A Job in China

 The extract below is from the  Intoduction to  Hotpot and Dumplings . It describes the location of the company where I worked in 2003-4.  

'A major Chinese ELT publishing House, is undertaking a significant expansion of its output and is now seeking English native-speaker editors to assist in the production of newspapers and magazines for learners and teachers of English in China. Two year contracts from April 2003, based in Tonghua City, Jilin Province, China. Airfares and accommodation provided, competitive hard currency salaries commensurate with experience.' (Advert in The Guardian, January 2003)
 

 ‘Yes, you should go there. You can always go to the tourist places on holidays,’ said my teacher. I'd been learning Mandarin for nearly ten years, and progress seemed abysmally slow.
Difficult to locate on a map, Tonghua  was dismissed by ‘ Lonely Planet’ as a ‘dull’ jumping-off point for a trip to Tian Hu, the ‘Heavenly Lake’, a  water-filled  crater at the highest point of the Changbaishan or ‘Ever white mountains’. The mountain was accessible by train and minibus from Tonghua for about two months in the summer – snow made the roads impassable at other times. Tourists were cautioned about walking near the summit,   because both China and Korea claimed it as theirs and suspicious Korean border patrols had been known to arrest straying tourists. My meeting with Korean border guards is a story for a later chapter. Meantime, my research turned up some interesting historical background.

Had things turned out differently, this barely-mentioned mountain city might have been, for a while at least,  the capital of China. When the occupying Japanese were forced to retreat from Changchun, in the area which they names  Manchukuo, Tonghua seemed a suitable place to resettle the puppet Emperor. This was not to happen, although the Emperor's sister, after fleeing from the palace, lived incognito for a while, selling matches in from a Tonghua street stall.

It wasn't  just the scenery that made Manchukuo attractive to foreigners.  The minerals, forestry and medicinal flora and fauna of the region made occupation attractive to the Japanese, Russians, Koreans, and Mongolians, including Genghis Khan. China’s last dynasty, the Qing, was founded by invaders from the west known as the Manchus who founded a capital at Shenyang before moving on to take Beijing. The legacy of these occupations, as much as its isolation from the rest of China, determines its distinctive culture.

Of course, I didn't all this when I answered the job advert . A lecturer  in a South London College. I’d been a part-time student of Chinese ever since I’d returned in 1993 from a spell of teaching English in Singapore, where I'd fallen in love with Chinese culture. I’d managed to get to China to teach on a summer school course for teenagers in the south in 2001 and a week’s holiday in Shanghai in 2002. I was near the end of my career, and to spend a year working as an editor for a Chinese publisher would make an excellent finale.

It was certainly going to be a change from South London. My husband, happily retired, was at first reluctant but resigned. When I told him about the long cold winter with temperatures consistently at -20C it dispelled al doubts.  ‘No, you go, Sheila, and I'll look after the flat. I could always come for a visit if it gets too much for you’.

I could cope with the challenge of living in the mountains for a year, I thought, and I could manage in  Chinese speaking environment..  There would be very few westerners around, apart from two or three fellow foreign editors also employed by the company. Would I be too lonely? There was only one way to find out.