Haimen City week 1

I'm staying in the dormitory wing of the Dong Zhou Middle School, an elite school in Haimen City. I and the other foreign teachers stay on the ground floor, while the upper floors are for students who are here for boarding school. I was told it costs the parents around 20,000 yuan a year to put their kids here, not a small amount by China, or even by many other countries standards.
My room is spacious and furnished. It's probably only a tad smaller than my flat in Hong Kong, so I have no trouble getting used to the size at all. Because we arrived during the China labor holidays, the school is actually closed for the week. All the kids in the dormitory have gone home, so it's quite peaceful around here. I wonder what it would be like once the kids are back, and the school is in full session again. On second thought; it's best I don't think about it and enjoy the tranquility while I can.

Just a block from the school is the main street of Haimen City. The street is long, with small and big shops along both sides of the road. There's a U.B.C. coffee shop, quite popular in China, and further down is a KFC. There are no Starbucks here, unlike Shanghai, where you can find one on every corner, it seems. In fact, Haimen City has hardly any tourists at all. The only foreigners you see are those working here. Not surprising though, since it's quite cumbersome for tourists to visit. It became apparent from day one when we were walking down the main street. Everyone was looking at our gang of 8, 6 of whom are foreigners. Both adults and children were staring at us as they passed, some were on foot, some were on bikes. We gather they don't see many non-Chinese around here. Yet, the Haimen people are some of the friendlies when it comes to meeting foreigners. Many said "Hello" to us with a smiling face, possibly the only English word they're comfortable of saying. We returned lots "Hello"s that first day.

Aside from the two western restaurants I mentioned, eating in Haimen is cheap, dirt cheap. You can get a bowl of noodles or a serving of dumpling for 3 to 5 yuan. A bottle of beer costs 4 yuan, and a cup of cola, 2. A stir-fry dish with rice on the side is only 6 yuan. Even if you go to the bigger restaurants, the prices are still affordable. The 8 of us ate at a restaurant with our own private room, top-notch service, and enough food to feed 12, yet the bill came out to less than 40 yuan per head; the price of eating a meal at McDonald's in the states.

I bet the reasonable prices have everything to do with the fact that there aren't any tourists here, so businesses have to remain competitive to keep local patrons. That's a good thing for us.

Filed Fri - May 14, 2004, 07:01 PM in

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