I'm poor.

On Monday I received a big sweaty wad of cash for my first month of work here in China. No bank account. No check. Just a big pile of hundreds. Unfortunately I have been here in China for about 3.5 weeks and the syndrome known as "China Cheap" (trademarked) has taken control of my perspective. This debilitating syndrome also known as "Holy crap, 3 dollars for dinner, that's way too expensive" or "This beer cost more than 15 cents, it must be a rip off," occurs after a few weeks in China. When everything you buy is absurdly cheap, you can't help but feel that if you pay US prices for anything that you have been severely wronged. When I received my pay check this Monday, I realized just how badly this syndrome had taken over. My salary was just over 4000 yuan. This is roughly 541 dollars for a month of work. The local average here is 800 yuan a month (108 dollars). Max and I did some math and figured out that we had been shorted one days worth of salary according to our contract.

This is where the other side of the "China Cheap" syndrome comes into play. The locals have been born into the "China Cheap" environment and are willing to use any means necessary to keep every nickel and dime (or jiao and mao). With all of this said, it seems inevitable that I will walk away from my school year of teaching here in China with pretty much nothing (financially). At the beginning of my trip I was well aware of this fact, and I was and still am incredibly happy to be here having the experience of living and working in China. But in reality, I will need some money following my time here in China. I have plans for grad school. It's not going to pay for itself. So, with all of this being said I have gone into a bit of a panic about developing a second source of cash. I have a fair amount of free time and I figure that if I don't start doing something other than watching DVDs and teaching English that I am soon to lose my mind.

My first petty attempt to generate revenue was to put an ad or two on the right side of this blog. Like I've mentioned before I can't access my blog from China. I can post on it, but I can't view the actual blog. When I was signing up for the ads I was told that Google, who provides the ads, would scan the blog and generate relevant ads. Apparently for me this means that my blog will have adds for "Finding dates in China"and "Teaching in China." So if anyone needs a date in China or is interested in teaching here, just click away! If you don't want a date in China and have no interest in teaching in China click on the ads anyway (I get paid for every click on the ads). I can't provide you with any incentives for clicking on these ads (that would be illegal ;)), but lets just say that it would be much appreciated. Furthermore, if anyone has any friends, relatives, companions, associates, acquaintances, or pets in China who have any need for work or research within China, I'm available. Alright, I feel dirty from all of this groveling. I'm going to get a shower and do some more brainstorming. (click it!!-------> )

Sorry....I'm done I promise. ( CLICK IT AGAIN-------->)

yea....................