TIANJIN

Tianjin is one of the three largest cities in China. It is a one hour and 15 minute train ride south east of Beijing. Tianjin is an industrial city, and not really a tourist destination but it offers some great food and shopping, with prices much cheaper than Beijing. Tianjin people will claim that they have a very distinct dialect, not standard Putunghua. I think it is more difficult to understand with my limited Chinese language ability.

An express train runs between Tianjin and Beijing every hour from about 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Most of the passengers are business people or commuters. Many people in Tianjin work in Beijing because of the higher salaries, but live in Tianjin because the cost of living is lower.

I met Sam Liu and his family two years ago. Sam and his wife and son are Chinese born but became American citizens. However, they chose to return to China to live with his parents, because they feel the quality of life is better. However, since Sam is now a "foreigner" he must have a visa to live there, and that means having a job in China. His son, Dan, will probably attend a university in Tianjin this fall. His entire family is very interesting, and have been very kind to me. My visit with them is always one of the highlights of my trip to China.
On this visit, I was invited for lunch at the home of one of their friends. They cooked a wonderful lunch with some famous "four treasure" dumplings. It is interesting that the men seem to do as much cooking as the women, as he was the one who made the dumplings. His son who is 17 also can make these dumplings. Xixi told me that he goes to school at 7:30 in the morning, and has a couple of hour for lunch, then goes back to school until 9:30 in the evening. There is a lot of homework each evening and on weekends, and during the one month of summer vacation, there is also homework. But he didn't complain about it, even when I sympathized with him. Xixi also has the most neat and clean room I have every seen for a teenage boy!
I also met some more of Sam's friends, including the beautiful lady in the photo above who had connections with a jade exporter. One of the nicest jadeite bangles I purchased is this one that was described as green and red. The photo doesn't do it justice, it is really gorgeous. But too big for me, unfortunately.

Sam also introduced me to a man who owns the ESL English Language School for adults in Tianjin. He is opening a similar school in Beijing soon, and asked me to come to work for him as the academic director. The offer included a very good salary and new western style apartment. I guess for now I would rather be the "jade queen" in Creston than the academic director in Beijing. But if you would like an experience you will never forget, living and working teaching English in China, contact me and I will help you to do that.

Next : Last days in Beijing