When I taught English in the small border town of Dandong, between China and North Korea, I was also a rickshaw-vallah. This is a photo someone took of me with two completely random people I have never seen before. They were not good tippers.
It was such a fun experience showing my parents around Dandong, the place that had colored my experience in China and why I still nostalgically think of this place as home. It’s technically a city, but the small town atmosphere is what I really like. That Northern er hua and Dandong slang still characterizes my Mandarin, even though I know what some of the proper words are. We went to vegetable markets, a picnic with korean barbecue, and escaped being quarantined during the SARS freak out. I’ll write about that one day, and more of mum and dad’s trip soon, including an awesome visit to a farmer’s house, who graciously invited us to his house and offered us homemade alcohol for brunch. Made Dad feel like we were in Punjab!
[…] my masters in screenwriting and South Asian studies). Navdeep had just returned from two years teaching English in China and was pursuing his MFA creative writing in […]