I live and teach at the South Ocean International School, which is neither in the south nor near any ocean, but is near the city of Luo Yang, which is near but not on the Yellow River in Henan Province in central North China. It is the most populated province in China, with 92 million people in a place the size of Oregon. I am an English teacher for 5th and sixth graders here, though in the past year I have taught 4th grade through high school and adult classes. I had been working as a manager for a program for people with developmental disabilities in Olympia, Washington, and the stress of that job, plus my time spent with addoptive and foster kids in my home burned me out after fifteen years so rather than die, I decided with my wife to do something else. So I quit my job, enrolled at Seattle University, got a certificate for teaching ESL, and after that all we had to do was sell our house, give away lots of stuff, haul lots to the dump, wait for some of my kids to grow up a little, find a place to put the dogs and the 5000 LP's for a while, pile up some money, find some place in the world that wanted to hire us ( not difficult) and off we go. We really love it here, even though we've had to shall we say adjust our expectations several times. It's been two years since I've not been able to find a parking place, lost my car keys, bounced a check, or called someplace and gotten recorded music on their answering machine -all the daily stuff that makes me crazy in the U.S. Here, I have to deal with frequent power crashes, really bad air, really low wages, hot water once in a while, no public library, no thrift stores,no movie theaters, no real book stores, a different language and culture and money system. We are going to come back to the U,S, in AUgust, but our plan is to return in a year or so. I just hope that things aren't so screwed up politically that we can't. I've now gotten myself through Idaho, avoiding Sandpoint and Coure D'lane through the Coure D'Lane and Flathead Indian reservations and connecting with U.S. 2 just east of Kalispel, Montana- Stay well Seth from China