I just wrote on Sinosplice about how living in China is incredibly exciting. It really is. I think it’s possible to dampen the excitement by tying onself down to one particular office/classroom job (and that’s something I think I definitely need to be wary of), but the excitement continues unabated for now.

The other day I got an e-mail from an editor at CCTV (China’s national TV station, based in Beijing). She was looking for a possible host for their program 快乐中国——学汉语 (translated as “Happy China”). She wanted me to call her back.

Now I am not really interested in doing entertainment in China. I don’t want to be anyone’s trained dog. I also know that my Chinese is nowhere near as good as their current (former?) host Daniel (大牛)‘s. Still, it seemed silly to not at least call her up and hear her out.

So I called her, and made sure she realized I was in Shanghai. Her first question was, “can you drop everything and move to Beijing to do this?” I told her well, no, I don’t think so. And the conversation was pretty much over. No big deal.

But then today I got a call from a lady in the ECNU foreign student office. She helped me with my application, and she’s a really nice motherly type. She’s the one trying to get me that scholarship (not sure if that’s ever going to happen, though). She told me that the Shanghai TV station was looking for a native speaker of English with good Chinese. Apparently there’s some kind of English teaching program, and they want someone who can speak Mandarin. Again, I’m a bit iffy about this kind of thing, but I agreed to at least talk to them.

Immediately after that phone call, I got an e-mail from some Mandarin training center in Shanghai. They have seen my website, and want me to be in an instructional video they are shooting.

A little later the guy from the Shanghai TV station called and set up a meeting tonight.

This is just one of the aspects of why I think China is so exciting.