It's a crash course for the ravers (David Bowie)

I've just returned from a full on week in Christchurch, learning all about aviation English from Colin Davis and the kind folks at Airways New Zealand http://www.airways.co.nz/index.asp.



Colin and my fellow student Mike.

My Wozza's Place blog has details on my new career path in Wuxi, China. Before I can embark on that I needed to be certificated in Aviation English teaching by Colin,
This meant a flight to Christchurch early on Monday morning to the headquarters of Airways NZ. I had no idea what a huge concern this is. TI noticed their organisational chart on the wall and it was vast; made Cognition Education look like a corner dairy in comparison.

Day one of the course and we are analysing air crash disasters! Gulp! Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of your beloved blogger knows what a nervous flyer I am. Yes - since 2003 I have flown all over the world but that's thanks to red wine, diazepan, and a carpe diem attitude.

The blogger and the trainer.

 So to say this was just a teensy weensy bit out of my comfort zone is like saying Usain Bolt can run a bit.

After a while I shrugged it off and started concentrating on learning as much as I could about aviation terms in three days. I slept well each night, believe me.

The fourth day was about putting my new knowledge into practice with some Japanese students from the Christchurch flight training school. A lovely bunch they were too. I took three sessions and managed to gain my certification.

Which means - next stop Wuxi!

I stumble into town just like a sacred cow (David Bowie)

I'm reading Joe Bennett's Where Underpants Come From at the moment. It's subtitled 'From checkout to cotton field - travels through the new China'.

I'm not really a fan of his work. He's usually trying too hard to be funny in a clever way, whereas a great travel writer (clearly he aspires to Bill Bryson status) is just funny in an effortless way and informative in a clever way.

In the absence of any other amusing travel writing on China though - he's it.

I'm six chapters in an so far he hasn't moved from Shanghai. Chapter 6 was solely concerned with trying to make a dinner experience with a Chinese couple witty.

He does make some interesting points though which elucidate my own thoughts and knowledge of China. We both know little to nothing about it, beyond that there are a phenomenal number of people in China (1.4 billion I think), it's the world's producer of just about everything we buy, and it's an ancient land - 3,000 years and counting (at least, I think).

So we have ignorance in common.

With that in mind I watched an interesting TED talks item which clued me into the new generation of Chinese and the new China better than Joe could manage (in 95 pages so far). It also answered a few of my questions about blogging in the new China. Enjoy!