, epidemic. Well done. Who can connect this DVD player? Cle - ver! Now here is a British film called Shaun of the Dead. [presses play, draws breath]']]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/07/10/teaching-integrity/</link>
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		<title>A Woody All Weekend</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Well, he actually popped up on Thursday, and it was delightful to see him after an 8-month absence. Anyway, enough of the fnar-fnar Carry On Humour, if you know the eponymous Woody then the previous has been a lame contrivance, if you don't, then Paul Woody / Woodrow Woodcock is a Rugby-Playing, Trust-Managing Fellow-Islander who [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/06/20/a-woody-all-weekend/</link>
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		<title>2 Letters</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The following is a reference letter that the Head of English in one of my Primary Schools wrote for me on the last day of the school semester. Written with far better handwriting than my own (which isn't particularly difficult really), I genuinely treasure this thin leaf of lined paper torn from a student's exercise [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/06/15/21/</link>
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		<title>Song Pan</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Feel like pure filth today, sitting in the staffroom with an age before my next and last class of the day.  Overslept the alarm and have to do a single make-up class post lunch, which of course spans a deathly dull 3 hours, accompanied only by the faltering tinkle of Nutcracker being practised to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/05/25/song-pan/</link>
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		<title>Grrrrr</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Top o' the morning. What a f*cking way to start a day. Just tried to put down a deposit at the internet cafe with a 50 kwai note, and the guy mimed to me, ignominiously shaking his head and holding the note at arms length, that it was fake. I'm fairly decent on spotting them [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/04/30/grrrrrrrrrrr/</link>
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		<title>Hateful Wife-Beater</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Euufff.  That's the sound of having  just had my first tough week in China after 3 exhilarating ones. I suppose the honeymoon with the kids wears off eventually, perhaps the big hairy laowai novelty that has veiled my ineptitude thusfar won't last forever.  One particularly wet Wednesday, 8 x 40 minute periods [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/04/15/hateful-wife-beater/</link>
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		<title>Teaching!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Time for another update I guesses, I would have sent one sooner, but the first month has been pretty draining, and any leisure time has seen me visit one of the ex-pat pubs, or retreat to fortress Lau-wai for a swift dvd from the knock off shop..

There's been a little turmoil at the organisation, with [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/03/15/teaching/</link>
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		<title>Horrifying Pretension</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The following was my first attempt to transform wildly disparate, invigorating first impressions into something coldly formal and journalistic.
***************************

Somewhere on the way up to Cairns I met an eternal backpacker, an Irishman who had lived out of a bag over 4 decades and across the span of every continent.  He had briefly taught in [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/03/01/horrifying-pretension/</link>
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		<title>First Impressions</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Well, this is the first despatch from Chengdu, from a conservtively sized internet cafe of about 150 or so, and what an incredible week and a bit, seems to have lasted far longer the way everything does when its all new and diverse, like xmas day when you are a kid, but to the power of 10. To the Chinse guy chainsmoking 5 inches from my face and staring at my e-mail, well if your english is that good then you'll understand me when i call you a c&#038;nt. 
]]></description>
		<link>http://bighairylaowai.com/archive/2005/02/20/first-impressions/</link>
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